Page 52 of Shifters Reckoning

“You’re brooding,” Marcus commented, approaching from behind me. “I can hear it, and it’s rather loud.”

He’d taken to climbing the rise with me in the evenings, my blind, alleged uncle, one hand dragging along the fence line he’d memorized the second day. He said the camp sounded better from up here and that racket carried the truth better than staring at it ever did. I suspected he came because Ville Platte sat somewhere south of that horizon, and this was as close to facing it as he let himself get.

“I’m surveying,” I said.

“You’re counting them.” He tipped his face toward the noise of the camp, the sprawl of it, the sparring, the hammering, and a sweet-potato dispute entering its second hour. “I count them, too. It’s an alpha habit.” He gestured. “Go give your speech, niece. They’re gathered by now, and speeches curdle if you let them sit.”

“Any advice?”

“Shorter than you plan. Louder than you think. And if the raccoon alpha tries to read his menu aloud again, invoke your title.”

Before I could respond, my bond with Logan pinged from a location near the gym. Warmth flexed against me like a hand squeezing mine.

Logan knew I was stalling. Quit counting, love. Come down and lead them.

On my way, I pushed back. Save the argument about the sweet potatoes and marshmallows. I want to watch you sort it out.

I want to watch too. His suggestive growl echoed through my head, his desire rife in my mind. Images blipped through my head. But I don’t want to watch them…

A shiver worked through me as I made my way back down to the collected shifters. You better not do that shit while I’m giving my speech.

Might get us to bed faster.

Logan…

No promises, love.

Fuck my life.

Fuck you for life, you mean.

The assigned gathering place for tonight was the clearing between the gym and the new mess hall, and by the time I came down off the rise, it had filled with everyone.

The leaders stood loosely at the front of the group.

Logan waited with his arms crossed, his dark hair pushed back, observing me like I was the only thing in Louisiana that he wanted to devour.

You’re not wrong, love. Animal doctors are still my favorite thing to consume.

Logan… For fuck’s sake.

Olivia lingered at her alpha’s shoulder, holding her clipboard, Jasper at her side. His beard trinkets chimed faintly every time he leaned over to whisper something that made her jaw twitch with a suppressed smile.

Earlier that afternoon, Flynn had come across from Red Tail. His beard was growing back in, bare of jewelry, and when I’d hugged him hello, the biting scent of sorrow had drenched him. He’d spent the last two weeks quietly reopening his search for his mate, one cold-case clue at a time.

Torbin had arrived yesterday with six of his warriors and a washtub of honey. Otis, whose left paw no longer dropped, had already made the semifinals of the banner bracket.

Across the meeting area, the raccoon alpha clutched his menu. Giselda cackled at something. The vixen had left her death-den. Dying could wait until the war couldn’t kill anyone else.

Blaze and Izzie had wedged themselves into the front row. The blue of Blaze’s hair had turned as bright as a jay’s wing in the light of the setting sun.

My mom stood at the mess hall door in her apron, flour dusted to her elbows. She gave me the nod she used to give me before spelling bees.

Only Dr. Wise was missing. She and the archive managers in New Port Orleans were still circling each other, and her last message, relayed through my surprisingly calm mother, had included little information. Found the razor marks. Following the pages. Tell Emma to do nothing primal until I return.

Nothing about that was comforting.

I stepped up onto a flatbed trailer that Phil had set up to serve as a stage, and the camp noise dwindled as the collected shifters anticipated a monumental proclamation from the multimorph.