Page 98 of Shifters Reckoning

Six-Mile loomed in my chest before I saw it with my eyes.

My home and my mate. When we neared, the bond snapped back into place like a rubber band that had been stretched to the breaking point. Logan waited on the other end of it. The wall still rested between us. We weren’t far now, and I couldn’t wait to wrap my legs around Logan.

That’s right. Definitely going to start with my legs. We can hug afterward.

While I had driven us the last half of the way home in the Subaru, Dr. Wise had dozed in the passenger seat with her satchel clutched to her chest. She’d driven until the roads began again, and then she’d given up the wheel. Earlier, she paused long enough to hand me a picnic blanket from the trunk without comment.

“I budget for wardrobe attrition now,” she’d said. “Historians learn.”

“Thanks, Doc,” I said, and tucked it around myself as I took the driver’s seat.

Then Dr. Wise had climbed into the passenger seat for some shut-eye before she parked herself at her desk and set about transcribing her firsthand experiences with the multimorph. Jasper now snored in the back.

We reached the high fence perimeter at dawn. No doubt we’d been spotted as we made our way down the road, and our presence had been radioed in. A dozen shifters stood in a huddled group on the other side of the gate, next to the long drive. One of them shouted, and the activity in Six-Mile halted. It stopped completely.

Warriors paused training, crossed to the fence, and hooked their fingers through it, watching us roll in. Cooks carried pots across the porch of the mess hall, dropped them off, and made their way toward the gate. Others climbed down ladders and drew closer. Each gaze, every single eyeball trained on me.

Dr. Wise scowled. “What’s going on?”

“Fuck if I know,” I muttered. “It’s a little creepy.” Then I turned toward the back seat and slapped the lower portion of the fox’s leg. “Hey, Jasper. Wake up.”

He snorted and sat up. “What the hell, Emma?”

“Check it out. Something’s changed.”

“Changed?” he echoed, peering out the window.

“Indeed,” Dr. Wise agreed.

He turned to me. “Ye smell different. I told ye back at the cave.”

I frowned. “When you told me I’d changed?”

“Aye. That’s what I meant. Still ye, but different.”

“Ah. Well, I did not pick up on that, Jasper.”

He shrugged. “Apologies, lass.”

Whatever I’d become down in the cave, all the shifters seemed to sense it. As we eased to a stop in front of Six-Mile Manor, bears bowed. Cats dipped their chins. A whole line of northern wolves who’d wanted me detained for an imaginary infraction days ago dropped their eyes to the frost, and it wasn’t respect, or at least it wasn’t only respect. Awe with fear laced right through it, the two threads run so close I couldn’t pull one without the other.

Carefully, I climbed from the car. Dr. Wise slipped out next, and Jasper bounded out. He disappeared almost immediately.

A month ago, I’d have made a self-deprecating joke to break the intensity of it. Something about the irony of their prophesied savior not knowing a thing about shifter hierarchy.

I opened my mouth to try to crack the joke, but it died in my throat. My stomach dropped. This was going to be one of the costs nobody had bothered to razor out of a page because it was too small and too quiet to include in the details.

These shifters… What had happened to them while I was gone? What had they seen since I’d been gone? Had they felt the change they now smelled? Were they trying to make sense of it?

I’m still Emma! Don’t be afraid! I wanted to yell at them. God, Logan, where are you? I needed a friendly face, but I couldn’t bring down the wall. Not yet.

I’d gone into a cave and refused a crown. I’m the one who unites. Not your queen. I’m Emma, the rainbow vet from Willow Creek, adopted daughter of Sophia Carter.

I couldn’t announce that I was still myself. At least not until I found out what happened to them while I was gone. Instead, I lifted my chin, and I let them bow, and I filed every lowered head away. I marched into Six-Mile like a stranger. Tears welled in my eyes.

Then Sophia stepped into the mess hall doorway with flour to her elbows and her whole face coming apart in a smile, and I stopped being anybody’s multimorph and ran into my mom’s arms.

My mother caught me the way she’d caught me at seven, at seventeen, at twenty-seven. She threw her arms all the way around me and squeezed. She didn’t bow her head one single inch. She grabbed my face between her hands and studied me like she was checking me for fever.