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And Shannon and her kids…

And Sheila…

And even Callie…

And Logan. My big, moody, too-serious, muscly Logan.

Even now, my heart sighed alongside my brain. If I hadn’t been smitten before, I was now. Riley had been correct. I wanted Logan to be myMr. Fuck Me RightandMr. Right NowandMr. Always Right.

And I had to save him. I had to save all of them.

It didn’t matter which of them could or couldn’t shift. They were all connected to me. If the shifters died, it would ruin their lives in one way or another. Sheila, Callie, all of them needed me to find the strength to win.

I had to work out a way to beat Acheron before he killed us all.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

emma

Hours creeped by.

So many hours in the dark.

It had to have been hours of dragging my fingers over the surface of my invisible cage, fighting against the pain of a phantom fire as it burned over my skin. Each time any part of me came into contact with the smooth, slick walls, the pain came, punishing me for trying to escape.

I had no real way of knowing how long it had actually been. My phone was in the beat-up Jeep back at the Conclave, and I never wore a watch. There wasn’t even a window to show the change in sunlight. The air was dank and cool, so I was sure I’d been trapped underground somewhere.

Louisiana wasn’t a state of many caves, and it wasn’t likely Acheron had chosen to hide in Wolf Rock Cave. With the water table high in general, we didn’t even have thatmany buildings with basements… He must have built himself a hidden bunker. Madmen and dictators loved hidden bunkers to enact their plans to take over the world.

Suddenly, the torches along the walls flickered to life, and footsteps punctuated the silence of the room, echoing from one side to the other, and I closed my eyes to focus on the sounds, trying to tap into any animal senses I might still be able to access.

Damn.No use. No magic.

You’ll never touch magic again.

Hell, he was in my head again.

Yes, I will, sooner than you think.

Acheron stopped in front of my invisible cage, wearing Logan’s face once more. “I know you prefer this face.”

“And you hate that face,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow. “Then you’ve heard about me.”

“One thing or another,” I answered, unwilling to admit everything I knew about him… or everything I didn’t yet know. “I’ve heard you devour shifters and waste incredible people on your vileness.”

He chuckled. “I’m no different than Logan, willing to sacrifice whoever I need to sacrifice in order to get what I want.”

“No, that’s not Logan.”

My mate gave up what he wanted for the sake of the clans, for the chance of doing away with Acheron once and for all. If Logan weren’t that kind of man, he wouldhave carried me away to his bedroom to fuck my brains out when I’d asked him.

“It’s taken centuries to learn how to capture shifters, to work my way across the continents, and to find the descendent of the shifter who murdered my mother. Now, I’ve caught the multimorph at emergence, and the fruition of my plan is imminent.”

“Great monologue.” I might have been trembling from head to toe, but I still pretended to be unimpressed.

Acheron flourished his hands like some kind of magician on the stage, and I stifled the desire to roll my eyes and groan.This fucking guy…