Page 13 of Shifters Unifying (Shifters Destiny: Willow Creek Shifters #2)

CHAPTER TWELVE

emma

“Fuck!”

“Shit!”

All four of them jumped and chucked a variety of four-letter words at me, but none of them made any move to attack. Good for them. At least they hadn’t taken leave of their newbie senses.

“Who the hell are you?” Blaze, the blue-haired one, shrieked.

“And what kind of proposition do you have?” John interjected. With a wag of his eyebrows, he turned to Oliver. “I could think of something she could do.”

“Shut up,” Oliver snapped.

“I’ve seen you somewhere before.” Izzie’s expression turned thoughtful. Suddenly, her eyes went wide, and she gasped. “Oh! You’re the rainbow vet. I follow you on your socials. What are you doing out in these woods?”

“Looking for shifters,” I said.

They all froze. No one spoke for long moments.

“Like you, I’m a shifter,” I added.

“No shit!” Izzie whistled. “Can you communicate with the animals, like some Dr. Doolittle shit?”

I chuckled and shook my head. The only animal it worked with was Logan, and that didn’t qualify as any “Dr. Doolittle shit.” So, I said, “No, it doesn’t quite work that way.”

“Too bad,” she murmured.

“What’s your proposition?” John asked.

“I live with the Six-Mile wolf shifters, and we can teach you how to use your powers. Each member of our kind needs at least a little training.”

“Bullshit,” Oliver snapped. “We figured out how to do it on our own. Why do we need any help from you?”

“Ollie, stop,” Blaze said, elbowing him. “I could probably use some help. I can’t even shift yet.”

John’s gaze narrowed, and he crossed his arms. “Then prove you’re one of us.”

I considered shifting into something large and impressive, but I didn’t want to shred my clothes and have to explain my lack of clothes when I got back to my mother’s house.

A fox or a squirrel probably wouldn’t shred my clothes, and it’d be enough to impress them.

They didn’t need to see the fancy stuff yet.

So, I summoned the change, and a burst of colorful wind blew through, more air and more color than they had been able to do. Gritting my teeth, I focused on changing into a fox and then I morphed into a squirrel before I turned back into my human form.

All four were nodding in appreciation.

Oliver asked, “Can you teach us that double-shift thing?”

The other chorused their agreement with the request.

I shook my head. “Oh, no, that’s not really—”

Their eyes jumped to something behind me, but before I could ask or turn around to find what had caught their attention, I had my answer.

A scream split the morning air, and I stiffened, bracing for all hell to break lose, and more than a little afraid that I recognized the horrified shriek.

But I didn’t want to see the effects of my secrets, so I didn’t turn around immediately.

Instead, I crouched to grab my clothes from the ground in front of me, wringing the fabric in my hands.

When I finally pivoted slowly, my mother stood there, watching me, with her mouth hanging open.

Maybe she and I didn’t share DNA, but we shared a heart, and mine broke because of what I’d done to her.

This was a helluva way to be introduced to shifting and her daughter as a shifter, and it was all my fault.

“Emma, what are you doing?” she shrieked. “You’re naked! Completely naked!” She swallowed and covered her eyes with her hand, as though that made me not naked and didn’t make the whole situation more awkward. “And in front of people… in public… Don’t you know they can arrest you for that?”

“Sooooomebody’s in trouble,” Izzie sing-songed.

Jasper gave me a sheepish smile and a shrug. “She didn’t want to wait in the house. Once she set her mind to it, I couldn’t stop her. Looks like yer secret cat’s out of the bag.”

My shoulders drooped. “Mom, this isn’t how I wanted you to find out.”

“Find out what, Emma?” Her hand lowered, and she glanced at me. Then she raised her hand once more. “That you like exhibitionism?”

The quartet of young shifters snickered.

“No, this is what I’ve been working on.” I shifted again, choosing the same small creatures I had for the teens, hoping they would frighten my mother least. As I changed, her hand lowered until it fell to her side.

When I morphed into a human again, I added, “I’ve learned a lot about myself these last few weeks. ”

“Emma, you… you…”

“I can turn into animals.”

“I don’t… I don’t…” Mom’s voice trailed away. “How many different animals?”

“A lot of them, maybe all of them. Bears, wolves, big cats, and several others.”

Mom scowled as she evaluated me.

“Mothers aren’t great with their kids turning into creatures who can rip their heads off,” John interjected. “Ask me how I know.”

“Ye hush yer juvenile face,” Jasper snapped. “Let’s leave these two to work things out, and I’ll take ye four for some lunch.” He turned to me. “We’ll be back in t'irty minutes, a little more or less.”

“He said ‘t'irty,’” Blaze said. She grinned up at Jasper and batted her eyes. “You can say ‘t'irty’ to me any day.”

Jasper tsked at her and led the group back down the path that had brought us here.

“Why don’t you get dressed so we can discuss your new development? I don’t think I fancy all my neighbors getting to see my daughter in the buff.”

After I put my clothes on, I led Mom back to her house. We didn’t speak, and the SUV had already disappeared from the driveway with Jasper and the others. The silence grew heavier and heavier, and I struggled to find something—anything—to say.

Without a word, Mom sank into her couch and stared at some faraway place. For long moments, it was as though I wasn’t even there, so I poured us both a glass of water.

“Here, Mom,” I said, offering her one of the glasses. “You okay?”

“Yes.” She took a small sip, then placed it on the table beside her. At least she was reacting to me. “Need a minute.”

So, I settled in Dad’s old recliner. My cell phone buzzed, and I dragged it from my pocket.

Jasper had sent a selfie with the young shifters at a diner I didn’t recognize.

Then I checked my email and considered checking my social media.

However, the number of notifications to wade through would be astronomical by now.

My life as a Rainbow Vet on social media had been a big part of my marketing plan when I opened my Willow Creek Veterinary practice, but I hadn’t posted in weeks.

I startled when Mom finally started speaking.

“We knew there was something different about you, Emma. Even as a baby. Maybe we didn’t know it was… was… this. But we knew you were special, and you were ours.” She turned to study me. “How did this happen to you?”

“It’s in my genes, Mom. Either I have one shifter parent, or I have two. Not really sure which it is. Do you know anything about my birth parents?”

“Somebody local, but that’s all I know. I think the caseworkers missed redacting it or thought it didn’t matter.

Not that it would have. We were so happy to have you, that’s all we cared about.

We didn’t care where you came from. It was a closed adoption, and we were never contacted after the adoption finalized.

But I saw Baby Girl Steele on some of your information. ”

I blinked. “What did you say?”

“Baby Girl Steele. That’s all I ever saw on the paperwork.”

“Are you kidding me? Baby girl Steele,” I repeated.

Marcus told Logan that he knew who my birth parents were.

Of all the shifters I could be related to…

This was bad. Oh, wait. That wasn’t true.

I brightened. It could have been much worse.

I could have been related to Logan. Marcus complicated things, but it wasn’t as perverted as it could have been.

“Is that important?”

“I bumped into someone else with that last name recently. That’s all,” I said. I didn’t think my mom could handle the idea of me meeting my birthparents while I was off on my shifter adventure.

“So… do you shift often?” she asked.

“Whenever I want to.”

“How often do you want to?”

I grinned. “Pretty often. It’s kinda amazing.”

“Is it hard?”

“It was hard at first, but it’s getting easier every time.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So, this is what you’ve been doing since you’ve been gone? Learning how to do all this?”

“That’s right.”

“Does Logan know about it?”

“He does, Mom…” I paused to brace myself for her reaction. “But that’s because he’s a shifter, too. It’s something we have in common.”

She gasped. “Are my grandchildren going to be animals?”

My boisterous laughter made her jump. “Would that be so bad?”

“I mean… uh… Can I put in a request for human grandbabies, Emma?”

“Nobody learns how to shift until after puberty, so any babies are always just babies, Mom.”

She visibly relaxed. “That’s a relief.”

My phone buzzed again.

Jasper: On our way.

I climbed to my feet. “They’re on their way back from lunch, so I think we’re going to take those four newbie shifters back to Logan’s place. They’ll at least get some training about how to use their new abilities.”

Mom stood up, wringing her hands. “I wish you didn’t have to go,” she whispered. “I miss you, and I want to know about all of this newness…” She gestured toward me. “With you.”

I crossed the room and wrapped my arms around her. “I miss you, too, Mom, but I just need to take care of this right now. It’ll be okay.”

It was the most I was willing to tell her. I wasn’t ready to drop the Acheron bomb on her—not unless it became absolutely necessary.

“I’ll bring Logan into town to meet you as soon as I can,” I said.

She took a step back and patted my cheek. “That sounds great. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

We made it outside as Jasper and the others pulled into the driveway with their music turned way up.

As Jasper pulled to a stop, he rolled down the window and waved. “You ready?”

“As soon as we can go,” I called. I hated we were leaving my mom so soon after she’d learned my secret, but I didn’t have a choice.

John and Izzie climbed out of the rear of the SUV, under the guise of sharing a cigarette. Between the recent proposition and my screaming mother, they probably didn’t want to miss a word our conversation.

Jasper hopped out and offered his hand to my mother. “It was a pleasant day to meet ye, Ms. Sophia. Ceviche wasn’t something I knew I favored, so I thank ye.”

She pulled him into a hug. “You take care of my daughter, now, and tell Logan I tell him the same.”

“Aye, he’ll appreciate that, ma’am.”

I gasped as a sensation struck the fated mate bond in my head like a bolt of lightning in the middle of my brain, and a rumble of thunder rolled through Willow Creek. What the hell was… Logan! It had to be. Something was happening to Logan.

“Oh, god,” I rasped, spinning to face Jasper while fighting the overwhelming rush of sensations in my head. “Did you feel that?”

“The tingle in the air?” he asked.

Mom’s eyebrows knit together. “What is it?”

“It’s… It’s…” My explanation trailed away, falling flat. Flashed of Logan’s dead body burst through my mind, and I shuddered. What was he doing? I was too far away to bring him back to life from here. Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Shifter business?” she ventured.

“Yes, that’s it exactly,” I answered. Then I shared a look with Jasper. “We’ve got to get back to Six-Mile right now. Something’s going on with Logan, and it’s got to be Acheron.”

“Good or bad?”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell,” I panted. “It’s just in my head, like it’s happening right now, and it’s not fading.” Primal power tickled the edges of my mind, and my hands twitched.

My geography-loving Mom scowled. “Acheron? Isn’t that a river in Greece? Rumored to be the entrance to the underworld.”

I gave her a tight smile. “It’s somebody named after the river, yes. He’s a mutual acquaintance of ours.”

Jasper gestured to John and Izzie. “What about these young things? They’d like to take ye up on yer offer to come back to Six-Mile, if ye’ll still have ‘em.”

I waved at the vehicle. “Then get them back inside. We have to get back to the manor.” I jogged back to Mom, hugged her once more, and then rounded on the passenger door of the SUV. “Bye, Mom. See you soon!”

“Ye heard the lady,” he barked. “Get in the car, and don’t make no arguments, or I’ll bend every last one of ye over my knee and use Ms. Sophia’s wooden spoon on ye.”