Page 6 of Shifters Reckoning

Olivia took care of so much. I needed to make a point to thank her soon. At least she had been loyal since the beginning.

Instead of settling on my half of the bed, I climbed onto Logan’s, if only to feel closer to him. I pulled the duvet back. Logan wasn’t here, so I wrapped myself in the cover on the side of the bed that smelled of pine and smoked whiskey.

My shoulders drooped as I slipped between the buttery-soft sheets, wishing desperately for Logan to be by my side. I tucked the bedding around me. My head sank into the pillow. I’d probably regret not showering first. I don’t care.

The mattress felt almost warm, as though he’d been there recently, as though it was a promise he was coming back. I melted into the mattress, and the thick comforter enveloped me. How long had I been the multimorph? How long had I been leading all of the shifter clans? I couldn’t be sure I was who they needed, but I was what they had, and I was smack-dab back to believing I wasn’t enough.

Thunder rumbled again, through the house, through the surrounding forest of Louisiana, and I imagined the rain falling, dripping on the leaves outside. It’d been ages since I’d been camping at Site 52 in Magnolia State Park.

Dad, I wish you were still here.

Maybe he wouldn’t know what to do with the news of magic and people who could change into animals. Hell, he’d accused me of wanting to be an animal often enough as a kid. Still, he would have been able to help me sort out what I needed to do next.

As I pressed my head into the pillow, sobs returned. Heavy, hot tears slipped down my cheeks and into the fabric beneath my head. It was too much. It had always been too much. I was exhausted, and I still didn’t know how to process a fucking beheading.

The rustle of a noise at the threshold filtered through the room, and I lifted my head.

My mother, Sophia, eased into the room. “What happened, love? What’s wrong?” She approached the bed and stopped beside me.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. I sighed, my breath catching as I settled my head back onto the pillow.

“Maybe you need to talk about it,” she said, fussing with the covers around me, tucking them in and adjusting them the way she always had when I was a little girl frightened by a nightmare. “Tell me.”

“Mom, I can’t. I can’t talk about it. It’s too awful.”

“Did you do it?” she asked. “Was it something you did?”

“No, nothing I did. Not really. But I was still responsible.”

She shook her head and offered a soft smile. “I don’t think that’s true, sweetie.”

“You’ve seen what I am, Mom, but you don’t know half of what’s going on here, or what I did or didn’t do.” I sniffed back snot and sobs. “It’ll take days to unravel.”

She patted my leg. “You think I’ve done nothing while you’ve been gone? I know about Acheron and a great deal of shifter lore.”

I froze. She’d seen shifting with her own eyes. But Acheron? “They told you everything? Even about him?”

“Dr. Wise took me to a late lunch, and she explained a lot. Sheila helped.”

My frown stretched across my face as I tried to process my mother’s words. Sheila wasn’t a shifter, but she was Logan’s cousin.

“Sheila helped… what… exactly?”

“Explain it all.”

“So, you know everything now?”

“I know enough to know there’s a lot on your mind, the whole weight of this world we knew nothing about, and I know enough now to understand why I’ve been on the back burner for you.” She pressed her lips into a straight line. Finally, she added, “I’m not sure I fully grasp the majority of what’s going on, but Dr. Wise has agreed to teach me as much as she can while you’re off fighting Acheron and whatever else you’ve been up to with Logan.”

“Oh.”

Mom knew… and she didn’t hate me for any of it.

A weight slipped from my shoulders, and a knot loosened in the center of my chest. Fuck if that hadn’t been bothering me a helluva lot more than I’d realized. My vision blurred once more.

She bent over the bed and pressed her lips to my forehead. “You’re my baby girl, Emma, and you’ll always be my favorite kiddo on the planet. You’re the rainbow-headed piece of my heart, whether you have fur or feathers or claws or jagged teeth.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I murmured.