Page 54 of Shifters Reckoning

“It slowly grew all month. Jace’s birds had it mapped. We had watch posts along the border, and we thought we had until the Cold Moon.” She coughed, and the black veins crawled, coiling and rolling like snakes. “Three days ago, it stopped creeping and started coming. Miles a night. The Void crossed the water at Whiskey Bay like it wasn’t there, and the Void isn’t empty, Multimorph. There are shapes moving inside the line. Hundreds. He’s not building an army down there anymore.” Her grip found my wrist, and her fingers tightened. “He’s marching one. They took the south post at moonrise yesterday. Dominic and Rosa sacrificed themselves and bought me the road out.”

She didn’t say what buying it had cost. She didn’t have to. Two more names for the casualty list. Shit. The death roll got heavier every time someone read it.

Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. Fern should have healed by now. More of my energy poured into her to no avail. Dark edges of her wounds gaped wider.

“Which way were they headed?” Logan bit out, low and even.

“Marching north.” Fern’s eyes went to the one blind man in the circle, and even half-dead, she was gentle with it. “Straight up the parishes, Alpha. Ville Platte sits first in the path.”

Marcus didn’t move. He simply stood there in the dim light with his ruined eyes pointed south toward his people.

Della appeared out of the crowd beside him like he’d conjured her.

The smell that came off my alleged uncle wasn’t fear. Shock, sorrow, and regret scented the air.

He was their alpha, and he wasn’t there. A clan was at risk, and he wasn’t with them. Instead, he was in Six-Mile avoiding Ville Platte. Every challenger, every enemy, and every friend he’d put off facing were all sitting in the path of a homicidal line moving miles a night.

“How fast?” Marcus asked.

“If it holds its pace?” Fern’s breath rattled in her chest. “A week. Maybe less. It might beat Thanksgiving.”

The sweet potatoes, the bracket on the wall, the tables we hadn’t set yet. Faster than anticipated was the phrase from every briefing, and it turned out that what it meant was he was coming to consume our holiday.

“Okay,” I said. “Now healing.”

I shoved one of my hands into the dirt and dumped every ounce of power I could spare into Fern, and more than I should have. A rainbow fire lit beneath me until it spread to her and back again.

“Emma,” Logan barked. Concern tripped through our bond, and I dragged another rush of energy from him. “That’s too much,” he said through his gritted teeth.

“No, I can save her,” I whimpered as the magic obscured our surroundings.

The earth vibrated, and the black veins retreated grudgingly, inch by fighting inch, until her wounds reduced slightly and her breathing upgraded to ragged. The encampment watched as their multimorph burned like a torch in the dark.

He is coming, and she will spend anything to save us. Let them spread that rumor!

Fern convulsed violently, and a scream split the air. Hers or mine, I couldn’t tell, but I was beating Acheron back bit by bit. Winning!

When it was finally done, I sat back on my heels, hollowed out and shaking. Flynn gathered Fern up as gently as if she were the one he’d been searching for, and carried her toward the infirmary. Giselda trotted alongside, already muttering spellwork to add her ability to mine.

Logan pulled me to my feet and held on, one hand at the back of my neck, his forehead to mine, and for three breaths, we stood in the middle of our fragile miracle and let the bond speak for us.

You shouldn’t have risked yourself like that.

I will always risk myself like that. For them… I am the⁠—

Multimorph, he finished. Then he lifted his head, and he resumed his alpha’s emotional aloofness before he turned to the others.

“Olivia. Jasper.” His voice cracked across the clearing. “I want a response team on the south road within the hour. Mixed unit. Wolves for the roads, foxes for the scouting, Levi for the trees. We verify Fern’s line. We mark the Void edge. We do not engage, and we’re back before the moon’s full. Phil holds the compound. Everyone else…” He swept the ring of firelit faces. “…training moves to war footing at first light. You wanted to know what you were drilling for. It’s coming up the parishes to meet you.”

The camp broke into motion around us. Frightened and functional clans mixed together in the dark. We’d spent two weeks making sure they knew how, and I turned to my mate in the middle of it with my stomach trying to claw its way up my esophagus to dump itself on the ground beside me.

“I’m going with you,” I demanded.

“No,” he said gently, pressing me closer. “You know why. He wants you, Emma. The dead zone moves because he’s done waiting for you to come to him. If I take you south, I hand him the war on the first night.” His thumb traced my jaw. “You hold the camp. You keep Marcus from running home alone in the dark, and you keep your mother from following him with a casserole, and if the line moves faster than Fern thinks it will, you get every soul in this compound behind the warding, and you hold.” You win, my love.

“Logan—”

“I know.”