Page 39 of Shifters Reckoning

Bear Trees

After Midnight

Along corridor stretched in front of me, and a magnetic pull forced me down the hall, where I stopped at the threshold of a dark but empty, vast stone room with no visible ceiling overhead. It reminded me of another place I’d been…

Energy throbbed in the room, and goose bumps rose all over my skin. A cloud-shaped form consolidated in the farthest corner, vaguely taking the shape of a human.

How had I wound up here? Had Acheron kidnapped me? Had Torbin betrayed me? Was he the latest lousy use of my trust? Shit. Shit. Shit. I have to get away.

I took a step back and turned to leave, but the opening had vanished. Smoothing my fingers over the surface, I couldn’t locate the handle. The wall had turned slick.

I’m trapped!

Crap. How had I gotten into this fricking mess? It had to be Acheron. One shifter had to have helped him. My stomach clenched. A shiver worked down my spine, sending bits of ice out through my nervous system.

Emma. Emma. Emma. Please… A breathy plea reverberated in my thoughts.

A gasp escaped me, and I turned slowly to face whoever or whatever had been ensnared with me. “Who’s there? Do you need help?”

A weak whimper answered. The shattered sound echoed off the stone walls. An authentic voice this time. “Emma, help me.”

My heart squeezed in my chest. “Riley?”

“Help me,” she repeated.

Dark red eyes glared at me from an obscured corner, and I stared back from where the entrance had been. A weight settled in my chest. Inky shadows dripped down the walls, swirling round and round, working toward the center of the room.

No. Fuck this shit. I’m not allowing this.

White-hot fury shot through me, and I drew on my shifter magic. A gust of wind exploded in the chamber. I lifted my hands, and blades of rainbow light shot out of my fingers, lighting up the dark.

Riley stood in the corner with Acheron’s robed arms wrapped around her. Black flames blazed in his red eyes. “She’s mine,” he growled. “Mine.”

“No,” I screamed, and the blades of illuminated magic knit together, circled around Riley, and took hold of Acheron’s form. “She’s mine!”

He lunged for me…

A scream tangled in my throat, and a full-body jump launched me out of my nightmare. My hands gripped the quilt, my palms full of fabric instead of rainbow fire.

Near-complete darkness surrounded me inside the bedroom chamber of Torbin’s hollow. The old cypress creaked around me like a ship at anchor. My heart slammed against my ribs. The extra warding Torbin had placed around me hummed against my skin, steady and unbroken, exactly the way it had been when I’d gone to sleep. Delving was his talent, but every elder could craft a warding.

No stone room. No dripping shadows. No Riley.

Just a dream. Just a dream. Just a⁠—

Bullshit. I’d been in that stone room before or close enough to be its ugly cousin. Acheron’s bunker had smelled like that—blood, herbs, and decay. Somehow, my brain had furnished the nightmare straight out of my inventory of memories.

Riley wrapped in his arms. She’s mine.

My stomach rolled, and I sat up, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes until colors bloomed behind them. Ordinary, unmagical colors, mine, nobody else’s.

Through the bond, faint and far away, sensations flared.

Logan. He was awake, to the west, his hackles up.

Even through Torbin’s extra-heavy warding, my mate had responded to my nightmare, and every selfish cell in my body wanted to grab the line stretched between us and pull. Run. Be here by dawn.

I banked it instead by taking slow breaths until I loosened my fists.