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CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

emma

A fetid smell filtered into the barely conscious parts of my brain, and waking up already hurt.

It was like I’d been tied up and dragged for miles across the ground before passing out.

My eyes wouldn’t open, and I couldn’t remember what day it was or where I was, but the mattress underneath me was harder than it should’ve been, so maybe I wasn’t even in my bed at all.

Fuck alcohol. I’m never drinking again.

My hips ached as though I’d been stuck in the same position for hours, and my thoughts slowly dripped into the conscious part of me.

Still, my eyes wouldn’t peel open, and my stomach churned so badly I wanted to throw up.

Rolling set the room around me spinning and made everything hurt more.

Hell, now I wasn’t sure I even could roll back the other way again.

I hadn’t felt this messed up since I had crammed for finals and had been convinced I had flunked the exam I’d needed to ace. No… That had been years ago, and I hadn’t flunked that test at all.

A memory flooded my brain, of Logan, of bonding, of being unconscious and my waking up alone. With him in my head but without his body to make love to me.

Had I been so disappointed I’d gone out to get drunk? What day was it and where had I gone? What had I been thinking last night? Had I gone back to Vixen’s? Devoured too many Animal Doctors?

Fuck me. I had to get my eyes open. Why wouldn’t they open?

None of that made sense. I scrubbed my hand over my face and then smoothed it over the surface underneath me.

I wasn’t on a mattress at all. I’d passed out on a cold—probably concrete—floor.

A muted crackling nearby brought the vague memory of being burned, attacked, bound, and… and drugged?

Shit. I’ve been kidnapped.

I reached for my face again, placing my fingers close to my eyes to confirm my eyelids were open. I blinked once, twice, a third time, hoping to clear my vision. Fuck. My eyes had been open the whole time, and the room I was in was simply that dark.

I batted the empty air in front of me, the inky black wrapped around me like a shroud. Where the hell was I? If I could adjust on the bed, shift so…

Wait.

Shift… I’m a shifter; I’m the shifter. Dammit .

I reached for Logan’s corner of my mind but found no trace of him.

Logan. Where are you?

Now that he was gone, I realized how much I’d borrowed from his strength, his confidence, even his belief in me. If Logan trusted me, maybe I could trust me to save the shifters from Acheron’s threat.

Yet Logan wasn’t in my head anymore, and the scent of smoke now filled my nostrils without any change to the amount of light. For the first time since I’d woken up after the primal energy surge, I felt alone.

Completely and utterly alone.

I have to do something. Anything. It’s time for me to save myself.

Maybe I could morph into an animal and get rid of whatever was wrong with me. What could see well at night? Fox… A big cat. Maybe a cougar? I drew at my powers and tried to drag them into me, but there was no gust of wind and no rush of magic poured through me.

If I couldn’t shift and Logan wasn’t with me anymore, had Acheron stolen my powers? Was this what it was like after he consumed a shifter?

I refused to believe I would exist in a state of nothing, trapped in a dark place after Acheron consumed me. I’d rather be dead and buried than live in limbo.

What had happened to my mate?

Logan is dead.

The unwelcome thought slammed into me, knocking the breath from my body. No, he’s not. I would know.

How would you know ?

He’s my mate, so I would know.

But he’s not there.

My scowl scrunched my face. If Logan wasn’t there anymore, who was I arguing with?

Was this the first step of losing myself in madness?

Panic sliced through my chest, and I gasped when I ran my hands over my naked body.

Bare skin shouldn’t have been shocking for a shifter.

Nevertheless, a violent tremor made my teeth chatter.

Get it together. Get it together.

I couldn’t see, I couldn’t shift, and I’d been trapped in a concrete room… by Acheron. It was the only answer, and his name wounded me like a right hook to the stomach.

He had to be who I was arguing with in my head.

He was in my head…

I shuddered and leaned to the side for a wretched, watery vomit. It must have been hours since I’d eaten anything at all. I wiped the spit from the corners of my mouth and smeared the vomit moisture on my thigh. Fuck this shit.

If I’d been put into a box, there had to be a way out of the box.

And I’d find it.

“Hello?” My voice sounded raspy, pressed through the dryness in my throat. “Is anyone there?”

No one answered, and the darkness didn’t dissipate, so I sat up, my bare ass pressed into a hard, cold concrete floor.

At least I assumed I was sitting up. Gravity still pulled down, but without my vision to help orient me spatially, I couldn’t be sure, and the black space spun around me.

I reached out far enough my fingers grazed the edges of my container, sending the sensation of flames burning up my arms.

“Hello?” I coughed out, biting back another rush of puke.

“Ah, ha. There you are,” a creaky voice echoed out of the shadowy murk. “I wondered how long it would be before we could have a proper introduction.”

“Who are you?” I asked, already knowing but wanting to hear him say it anyway.

“Oh, we’ve met before,” he said, his voice almost familiar.

“We have? Then who are you?”

To my knowledge, I hadn’t met Acheron, so I wasn’t sure how it could be true.

He snapped his fingers, and about ten lanterns burst into flame around the walls of the cavernous space, partially illuminating the expansive concrete bunker I was in and a shadowed figure nearby.

A transparent box surrounded my spot on the hard floor, giving me a six-foot-by-six-foot square to exist in.

Since the walls burned me, I assumed it was a warded cage.

I couldn’t tell what was at the far end of the bunker, but a small bucket rested in a corner, and I shot the shadowed figure a dark look.

“You see? Here I am.”

The most gorgeous man I’d ever seen stepped into view. Dark hair fell over his forehead, and intense blue eyes stared warmly at me. Wide shoulders tapered to a trim waist, and the corner of his mouth pinched as though he knew the punchline to a joke I hadn’t heard yet.

Relief flooded me, and my shoulders drooped. Logan! Oh, thank god.

The words nearly escaped me as I climbed to my feet, wobbling, yet shadows danced behind the gaze I’d come to relish, and malice draped him like a cloak. I studied the edges of him, squinting as the truth became clear.

This person wasn’t Logan. At first glance, the shell around him resembled Logan, but this creature wasn’t safe. This… being … wasn’t my mate. This mage was a threat to my life, to all our lives. Ironic that he showed himself as the shifter he hated, but the one I already loved.

When the stranger blinked, I could almost make out a different man beneath the first, but he smiled sweetly. Clearly, he didn’t know I knew.

I sniffed at him and crossed my arms, straightening my shoulders to hide my desire to curl into a ball and avoid everything. “Why are you hiding behind someone else’s face?”

He raised on eyebrow. “Hiding? Whatever could you mean?”

“That’s not what you look like, is it?” It came out like an accusation, and my pulse pounded in my ears, fighting the urge to cower away.

But I’m not fragile or frail. “Why are you hiding who you are?” I repeated, stronger this time.

“What a miserable existence… You can’t be re al, can you?

You have to hide who you are in other people’s bodies. ”

“Perhaps you prefer this?” He waved his hand, and suddenly, almost-Marcus stood in the same place where almost-Logan had been. Almost-Olivia appeared, garbed in a suggestive, low-cut dress. “Or this?”

I winced at the sound of Olivia’s voice in the mouth of a stranger, but I lifted my chin and glared at the asshole outside my cage. “You’re not very good at that. Poor approximations.”

“Oh, I can get better. I’ve not delved your mind deeply enough to match your mental images of them, but I will.

” His hand slid through an invisible wall which surrounded me.

The border seemed similar to the warding which had been around the amphitheater.

“We just have to link. Come now. Lnk with me, love.”

Love? Revulsion rolled through me. I didn’t answer, willing my stomach to calm and my heartbeat to slow. It was like being lured into a windowless van by a known murderer. What kind of fool did he take me for?

His gaze bored into mine, pulling me into a trance, and long spindly fingers reached for me. The blackened fingertips nearly touched my upper arm.

But I slapped his hand away, and I spat. The droplets hit the warding, sliding down as if in slow motion. Neither of us broke eye contact.

“A staring contest? That’s the best you’ve got?” I sneered without blinking. “How juvenile. Is that what your witch of a mother taught you?”

“You’ll pay for that.” His lips parted to reveal pointed teeth in Almost-Olivia’s face, and I shuddered. “Are you cold… or afraid?”

It was creepy as hell, but weakness wasn’t an option for the multimorph.

“Neither,” I said. “It doesn’t make much difference whose form you try to hide behind. You’re disgusting enough to get a face full of upchuck. That’s all.”

“Hmm, I had expected this to be easier.” He paused and tipped his head to the side, Olivia’s long blond hair falling over his shoulder. “No matter.” He waved his hand and the walls around me slammed inward, crushing me until I couldn’t take a breath.

Fan-fricking-tastic.

Logan! Where are you? Find me.

I dropped to my knees, reaching for the place in my head where Logan should’ve been.

Acheron had shoved me into a magical cage of torture.

The vise didn’t loosen. Tighter and tighter, it squeezed until dark spots danced in my vision.

Boiling water surged over me, and it felt like my fingernails were being peeled back from their nail beds.

If I could have breathed, I would have screamed.

Tiny whimpering grunts worked their way out while he transformed back into Logan.

This time, hate filled his eyes. Despite all the pain, that look plastered onto fake-Logan’s face was the worst torture of all.

My brain knew it wasn’t him, but my heart threatened to break as my torturer wore the face of my mate.

His gaze narrowed for a long moment. Then he cackled gleefully, knowing he’d chosen the correct facade to exact the most damage. A moment later, the clamp fell away, and I sucked at the oxygen in the air, trying to get as big a lungful as I could.

“Fuck you,” I groaned.

“You’ll come around. They always do.” His laughter cut through the room as he marched out, and the torches in the room winked out, leaving me in the inky darkness.

Why hadn’t he consumed me like he had all the others? Why was I still alive? He’d managed to kidnap me and drag me here, wherever here was.

But this wasn’t about me.

It was about saving Olivia.

And Jasper…

And Riley…

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 my Mr. Fuck Me Right and Mr. Right Now and Mr. 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.