Page 1 of Shifters Reckoning

CHAPTER ONE

logan

Previously…

No Man’s Land

Midday

Aprimal scream shattered the silence, reverberating through the quiet and shaking the earth beneath my paws. My heart squeezed, and with a whine, I halted in the middle of the dirt road and turned around. That had to have been Marcus’s sister. Acheron had discovered her treachery.

Olivia shifted to her human form, her blonde hair moving in the wind. “That can’t be good.”

I shifted too. “We should go back.”

“Not happening,” John growled.

“We’re not giving up our head start,” Olivia added. “We have to get to Emma. There’s no way Acheron is going to let this go without some kind of retaliation.”

Phil shifted from wolf to human. His face was grim. “Wasn’t just me that heard it, then.”

Jasper appeared. “What’s going on?”

“She screamed. What’s he doing to her? To her son? Because of us,” I hissed.

Shit. I hated second-guessing myself. If we’d stayed, we could have figured out how to break through the warding. I’d left a child behind to be tortured and eventually die. Marcus’s nephew reminded me too much of my cousin’s daughter, Callie, and it was fucking with my mind.

Jasper circled me warily and leaned close, taking a deep sniff of my neck. “Ye don’t smell right, Logan. Do ye have murder on yer mind?”

“Can’t you take anything seriously, asshole?” A hard shove put space between us, and I decked him for good measure. “Get off me.”

His gaze narrowed as he rubbed his jaw. “Aye, but a seed of something has taken root in ye. Three parts desperate and one part reckless.”

He didn’t have to tell me it wasn’t a good mix.

Olivia moved cautiously to Jasper’s side and turned to study me. “What are you talking about, Jasper?”

“He’s talking about me leaving a kid and his mother behind to die. A kid and his mother. How could I leave them behind without even trying to break through the warding?”

There had been something familiar about the woman, something I couldn’t put my finger on, and the decision to leave them already haunted me.

“That’s not yer concern,” Jasper said, tugging hard on his reddish beard. “Not anymore. Best ye not let it turn into vengeance of a darker kind.”

I spat on the ground. “So what?”

An otherworldly shriek split the air, and concussive waves rolled toward us, rattling the trees and sending birds into the air.

Logan. Logan. Logan. Save me. Save me. Marcus’s sister whispered in my head with Acheron behind the voice, twisting everything, perverting it all. It felt like dying from a million paper cuts. Such a coward.

I raised my fists to the sky. “Why won’t you fucking fight me? Face to face!”

Within moments, clouds boiled over our heads, filling the previously bright blue sky. Lightning stabbed the earth, and a downdraft brought the scent of smoke already in the air.

My half-mad grin split my face. “He’s coming.”

“Logan!” Olivia yelled. “We can’t stick around.”

“Too late,” Jasper said.