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I dragged the unconscious Olivia out of the clearing, scanning the surroundings for the others. None remained except her. Where had the other five gone? Gently, I patted Olivia’s cheek, delving to determine how injured she might be. “What happened?”

Her eyes fluttered. “He soaked them into himself. All of them. And he almost got me.” A sob broke through before she went limp once more. A moment later, she began whimpering as though she was reliving the attack in her dreams.

Phil loped into the campsite, panting.

“Anything?”

He shifted back to his human self. “Nothing.”

The answer was the same as each of the others returned.

Five more shifters had disappeared.

Myshifters,myclan members.

And he’d nearly consumed Olivia.

Even as we carried the unconscious Olivia away from the stench of evil magic, I made the decision to keep the information from Emma. Finally, Torbin returned, shaking the ground with his every step, and he knelt so we could place Olivia on his back.

Slowly, we made our way back to Six-Mile Manor. I sent the other wolves away before Torbin and I carried her to the same bed Emma had recovered in. As Olivia’s head sank into the pillow, she startled, sitting straight up with her eyes wide. She whimpered, and Torbin halted on the opposite side of the bed.

“Olivia, you’re safe,” I said, my voice made harsh with concern. I tried to push her back down onto the mattress, but she wouldn’t relax.

“Logan, he’s planning something big,” Olivia rasped, blindly groping at the air in front of her. “Beneath the Hunter’s Moon.” She gasped. “When we’re all together. I heard it in his mind. I heard his hate, and he means to consume every shifter in the world. Emma…” Then she crumpled against the mattress once more.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

We only had three weeks to find the spy and put the treachery to an end.

That meant we only had twenty-one days to make Emma as safe as possible.

Or she would only have a few hundred hours left in her life as the multimorph, and I would never be able to make good on my promise to bed her, to mate her, to show her what it meant to be fated.

I shared a long, silent look with Torbin. “It seems Acheron has learned how to consume shifters and add their magical strength to amplify his own.”

“An unpleasant turn of events,” he rumbled. “Most unpleasant.”

“He’ll have his sights set on Emma, and it’s up to us to stop him.”

Without another word, he lumbered down the staircase, collected his clothes from the front porch, and disappeared into the night.

We both knew what was at stake, and we knew we were already behind the eight ball. Everything had been set in motion, and the clock was ticking. Time was running out. Nevertheless…

No matter what came.

My life for hers.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

emma

Wednesday

By the time I woke up again, it felt like I’d passed out and been dead to the world for hours, and it took me a minute to figure out where I was as I took inventory of my aching body. My legs were tangled in the covers, and my head was crammed under the pillow. I groaned before knocking the pillow to the side and rolling onto my back.

Jasper must have been loitering near my door because he poked his head inside to ask, “Ye slept the sleep of the good-fecked, did ya?”

“Uhm, no. Logan turned me down.” I didn’t turn to look at him, choosing to stare at the curved beams in the earthen ceiling instead. A tightly woven net held the dirt and kept it from falling onto the furniture beneath it.