Page 21 of Shifter Situations

It was tricky, but it was too easy to pick apart with the three-second pause in his security. I waited for the bolts to finish their strikes and slammed my fist into the orange barrier.

Metaphorically.

Physically, I didn’t move a muscle.

And neither did he.

His mental walls were too thick for him to feel my attack. It was like knocking out a section of bricks, but the rest were unbothered. The wall still stood, even with the hole. The electricity struck as if the spot wasn’t there.

Once inside, I realized that he was thinking about him and Briggs digging around in my room. I wasn’t mad about it. The memory was rather funny. Their paranoia at being caught made them jumpy.

“You are so nosy. I can’t believe you guys went through my bedroom just to look for toys.”

“I needed to know what I should buy,” he stated with no remorse.

“You could have asked.”

“Where’s the fun in that? It wouldn’t be a surprise then.

I raised a brow at him. “If you tell me I have to write a contract…”

Palmer scoffed. “I’m quite capable of writin’ one myself. Ye’ll just need ta look it over and sign.”

“I know you’re joking.”

“Am I?” He grinned, and my suspicions grew before he sighed. “Alright then, how’d ye do it?”

“Your wall is too thick to feel an attack. The pause in your security is too long. If you’re going to have the electricity circle your mind, then it needs to be continuous, and it needs to be sped up.”

I bounced my head left and right as I tried to work out the best way to protect him mentally.

“Make your wall more like the surface of a pond so that you can sense the ripples from even the smallest attack. The electricity bit is neat, but does it really shock? Because you could make it do that.”

He shrugged. “It does shock, but it’d have to touch ye to work.”

“Have it follow a presence into your mind, constantly shocking the infiltrator.”

“It’s not that easy, ye know? I can’t just knock them down and rebuild them like they’re a child’s building blocks.”

I smiled at him, knowing he could do it in under an hour. He didn’t give himself enough credit when it came to his magical abilities. Not what I’d seen of them, anyway.

Atlas had wandered out of the cabin during our conversation. I hadn’t paid him any attention, knowing he came out to nap on the porch in the patches of sunlight.

His soft snoring had turned into background noise, but when it halted suddenly, I heard him loud and clear. A low growl warned me just as the breeze shifted from north to northeast.

I called out quietly to Briggs as annoyance swarmed through me.

We’d been on pack property for mere hours, and already shifters were moving in. I didn’t give a fuck about the fighting, but I didn’t want to fight outside of the rules.

The door behind Palmer and me opened with a creak. I didn’t look away from the woods around us as I stood and tugged my mage up with me.

“Do you smell that?”

“No,” Palmer said at the same time that Novak murmured a soft, “Yes.”

“It smells like bears, but something's wrong,” Briggs rumbled.

I nodded, turning my head enough to see my mates and our surroundings. “Go inside.”