Page 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

emma

Monday Midnight

J asper escorted me from my vehicle up a slight incline.

He had parked next to five others, and we were taking a footpath which led into the forest. After about one hundred paces, we entered a large clearing.

At least twenty mounds dotted the clearing.

His eyes twinkled in the intermittent moonlight, beneath lingering clouds slipping through the sky.

“Each one is a home,” he said. “We have dens like natural foxes. Our pack is called Red Tail.” He spoke with the pride of a man who loved who he was and what he’d come from.

“Do the dens flood when it rains?” How they kept their dens from flooding in Louisiana, I had no idea. Cemeteries in New Port Orleans had crypts and mausoleums so dead bodies didn’t float to surface level, and it had soon become a part of the culture .

“This is the highest location in our territory, so most dens were constructed here. Beyond that, it’s magic.” He winked. “We have those among us who understand the earth, and the ground listens to them. It’s a fox thing.”

“Like a talent?”

“Aye. Do ye know what yers is yet? Many shifters have them.”

I shrugged, not ready to discuss what I wasn’t certain should or could be shared.

He led me to the largest mound in the center and stopped beside an opening with steps into the earthen depths.

“The council’s waiting inside. I called an emergency meeting.

My brother confirmed, but he’s busy at the moment, and they’re all pretty pissed about having an unexpected summoning.

” He winked at me and gestured me ahead of him. “Good luck.”

On either side of the tunnel, antique oil lamps hung, like something they’d dug out of a mining camp, and I peered at the closest one—interested, but maybe also stalling to get my thoughts together.

He flicked the base of the lamp I studied.

“The council doesn’t like changing tradition, but oil lamps were dangerous.

After the last den fire, they switched to imitations, so these are solar, delivered via next day Prime on Amazon.

” He chuckled. “Don’t let the dens fool ye.

We like modern things too. Some of the older shifters prefer primitive dens, but most of the dens have been finished out like most modern homes. ”

“Oh.”

I continued down a dozen steps which ended in a large room.

A long table set at one end with six older shifters seated on the other side.

The table had been made of one long piece of tree, thick and rough-hewn, polished by the patina of time, supported by sawed-off trunks from trees that had to have been hundreds of years old.

It had probably been there for as long as the pack had been around.

After Six-Mile’s more human-like dwellings, earth-houses hadn’t been what I’d expected when Jasper brought me here.

The sour-faced council said nothing as I came to a stop in the middle of the room. They stared at me as though they were waiting for something incredible to happen.

Jasper took a seat on one of the logs to the side of the den.

“Why is your hair that way?” one of the older members asked, her mouth twisted in a look of disgust.

“My hair?” My hand tugged on the strands. “I didn’t have time to clean up before Jasper brought me here.”

“No, no, the colors. Is that a side effect of… of… what you say you are?”

My humorless laugh cut through the uncomfortable silence. “No, my hairdresser did that.”

“Ah, I see,” she said. Clearly, colorful hair wasn’t something she liked, and she shot Jasper a dark look when he snickered.

One of the older male members stood and gestured to me. “Make your case.”

I stepped forward, and my mind blanked. How could I convince these jerks to let me stay? No, not jerks. They were protecting their family, and I had to respect that.

Clearing my throat didn’t bring a rush of clarity, but I began anyway. “Honored council members, my name is Emma Carter, and I am the multimorph emerged.”

The cranky woman scoffed. “Can you shift now?”

“I’m still learning how to do that. It tends to work best when I’m attacked.”

“How old are you?”

“Old enough,” I said, unwilling to give an exact number. What did my age have to do with anything?

“Too old,” she said. “You want us to believe you are the multimorph? The strongest among us? You’re too old to have strong magic.”

“Age has nothing to do with it,” I said. “In these last few days, I’ve been a fox, a bear, and a mountain lion. If I could get some food and some sleep, I could probably show you tomorrow or the next day.”

She scoffed, and the old man glanced at her as though warning her to let me talk. “Oh, hush, Beauregard. If Flynn doesn’t like my comments, he can tell me himself, and I’ll wallop him behind his ears.”

Beauregard chuckled. “I believe you would.”

She turned her criticism to me. “Do you have any witnesses to your multimorph?”

Jasper stood and stepped forward with his hand raised. “I’ve witnessed it. That’s the only reason I brought her here. Isn’t the multimorph someone ye wanted to meet before ye died, Giselda? ”

Beauregard chuckled, each chuff like a rumbling drum.

Giselda’s mouth pinched as though she’d eaten something sour. “I don’t recall ever mentioning that desire to you.”

“Oh? I thought ye had. My mistake.” He ducked his head and stepped back to his seat but not before casting a smug glance my way.

Giselda straightened her clothes and muttered under her breath before pinning her gaze on me once more. She had even more fire snapping in her eyes this time.

Great. If Giselda had the final say, I wouldn’t be allowed to spend a second more in Red Tail than it took to boot me out.

If they didn’t also murder me for the hell of it, I would have to ask Jasper how it felt to be tossed out on his ass.

We could compare notes. Shifting might be the only way I could prove anything to any of them.

I glanced at Jasper. Maybe I could convince him to attack me, though I wasn’t sure any part of me would believe I was in actual, mortal danger with my new shifter BFF.

What move did that leave me?

Appeal to their egos.

And I decided to pull out all the manipulative stops. My life, and the lives of those I loved, depended on staying here and learning how to be the best damned shifter I could. My pride had no place in it.

I raised my arms the way I’d seen monologists do at Shakespeare in the Park.

“What would you do with the opportunity to be at the beginning of a pivotal moment in history?” I asked, my voice clear and strong.

“That’s the opportunity you have now. You can tell the clans that you were there when the multimorph emerged and that you trained her in your dens, taught her your magicks, and protected her as she matured enough to embrace her destiny. ”

Beauregard’s eyebrows climbed his forehead, but he rumbled in appreciation. “Now that is something we’ve never had.” He turned to Giselda. “Renown among the clans. You know we keep to ourselves.”

Giselda’s eyes glinted with something else now, coldly calculating. “You have a point, Rainbow.”

I nodded to her, offering a respect she didn’t deserve, serving only my ultimate goal. “I cannot shift now because I don’t know enough, but you could teach me.”

“I could, girl,” she murmured, drumming her fingers on the thick wooden table.

Before I could continue the ass-kissing and ego-stroking, footsteps sounded on the stairs.

Jasper hopped to his feet again and jogged toward me. “Flynn’s here. He’s my brother, and he’s the alpha of Red Tail,” he murmured.

“That’s how you get away with so much, isn’t it?”

He shrugged and showed his teeth. “Mayhap.”

A naked Flynn marched into the center of the den with his head held high.

His beard was decidedly brighter red than Jasper’s and had been adorned with tiny braids.

Flynn didn’t carry any trinkets in his facial hair, and unlike Jasper, Flynn didn’t have freckles.

He took a deep breath. “I demand recognition as the alpha. Whatever has been discussed will now be decided by me with commentary from the council. However, I will make the final decision.”

A familiar scent tickled my nose, and I peered into the stairwell. It was…

Oh, fucking hell.

Flynn gestured to the stairs, his voice booming. “The alpha of Six-Mile has come to broker a partnership between our two clans concerning the safety of the multimorph. He has offered all information.”

Logan. His name swirled through my brain like a sigh. He was naked again. No matter what he said, I would never get used to seeing him in the buff. His muscles bulged in his thighs and calves. Strength and confidence radiated from him, and I wanted to swoon. Fucking swoon. What was wrong with me?

I scowled at Logan. “I had this thing worked out,” I said. “Nearly had their permission to stay here.”

Logan glared at me and crossed his arms, accentuating the tightly restrained power coiled inside him. “You won’t stay here.”

“I will stay here. It’s safer than anywhere else I’ve already been.”

And you won’t be here!

“You will not,” he barked.

“No.”

“You will come back to Six-Mile, and you will live in my home.”

My home… His home… Maybe even his bed. The idea dried my throat and battered my resolve, and no matter ho w frustrating he was, I craved a chance to finish what we’d started in the parking lot of Vixen’s.

Could we warm ourselves by the fire between us and not raze both our worlds? No, I didn’t think there was any way.

The council observed the exchange as though they were spectators at a tennis match, and Giselda seemed particularly interested in my ability to serve a heaping of attitude back to Logan. Old fox probably liked the drama of it all.

I stepped toward Logan with my finger outstretched, ready to give him a piece of my mind.

Jasper was friendly, and Logan… Logan was troubled.

One minute, he looked like he wanted to drag me to bed, and the next, he looked like he wanted to flay me alive.

His feral moodiness couldn’t dictate my life.

Flynn cut in front of me, trotted over to Logan, and lowered his voice so much I had to use my shifter hearing to eavesdrop. “She has a point, you know,” he said. “They knew that we were meeting at Six-Mile, and we must assume that they know she was there too.”

“We have more warriors and more resources,” Logan began.

Flynn shook his head. “They knew when she was training in Willow Creek, and whoever they are, they sent an attack force to capture her. Until we figure out how they knew all these things, maybe she’d be safer here at Red Tail.”

Logan looked me over as though he wanted to devour me. The harshness around his mouth gave him a sullen look, and his fingers twitched as though he wanted to rake them through his hair. He did that each time I frustrated him to no end.

And it was as sexy as hell…

The image of his bare, muscular chest skittered through my brain and shattered any rational thought. Panting, moaning, growling my name in my ear as he lifted me up onto a bed…

Yeah, there was no way I could spend a substantial amount of time around Logan.

Not without fucking his brains out.