Page 15 of Shifters Unifying (Shifters Destiny: Willow Creek Shifters #2)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

emma

Six-Mile Manor

The SUV tires spat gravel as we came to an abrupt stop in the driveway, and one of the shifters in the back cried out as she slammed into the back of the seat in front of her

“Geeze a little warning next time,” she said.

“I told ye to buckle up,” Jasper called. “We’re here.”

The four newbs had grown quiet as we rolled down the long driveway, and they now stared up at Alpha manor and the headquarters of Six-Mile.

“Didn’t know it’d be a mansion,” Blaze said. “We might have agreed to your proposition sooner, Emma.”

“Or said no and stuck to it,” John countered. He smoothed his hands over his thighs. “Not sure I’d be comfortable in there.”

Instead of commenting, I tested the bond I shared with Logan, attempting to determine if he was inside or not.

He didn’t feel close enough. That meant he’d probably been at Acheron’s hidden based when whatever happened to him had happened.

That knowledge didn’t help the boulder of worry in the center of my chest. Damn.

“Don’t ye worry,” Jasper said to the others.

“Ye won’t be staying in the Alpha manor.

I’ll find ye some supplies and a place to bunk up.

We have a surprising number of visitors, and we’re hospitable.

Let’s check the commissary. I happen to know the lady who makes the supply runs, so it’ll have clothes and toiletries. ”

They all climbed out and slammed the doors behind them.

I shook my head. Six-Mile always had some new surprise detail I didn’t know about. I had no idea about the commissary, but as the headquarters for Logan’s pack, it made sense they’d have a place to get necessary items without driving all the way into Willow Creek.

Turning to Jasper, I asked, “Can you get them set up with someone for some beginner lessons maybe in the Training Room? I know Olivia’s probably still with Logan, but there’s got to be someone who can help.”

Jasper’s expression turned sober. “Rachel would have been good at that.”

Tears flooded my eyes. When I blinked, several droplets escaped.

Jasper studied me. “You okay?”

“Don’t ask me that,” I snapped. “Never ask me that.”

“Emma…”

“No, I can’t do this. I’ve been shoved into the middle of a life I wasn’t ready for with everyone depending on me to save them. There’s no time for a honeymoon period, an adjustment period, or anything else.” I bit my bottom lip before pushing the grief aside. “So, don’t ever ask me if I’m okay.”

“Aye,” he said.

I didn’t have to know Rachel well to appreciate the collective wound that the murder of any shifter left on the pack. Before he’d gone all-in on Olivia, Jasper had an on/off relationship with Rachel. Even if it’d only been to make Olivia jealous.

Nobody had said it aloud yet, but she’d gone missing, and she was believed to have succumbed to Acheron. She’d practically said as much before she disappeared.

None of that mattered.

If I dwelled too long, the gravity of everything threatened to knock me flat and becoming overwhelmed and useless wasn’t an option. Not for me. Not ever.

So, I continued. “While we’re at it, we might set them up with Shifter Lore: 101 with Dr. Wise. I don’t think any of them know anything, and it’d be nice to get them up to speed as quickly as possible.”

“Ye got it,” he said and stepped out of the car. “I’ll reach out to the good doctor.”

After wiping the moisture from my cheeks, I followed.

Jasper led the group to the old, converted warehouse behind the manor.

A grim-faced, naked Phil appeared from around the corner, walking quickly and carrying a smoldering stick which trailed smoke behind him.

I stepped into his path and placed my hand on his arm. “Where’s Logan?”

“He called a meeting at the Gathering Place.”

The news felt like a gut punch. “He what?”

“Called a meeting at the new Gathering Place.”

“Why?”

“When we were at the recently visible campsite, he discovered something about Acheron. I’m not sure what it was, but we were attacked by these creepy shadows.

They rose up out of the ground and went after Logan, then he did some crazy magic shit.

” He paused to run the back of his neck with his free hand.

Slowly, his hand lowered, and he peered at me.

“Something like you’ve done before. He beat them, but I don’t know how. ”

That must have been what I’d felt through the bond. Could Logan tap into primal energy, too? If he could, we might be able to use that to finally turn the tables on jerkface Acheron.

“Can you take me there?” I asked.

Phil glanced toward the warehouse, as though weighing his options.

“What is it?”

“The shadow mages killed Theo, and we must release his magic back into the universe.”

Dammit. Another death. Because of me. How many more would die?

“May I attend?” I asked, softly. “I may be the multimorph, but we can head to the Gathering Place after we’ve laid your friend to rest.”

His eyes widened, probably surprised I was willing to wait to honor the dead. “It won’t take long. Minutes, usually.”

“I’ll be here for as long as it takes,” I murmured. “Should I change into something else?”

He shook his head. “All who attend remain unclothed to share their sorrow without hiding. They wear nothing but the honesty of their grief.” At my puzzled expression, he added, “Clothes are synonymous with hiding ourselves. In times past, shifters never wore clothes, except to hide among regular humans. Now the Death Rite is the only time we purposely clothe a shifter.”

I undressed quickly, tossing my clothes aside, not caring if I retrieved them or not. Then Phil continued the way he’d been going before I had stopped him, but slower this time, and I followed beside him.

“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about the Death Rite. What do I need to know?”

“Not much. The Death Rite is pretty simple. The deceased’s closest family attends, and we wrap the body in a shroud which represents all colors and comes from a relic inside the warehouse.”

“A relic?”

“The relic is a long cylinder, made of stone. When we take material from it, it creates more, sometimes quickly, sometimes not, as though the object itself knows when another death may occur. No one knows why. We don’t even know what the relic is called anymore.

That knowledge has been lost for centuries.

” He paused to clear his throat. “These days, most shifters don’t want to be cremated in the traditional Death Rite, choosing to be slowly returned to the earth instead, but this is what Theo wanted. ”

“I’m glad you’re able to give him what he wanted,” I murmured.

We stopped behind the large building where Jasper was probably beating up on the shifters we’d brought with us.

In a small, ashen clearing, a pile of wood had been collected on a blackened spot made barren by repeated charring.

A body, wrapped in shimmering white silks, rested in a shallow depression in the center.

Theo’s remains.

A disheveled woman and two small children, a girl near Callie’s age, and a boy who looked to be two years older, waited beside the funerary pyre. Tears rolled down the woman’s face, and the girl sobbed quietly. The stiff-faced boy made no sound, and he stood with clenched hands by his side.

Phil leaned close to the woman and offered the smoldering stick to her. She glanced at me, took one step back, and shook her head.

“It should be her,” she whispered. “It’s what Theo would have wanted.”

Phil turned to me and extended the firebrand. As I took it, my heart squeezed, and I wanted to flee from the weight of it all. Gently, softly, he whispered, “Press the ember to the end of the fabric, and the shroud will do the rest.”

Fighting another rush of tears, I crouched beside Theo, wishing I had something to say, anything… But I didn’t know this man, this shifter who had died for me, and no words of comfort coalesced in my brain. Not that it mattered. Nothing I would or could say would make any of this right.

Instead, I pressed the bright red end of the branch to the loose end of the burial cloth.

Rainbow flames danced over the wrapped form, sending cinders and bursts of multi-colored smoke into the sky.

A gentle breeze flowed from the forest and caressed each of us, breathing intensity into the increasing fire.

The woman lifted her face to the growing wind and closed her eyes as though relishing the movement of the air over her skin. “Be free, my love.”

Phil took the stick from me and laid it tenderly on Theo’s chest. Then he grasped my elbow and helped me to my feet. Together, we all stepped back, observing without speaking.

Within minutes, the supernatural blaze had consumed the body and the pyre, leaving only ash and the burned space behind. A puff of wind stirred the ash until it disappeared from the charred earth, and the air stilled.

The little girl sniffled, and the stoic boy looked on without expression.

Abruptly, Theo’s widow turned to me and approached, and I squelched the desire to hurry away. When she stopped in front of me, she took my hand in hers. “Theo would have been pleased to have the multimorph release his essence back into the universe,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

“He was an incredible man,” I rasped, saying the only thing I could. He must have been incredible to have a family and be willing to sacrifice himself for others.

Then she gathered her two children, and they strode away with squared shoulders and lifted chins.

“Is it always like that?” I asked as they disappeared into one of the far cabins.

“It is,” Phil answered.

“Should we do anything else?”

He shook his head. “There’s nothing else to be done for Theo.”

“What about his widow and children?”

“They’ll be cared for. We always take care of our own.” He glanced at me. “As I’m sure you’re learning.”

“I am learning,” I said. “Thank you for allowing me to come.”

“It was an honor to attend a Death Rite with the multimorph.” Phil grinned, his mirth a stark contrast to the heaviness of the shared moment before. “Ready to head to the Gathering Place?”

“I’m ready if you are.” I turned to him. “Oh, how did Logan get a meeting called so quickly?”

Phil froze, but he only hesitated a moment. “He made Olivia tell everyone you called the meeting.”

We eased to a stop in front of the Gathering Place, and Phil cut the engine. With a groan, I climbed from the back of the four-wheeler we’d ridden from Six-Mile and reached for my toes. That’d be the last time I rode bitch on an ATV. Especially bare-assed naked bitch.

Without waiting for Phil, I marched toward the entrance, flush with the reality of what this meeting was and how Logan had lied to get it done.

The magic of the warding slid over my skin, and I shivered as I stepped inside.

Construction had continued since the last time we’d been to the Gathering Place, and it had taken on a more finished feel.

Shifters of all kinds filled the tiered seating and lingered in the aisles.

A tense silence filled the space, as though a civil war might break out at any moment.

Logan stood on the grass-covered, raised platform in the center of the arena at the bottom with Torbin seated at the council table behind him. Marcus, the big cat alpha of the Ville Platte pride, stood in front of Logan, and my foolish mate looked pissed.

I stopped at the top of the cavea, at the first of the stairs which led down to platform at the bottom. “What the hell did you do, Logan?”