Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Apollo
“I know I speak for everyone here, I’m so very sorry you’ve had to go through that. But you’re safe now and we’ll help you find out who did this to your family. And after we do, you have a home here with us if you want it,” my baba says to the three of them.
“Thank you for that. We were worried there was a chance that you wouldn’t or couldn’t help us.”
“We need more information from all of you, but we can talk more about this later. Do you need to shift? We have areas that you can use.”
“That would be great, do you all shift and run around the property? Doesn’t anyone see you?”
“Yes, we use the campgrounds to run around and the campers do see us. But anyone that uses our campgrounds has to sign a disclaimer, and they know that there are wild animals around. They understand they shouldn’t bother them.”
“Are all the wild animals in the campgrounds shifters?”
“No, we have normal wild animals too.”
“What kind of shifters are you?”
Eros chuckles and Baba squints at him.
“What? They’re fated mates. That’s kind of important to know.” He shrugs and continues to snicker.
“Again, I have to apologize for my son. In fact, I have to do that often for all my sons.” Baba sighs.
“Whoa, I’m innocent,” I say as I pull out my second pita pocket.
“Where the fuck did that come from?” Ares arches his eyebrow at me.
“My pocket. You want some?”
“Fuck no. Look at it, it’s all squished and oozing.”
“And yet so delicious,” I say as I take a bite.
“Are you sure you want to be with him?” Ares looks at Seraphina.
She giggles. “Yes.”
“You should know that we don’t accept returns once you claim him,” Adonis says.
Seraphina looks up at me.
“I think I’ll keep him. Pocket sandwiches and all.”
“Good luck.”
I flip my brothers off and then smile at my girl.
I still can’t believe I found my mate. Shifters believe that a fated mate is the mate the gods chose for you.
But because it’s not an easy thing to find them, a lot of us end up choosing our mates.
My twin, Artemis, found her fated mate, Kostas Nikolaidis.
Ares and Sakura are chosen mates. We all hope for our fated mates.
But Ares and Sakura showed me that choosing your mate is no less than finding your fated one.
“Astéri mou,” I whisper to her.
“What does that mean?”
“‘My star.’ You’re my home. And we’re going to help you get revenge on everyone that took your family from you.”
Seraphina hugs me.
“There’s one good thing that’s come from this. You. And I know my parents would’ve loved you.”
I hug her tightly as I kiss her head. I hear my brothers laughing, I look over at them and squint.
“What the fuck is so funny?” I growl at them.
“Holy shit. I just realized something. I thought Sakura’s bearcat was small compared to Ares. But this is going to be awesome. Your mate is a snake.” Eros laughs.
Seraphina and her brothers give us a puzzled look.
“What is your animal?” she asks me.
“I’m a polar bear.”
Seraphina
Now Oliver and Archer are laughing too. Assholes.
“We need to shift now, I’m not missing your animals meeting each other,” Archer says as he’s laughing.
We follow the others to a cabin on the campgrounds. It’s a pretty big cabin with barn doors, I follow everyone inside. There’s a huge room with no furniture, and a few bedrooms. I wonder what the other cabins look like.
“This cabin was built for us. The barn doors were put in because in our animal forms, we can open and close them,” Apollo explains to us. “You can take one of the bedrooms if you want. We’re all used to shifting together, so we just shift in the living room.”
“I haven’t met a shifter that was shy about getting naked in front of other shifters.” Oliver laughs.
We all laugh and start to get undressed to shift.
I can’t stop watching Apollo. He’s sexy with clothes on, but without clothes?
Holy fuck. He looks at me and smiles, and suddenly I wish everyone was somewhere else.
Apollo is built like a swimmer. Broad shoulders and perfect torso, even his legs are perfect.
My snake is now saying she’d like to coil her way up his body.
I can’t say I disagree with her. She’s also excited to meet Apollo’s polar bear.
She’s wondering if he would mind her nibbling on him.
I told her I don’t think he’ll like that.
So now she’s pouting because she really wants to nibble on him.
Not bite him…just nibble. She’s also saying she wonders if our venom would have the same effect on polar bears and tigers.
I told her I don’t think it’s a good idea to find out.
Unless we talk to them first. Maybe they’ll let us experiment. I mean it doesn’t hurt that much…
Apollo
I watch Seraphina get ready to shift. And I have to keep reminding myself that having a hard-on in front of my family, and hers, isn’t a good idea.
But fuck me, she’s everything I could ever dream of.
She’s got curves in all the right places.
She’s not thin and I love that, I also love that she’s not hiding from me.
I want to go over and hold her, but I know if I do that, we’re not shifting anytime soon.
It takes all of us a few minutes to shift. I wait till everyone’s done shifting, my siblings and I can’t all be in the same room, as polar bears. We’re too big. I spend the time waiting focused on my girl and I continue to stare at her. She’s fucking gorgeous. I finally walk over to her.
“You’re perfect,” I say as lean down to kiss her.
I used to tease Ares and Artemis about how fast they fell for their mates. How they were crazy for being like that. Now I have to apologize to them…they’re never going to let me forget this.
Seraphina and I shift, my bear lays down and waits for her to climb onto him.
He’s wondering if she’s going to bite him.
The idea of getting bit by a snake isn’t one that sounds fun.
She finally climbs up and we head out to meet up with everyone.
Seraphina has coiled herself around my bear’s neck, her head resting on his head.
He’s not sure if he likes this or not. But he loves her, so he’s not going to grumble too much.
When we get to the pond everyone’s at, Seraphina gets off and goes into the water.
I follow her, I can see everyone keeping a close eye on the three snakes.
After I swim for a bit, I get out and lay on a rock. I can see Seraphina moving slowly in the water and she’s headed towards Adonis. He’s oblivious and keeps diving under the water. I’m pretty sure she’s going to bite him.
All of a sudden, Adonis bolts out of the water, roaring. He gets onto the shore and his bear is swiping at his back. He shifts back, and he’s holding his bare ass.
“One of them bit me! What the fuck! I’m gonna die!”
We’re all laughing, which sounds like a wheezing sound.
“Why are you assholes laughing? Go get help! Oh my god I feel dizzy…”
He falls down dramatically. If I thought one of them would bite him with their toxic venom, I’d worry.
But I really doubt that any of them would do that.
And I’m sure as fuck not going to shift out here.
All our clothes are back in the cabin. I don’t think he thought about that, he’s bare-ass naked and there’s people in the area.
There’s no way he can hide in order to get back to the cabin.
So he either has to walk back naked or shift again.
Either way, watching him act like he’s dying is hilarious.
I feel Seraphina gliding over me. She flicks her tongue at my nose and my bear licks her.
“DON’T LICK HER! She’s evil! I bet she’s the one who bit my ass!” Adonis yells at us.
Seraphina flicks her tongue at Adonis and it sounds like she’s laughing.
I’m not sure how a snake can laugh, but she does.
We hear voices coming closer, Adonis dives into the pond.
We’re all laughing at him again. The people come by and wave at him.
The rest of us are off to the side. Pretending we’re wild polar bears. Because that’s not weird at all.
The sun’s starting to set and we all decide to head back.
Earlier, Adonis decided to shift back and then he spent some time trying to eat the snakes.
Which made me laugh more because we don’t kill other animals.
But he was giving the snakes a good work out.
At one point, he had one in his mouth and whoever it was put their nose right up to his, and it freaked him out enough that he spit them out.
Today turned out to be one of the best days I’ve had in a long time. But now we need to find out what they know about the facility they were in. Then we can figure out what to do.