Page 19 of Shifters Unifying (Shifters Destiny: Willow Creek Shifters #2)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

emma

The sound of punches and grunts filled the warehouse as I stepped inside the refurbished tobacco drying building turned into shifter training gym. The ex-warehouse sat about one hundred yards behind Six-Mile headquarters where I’d left Logan only in body.

My mind remained wholly on Logan and the frustration streaming through our bond. The reinforced door clanged shut behind me, and my eyes didn’t immediately adjust to the change in light, so I stood, still panting. My hair clung to my sweaty neck.

If you don’t stop, I’ll… I thought, pushing the plea at him.

You’ll what? Come again? He replayed our quickie in his head.

Logan, I have to focus… Focus. Focus. Training. Dammit, Logan. I tried to summon something else to think about… Saving the world from cruel Acheron. That was something I had to do, right?

I’ll give you something focus on. His growling answer echoed in my head, a challenge and a promise. And you’re going to know every time I’m thinking about fucking you from here until we die.

My knees threatened to give out right there. Oh, god… Logan…

That’s right, baby. Scream my name while the earth shakes beneath us.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and opened them again, pleased they’d adjusted. John, Ahmie, and Evie, each holding a long bo staff and all barefoot, sparred while the others observed from the edge of the mats. The situation brought flashbacks of my first days as a newly discovered shifter.

Geeze. It felt like a lifetime ago. I hope the distance between Six-Mile and the squirrel territory gives me a little brain space.

Straight up until I knock on the door of your treehouse, sweet cheeks, and I won’t care if you’ve got a roommate, so you had better multimorph your way into a spot off in a tree by yourself. Have you ever had an orgasm in a tree?

My out of place laughter cut through the sound of fighting, and Jasper glanced up from his place at the edge of the workout mats. He nodded toward me but turned his attention back toward the training trio. Olivia stood beside him, and Levi, Benjamin, and Reuben stood on the other side of her.

Blaze and Izzie sat on the bleachers, one on either side of the bespectacled Dr. Eleanor Wise, a short, sixty-something human, the widow of a strong shifter, and the de facto, Logan-approved, historian for the shifter clans. Dr. Wise’s dark leather attaché case rested next to her.

All three were now engrossed in the fight in front of them.

Thwack! Thwack!

“Motherfucker,” John yelled. “Do you two have to hit so hard?”

“Try harder, and maybe we won’t be able to hit you,” one of twins barked back.

Thwack!

John dropped to his knees, his chest heaving. “I give up,” he panted. “Let somebody else get beat up. I’ve had enough.”

Blaze elbowed Izzie, and they both jumped up from the bleachers. “Can me and Izzie fight you two together?”

On the mat, the twins shared a long look.

Ahmie shrugged. “If you think it’ll help, we have no problem with it. Get your sticks from the weapons wall.”

“No need,” John said. He tossed his to Blaze, and Oliver gently handed his to Izzie, his gaze lingering on the young woman. Unless I missed my guess, Oliver had a crush on Izzie. The two new male shifters joined Jasper on the sidelines.

Ahmie, Evie, Izzie, and Blaze began a four-way dance, sticks arcing swiftly through the air. The younger two had lightning-quick reflexes, but the twin’s training soon showed its advantage.

Smack! Slap! One of the ends of Ahmie’s staff landed solidly on Blaze’s arm.

“Ow!” Blaze dropped her stick and grabbed her hand, tears already flooding her eyes. She sniffled. “That hurt.”

Izzie’s eyebrows knit in concern, and she rushed toward Blaze. “You okay?”

Ahmie lowered her staff and took a step toward the injured woman. “Can you shift? That’ll take care of the injury. It’s a method you can use to heal yourself.”

Izzie glanced over her shoulder and scowled at Ahmie. “She can’t do that.”

“Sure, she can.”

“She doesn’t know how to shift yet,” Izzie snapped. “She’s still trying to figure that part out.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Maybe I can heal you.” Ahmie reached for Blaze’s injured wrist, but Izzie spun around, lifted her staff, and brought it down on the back of Ahmie’s neck.

“You’re dead,” Izzie crowed.

Blaze raised her supposedly injured hand for a high five which Izzie delivered with a loud slap. “We win.”

“Hey,” Evie yelled and darted toward the two young women, her guard down. “That’s not—”

Blaze swiped her staff from the ground and shoved the end of it into Evie’s middle, just beneath the squirrel shifter’s ribcage and to the right.

“Oof,” Evie grunted with the impact.

“Liver shot!” Then Blaze twisted the weapon in a small ‘z’ shape. “I believe you are now dead.”

“Nicely done.” Evie stepped back with a smile of her own. “Just remember that shifters can morph and heal quickly.” She pressed her hand to her side. “Though, that move would be hard to come back from.”

“That’s how we beat some party asshole who wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Blaze replied with a shrug. “Though, we didn’t have sticks.”

Evie rubbed the spot beneath her ribcage. “Oh? What’d you use? Swords?”

“Umbrellas,” Blaze said. “It had thunder stormed that day, so he had a couple big ones, leaned against the wall near his door.”

Izzie giggled. “At the end, you know, where we shoved the end of the stick into your ribcage?” She paused long enough for Evie to nod.

“That’s when we opened one of the spring-loaded umbrellas, and it startled him so hard that he slipped in some rainwater we’d tracked in and fell backwards on his marble tile. ”

It was Blaze’s turn to laugh. “He landed flat onto his back, knocked the wind out of himself, and we strolled out of there like we owned the world.”

“Lucky break.” John shook his head. “That would only work once.”

“Once is all you need,” Levi snarked, his mouth twisted in a wide grin.

Jasper cackled from the sidelines and slapped Oliver on the back. “Yer two girls are something else.”

Even Olivia laughed.

After our shared mirth faded, I kicked off my shoes and clapped my hands. “Time to try shifting. Eight of us can shift.” I nodded toward Blaze. “Maybe it’s time to figure out what she can do.”

The young woman groaned. “You know I’m not any good at that.”

“Then it’s the perfect time to practice,” I countered. I had a suspicion that if it was, indeed, the influx of my primal shifter energy that had woken the latent cells in the four young shifters, my magic might be necessary to push Blaze into a full-blown shift.

“Gather round,” I said, using my best teacher-y voice. Nine shifters, five squirrels and four newbies, circled me. “Levi, Benjamin, Reuben, Evie, and Ahmie are all squirrel shifters,” I explained to the younger ones. “Oliver and John are…”

“Wolf shifters,” Oliver supplied.

“Izzie is a swamp rabbit, and we don’t yet know what Blaze is.”

“I believe I’ll wait by the door,” Dr. Wise said, shoving her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Easier to take notes.”

“I think I’ll wait by the door, too,” Olivia said, and Jasper agreed before joining her.

Abruptly, Dr. Wise crossed to my side and pressed her aging hand on my shoulder. “I’d like to speak with you when you’re free, Emma. I’ve discovered some important details about your abilities.”

I nodded. “Sure, once we all get to see what kind of shifter Blaze turns into.”

The blue-haired young woman snorted and stomped her foot as Dr. Wise left the mats. “What makes you think today is going to be different than any other day I’ve tried?”

Jasper winked at her from his place beside Olivia. “Why, she’s the multimorph, lass. All manner of unexpected shit happens with Emma around.”

“I’m not sure about all that,” I said, unwilling to take the time to explain. “But maybe I can help guide you.” And my magic is stronger than anyone in here.

“What the hell is a multimorph?” John asked.

“Ye’ll see,” Jasper answered.

Olivia’s face tightened, but she said nothing.

Dr. Wise stopped at the bleachers to grab her case, and the trio made their way to the walls near the exit. Dr. Wise retrieved her recording device and whispered into it, describing the date and what was happening in real time.

“Each of you draw on your morph magic, but don’t shift. Not yet.” I reached for Blaze’s hand and laced my fingers through hers. “When a shifter changes, it calls to the energy in the shifters nearby.”

“You think it’ll work?” Blaze whispered.

“Only one way to find out,” I answered. “Everyone hold hands.”

Levi started humming Kumbaya until John told him to shut up. Izzie grasped my other hand, and Oliver shyly took hers. The others linked between them until we formed a nine-shifter circle.

Within moments, each of the other seven had drawn on their shifter energies and filled the warehouse with wind. Images of squirrels, wolves, and a swamp rabbit danced in my head. Another form waited nearby. That one… That’s Blaze.

I drew my own rush of magic, and the amount of power surging through me quadrupled. A gasp hissed from my lips as the flurry filled me with a kind of euphoria.

Emma? What are you doing? Logan’s voice rumbled through my head.

Can you feel it?

Uh, yeah. You’re practically glowing in my head. He paused, and the bond twanged as he tested it. It’s so much power. Too much.

No, no, I’m sharing. It’s not all mine.

Emma…

But I ignored his warning as a renewed burst exploded through the warehouse, and colors fluoresced in my mind. Blaze’s hand fell away, and a wash of color swirled around her, lifting her hair as her body crunched and contorted.

When she stood once more, she had taken the form of a dappled gray Arabian mare, regal and proud. A blue dash of hair graced her forelock, and she tossed her head, whinnying in triumph.

“She’s a horse,” Izzie yelled over the whirlwind. “That’s so much better than a bunny!”

Emma… Logan warned again.

I placed my hand on Blaze’s withers, intending to congratulate her. “You did it! You—”

My voice died away as rainbow flames erupted out of me and over the circle of nine who surrounded me, and a fresh gush of energy filled me. It detonated out of my chest, sent bursts toward the warehouse walls, and shattered the link I’d forced on the others.

Without asking permission… Without knowing what I was doing…

Nine shifters dropped to the ground, holding their middles and writhing in pain. Blaze contorted and morphed back to her human self, naked and burned. Her skin bubbled, and she cried out.

“Shit!” Olivia sprinted toward the relic room at the rear of the warehouse.

Her fingerprints released the multi-locked door, and she reappeared a moment later, holding a healing relic from the relic room—a large, angular medallion.

She dropped to the ground beside Izzie and Blaze, the two who had been closest to me and both probably the most injured of them.

What have I done? I backed away from the carnage.

Emma, what happened? Logan asked.

All the multimorph abilities and not much training had made me a dangerous entity, barely able to control my magic, casting spells without understanding any of it. Holy fuck. I’d hurt them all.

“Emma, get over here,” Olivia barked. “You’re the best healer in here.”

“I can’t,” I wailed.

“You have to,” Olivia commanded, her voice harsh. “You don’t have a choice.”

Her tone shook me out of my shock, and I darted to where she crouched and summoned more energy, placing my hands on the medallion. The etched design luminesced.

Logan made whining noises in the back of my mind, but I pushed his questions away. Not now. I didn’t have time to explain.

Olivia deposited the object in the center of Izzie’s chest, and Logan’s beta jumped to her feet, re-linking the hands of all nine. Another gust of multimorph magic sent energy rolling through them like a wave.

I fought against the memory of Logan’s death and focused instead on the sensation of knitting shifter cells back together. Healing… Healing…

A shudder rolled through, one by one. Finally, when Reuben, the farthest away from me in the circle, stopped convulsing, I released the magic and fell back on my ass, dropping my head into my hands.

“What did I do?” My whisper didn’t sound like me. It sounded choked and raspy, as though I wasn’t me anymore. I have to get out of here.

I jumped to my feet and bolted toward the exit, determined to leave, to escape.

At the reinforced door, Dr. Wise stepped in front of me with her hands held up. “If you could, I must speak with you, Emma. I’ve discovered something about the multimorph which might shed some light on what just happened.”

I shook my head, trying to exorcise the images from Logan’s balefire death. What if the next time something happened to Logan was my fault? What if I couldn’t fix it? What if I hadn’t fixed this?

“Will it teach me how to keep from hurting those I care about? What if it’s Logan next time? What if something happens next time?” I groaned. “Drawing that much energy isn’t something I should do, is it? I shouldn’t use them like that.”

Her mouth pinched. “It’ll explain why you might have to.”