Page 22 of Shifters Unifying (Shifters Destiny: Willow Creek Shifters #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY

emma

Somewhere

North of Six-Mile

Running doesn’t solve anything…

So, they say.

But the last hour of it felt damned good. The bright moon rose over the horizon, and lunar shadows spread over the ground like the shadowy fingers of Acheron reaching into every part of my existence.

Insects and frogs chorused in the undergrowth and the trees. Being this far from any population hubs meant that the stars already winked down clearly. It’d been a lifetime since I’d gone camping, gotten attacked by a mountain lion, and had my first shift.

I slowed from a gallop to a lope as I came to the edge of a dirt road, each direction looking as abandoned as the last. Tall grass grew down the center, and I settled back on my haunches to scent the air and rest my paws.

This had to be the one Olivia had mentioned, and I stopped at the edge to think. She had said to follow it north. So… if I was pointing north, that meant west would be to the left. Because West/East always spelled WE.

I doubted my first-grade teacher would have believed that was the thing I recalled most often from her class.

Directions weren’t always easy for me, and that handy little tidbit had gotten me through more than a few lost moments.

According to Olivia, west would lead me to a stocked cabin, and that was the direction I went, choosing the slower pace of a trot.

Fuck my life. I missed the simplicity of existing in Willow Creek.

I needed a breather and running for the sake of running as a cheetah made me feel alive and carefree, at least for now.

My adoptive father had always taught me to seek the peace of the woods when the everyday got to be too much.

It’d been our habit through my teenage years, and I kept on even after he’d passed.

So maybe this lonely excursion was less about my throwing a whining tantrum, maybe it was more about organizing my thoughts.

In the last few months, I’d turned into a shifter, found a fated mate, fought blood-soaked mages, saw a bunch of shifters die, abandoned my thriving business, ignored my adoptive mom, watched my mate die, healed him, claimed leadership of the clans, attended a heart-breaking funeral, and caused nine shifters to drop to the ground, writhing in pain and clutching their blistered skin… after I had done it to them.

And I was supposed to take it all in stride, to pretend like none of it impacted me.

Or maybe I was supposed to pretend I didn’t need some time to process some of the craziest shit I’d ever witnessed. Either way, I needed a day or two to myself to lick my wounds without an audience and prepare for whatever came next.

Another rise brought me to an intersection with another washed-out dirt road. It stretched to the left and to the right, looking equally abandoned both directions, and I took the northern route. The cabin couldn’t be much farther now.

The snap of a twig behind me brought me up short, and I stopped in the center of the road, my ears swiveling back and forth. The underbrush trembled, and my heart squeezed. A breath of wind signaled a burst of magic in my cells. My skin prickled, and I held my breath.

About a hundred yards behind me, an armadillo toddled into the road, stopped to study me, and then began digging in the dirt around a fallen tree. I snuffed, testing the air for shifter magic. But it was just an animal.

I had no idea how many animals in Louisiana could be shifters. Hell, I had no idea how many humans in Willow Creek might be shifters. How many of Sheila’s patrons in Vixen’s? It boggled my mind.

On I went, running through the woods, following the path Olivia had given me, glad for the respite from being needed in ways I didn’t fully grasp. At least as a vet, I’d been trained for triage, for treatment, and for long-term care. Not true of my stint as the multimorph.

Soon, a small driveway came into view with a well-kept cabin at the end.

The tiny home and the manicured lawn seemed out of place in the middle of the Louisiana wilds, but this had to be the place Olivia mentioned.

When I reached the small porch, I shifted back to my human self, thankful for the rush of wind over my skin.

I tested the door. Unlocked. Cautiously, I turned the knob and stepped inside, only switching on a small light, remembering the off-grid nature of the place. Batteries would only store so much electricity, so I intended to be mindful of my use.

“Hello? Anybody here?” I called.

Only silence greeted me.

“Anybody here?” I repeated, taking a deep breath of the stillness. So quiet. So alone. So much like camping out in Site 52 at Magnolia State Park. It’s what I had been missing through all of the recent changes. Dad, if you could only see me now…

The living, dining, and kitchen areas were all one room at the front of the cabin. The bathroom was to the left, the pocket door partially open. A corridor on the right side of the cabin led to what was probably a bedroom beyond and probably another entrance to the bathroom on the left.

Woodwork dominated the space, multiple finishes and textures played off one another, and the craftsmanship was exquisite.

Oil-rubbed bronze unified the metal of the lamps, the plumbing fixtures, drawer pulls, doorknobs, and other hardware.

Even the leather seats in the living room had oil-rubbed bronze studs as accents. A stained-glass lamp sat between them.

Everything gleamed, and I took a quick look around the kitchen before I opened each screened window to let the night sounds in. Bugs collected on the outside of the screens, attracted by the dim light.

After I had rummaged through the cabinets, I tugged on an especially tall door, exposing shelves upon shelves of canned food in old-fashioned jars. Had the shifters grown the food themselves, too? Made the broth from bones simmered for days on end?

Shaking my head, I released a long breath. Who had taken the time to do all this? Nobody prepped food like this without a lot of love in them. Life as a part of a shifter family was always surprising me in unexpected ways.

Generally stocked, she’d said.

The cabin wasn’t just “generally stocked.” It was well-stocked with homemade food which meant that someone kept an eye on it and multiple someones probably stocked it. Probably another of Olivia’s take care of everybody work she did behind-the-scenes.

I settled on an old-fashioned jar of veggie soup in a golden broth.

A search of one of the drawers produced bottle opener.

The jar’s metal top hissed as I used a bottle opener to break the seal.

I could have dumped the contents into a bowl and tossed it in the microwave, but someone went to the trouble to can real food with wholesome ingredients.

Nuking it felt almost disrespectful somehow.

So, I placed a stainless-steel pot on one of the burners, poured the soup into it, and lit the gas burner, placing it on low.

While I waited for my food to heat, I decided to have a poke around the place.

In two steps, I found the liquor cabinet, also stocked with good booze.

After I grabbed a highball glass from the kitchen, I filled it with ice from the freezer before I poured top shelf Vodka, some lemon juice, and finished it with club soda.

The Chilton hit the spot before I moved on, and my toes warmed. Then I continued my exploration.

Bookshelves lined the walls of the corridor which led to the only bedroom. At least half the shelves were dedicated to Louisiana history. One shelf held about ten shifter lore books. One caught my eye…

Bonding & Mating Practices of Feline Shifters.

When I opened the cover, I gasped at the scrawl inside.

This Book Belongs to Marcus Steele had been inked into the first page.

When I snapped the book closed, a burst of dust filled the air.

I shoved it back onto the shelf, wondering absently if there was a version for canine shifters which might clue me in on ways to make Logan beg and howl in bed.

Back in the human world, I would have used a little Google-Fu or buy an issue of Cosmo from the check-out lines at the supermarket. My stomach growled, a strange sensation after days and days of being so obsessed with Logan that I only ate when I had been forced to eat.

Was the obsession diminishing? No, I didn’t think so.

The distance between us probably had more to do with it than anything. The smell of carrots and onions soon permeated the air, and I grabbed a potholder to take the soup from the burner. I didn’t bother with a bowl. Instead, I grabbed a spoon and placed the soup on one of the woven placemats.

Then I swiped the mating practices book from the shelf and took a seat at the small table, set with only two places.

It was a little odd to be reading a shifter sex book previously owned by Marcus, but it was more interesting than anything else I’d found on the shelves, and I hadn’t been able to find anything about shaking my booty for my wolf shifter mate.

Maybe some of the information would be universal.

Soon, I’d had another Chilton, my supper had disappeared, and my head nodded over the book and the empty bowl.

Reading the same page over and over wasn’t worth my time.

So, I placed the dirty dishes in the sink and wandered toward the bedroom, glad for the high thread count sheets instead of a cheap sleeping bag on the ground back at Site 52.

With the windows open on the cabin, the effect on my soul was the same, and the comfortable bed would make my back hurt a hell of a lot less.

Before I fell asleep, I tested the fated mate bond. Logan was as far away as he’d been all day, and I sighed, realizing that as much as I wanted to be alone, I also wanted Logan to come after me, to join me and make love to me in the quiet, away from the chaos of leading shifters.

All those shifters depended on me. On us.

My thoughts threatened to spiral in reaction to the weight and responsibility of the gargantuan task ahead of us.

Not matter how hard I tried to push the heavy, intrusive thoughts away, I couldn’t shake the knowledge that this was the lull before the storm, and I was resting in the stillness of borrowed time.

Acheron’s coming… and my choice was clearer than it had ever been.