Page 48 of Shifters Reckoning
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny, niece.”
Ipacked what little I had by lamplight while the hollow creaked its old wooden lullaby around me. When there was nothing left to fold, I sat on the edge of the bed with Logan’s note in one hand and Torbin’s doily in the other, like a woman weighing her whole ridiculous life. After taking a deep breath, I leaned back on the mattress.
Tomorrow, I’d run home. Tonight, the nightmares could take a number.
“Can you release the warding, Torbin?”
“Not for long, Multimorph,” he rumbled from the front of his den.
“Understood.”
Once the warding had been lowered, I reached through the bond, past the miles and the warded trees, and found Logan, seeming like he’d had his mind on our link for hours.
Heard you lit up the sky down there, he pushed through, and even his thoughts sounded smug. Rainbow sky or something remarkable.
Heard your compound is a middle school.
It’s worse. Today, two raccoons unionized. His warmth wrapped around me, and the hollow felt less empty. Come home, Emma.
Tomorrow. At dawn. I closed my eyes. Logan… Jace found where he’s been. It’s bad.
I know. The smugness dropped away, exposing the iron of Logan’s determination. Whatever he’s building down there, we’ll be ready. All of us. Your crazy-assed plan is working… foxes bunking with bears, cats drilling with wolves. None of us thought it would work, but you did that.
We did that.
We are everything, he agreed. His grin came back. Now hurry up and race me.
You can’t race me. You’re already home.
Then I guess I win. Desire, rough and soft, moved through the bond, the feeling too big for either of us to say plainly across the miles. Fair warning, Multimorph, I intend to be a terrible loser about tomorrow either way, and I will demand soothing.
Until tomorrow, then.
“You can return the warding to its place, Torbin.”
“Yes, Multimorph,” he rumbled.
The sensation of Logan in my head winked out, but I fell asleep smiling, his note tucked under my pillow like I was a lovesick teenager, and thankfully, no one screamed in my dreams.
Morning dawned chilly with a clean blue sky. I gathered my bags with the efficiency of a shifter who might get to fuck her fated mate before sunset.
Naked, I stood in front of Torbin’s den mound with a Willow Creek girl’s lingering blush and tossed my bag into the four-wheeler’s trailer next to my other bags and one carefully wrapped doily. Drawing on my magic, I let the energy take me down into a cheetah form while the bears of Bear Trees gathered in the silver light to see us off.
Torbin bowed his great white head. “Until Six-Mile, Multimorph.”
Then we ran west—a cheetah, a squirrel streaking branch to branch above, a blind cat moving through the woods after me, and Phil’s engine growling along the trail behind. The cold burned my lungs, and home pulled at the center of my chest like a second heartbeat.
Behind us, winter sharpened its teeth over Louisiana.
To the south, in a forest gone gray and silent, so did Acheron.
CHAPTER TWELVE
logan
Six-Mile Manor
