Page 33 of Shifters Unifying (Shifters Destiny: Willow Creek Shifters #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

emma

East Nuttal Delta

The Next Morning

Crap.

My stomach threatened to empty itself again as the wisp of a breeze danced over the back of my neck as I tied my hair back from my face.

If I were back in Willow Creek, it’d be time for another coloring visit with my hairdresser.

Instead, I was in the middle of the woods, naked and mentally preparing for training.

Nobody said anything, and I was stalling, avoiding what I already knew wasn’t going to go as smoothly as I had envisioned.

Practice made perfect, but I hadn’t yet practiced teaching on a large-ish scale at all.

At least I had a few friends in attendance, including Salali who waited nearby.

Marcus must have disappeared after Salali fed him the night before, and the younglings probably weren’t up yet.

We all stood in a clearing outside the gym where Marcus and Logan had fought, beneath a layered canopy of trees and the rising sun.

Pink clouds streaked the sky. Logan had slipped out of the drey before sunrise, and I’d had a few hours of fucked-me-good sleep after he’d gone.

Maybe he’d left me a little bow-legged, but I was as bright-eyed and bushy tailed as I was going to get.

Ahmie, Evie, Benjamin, Levi, and Rueben grinned from the front line of the column formation as though it was the best day of their lives.

They each held their gnarled bo staffs in their right hands—the same ones they’d used in the gym in Six-Mile.

Behind each of them stood two more fighters they’d personally selected to make the group three deep by five wide.

The shifters were situated behind the one who had recruited them and arranged by magical strength.

So, in addition to East Nuttal’s five best, ten shifters I hadn’t yet met faced me. Each one seemed apprehensive about their training. No doubt they’d heard rumors from what had happened back in Six-Mile.

I grimaced. Well, they were just going to have to get over it. With only a week before the conclave, I didn’t have time to coddle anyone or convince anyone they should be there. Though, I thought I’d worked out what had gone wrong before.

Still stalling, I tested the bond between Logan and me, relieved by how relaxed but annoyed my mate seemed.

He wasn’t in danger. At least that would make it easier to focus on the training at hand.

It would be my first time training other shifters as the prophesied leader, at least officially, and it probably wasn’t going to go as smoothly as I hoped. Only one way to find out…

Here we go.

“My name is Emma,” I began. Irritated by the weakness in my voice, I increased my volume.

“You may address me as ‘multimorph.’ I expect obedience at all times.” I paused to allow the gravity of my expectations to settle in their minds.

“If you have a problem with anything, you can request a private audience with me, and we will discuss it. However, if you question me in public in any way, it will be considered a challenge to my authority and handled appropriately.”

In my periphery, Salali nodded her approval, signaling her unwavering support. Ahmie and Evie both glanced over their shoulders as if to drive the point home to the fighters they’d invited. Reuben, Levi, and Benjamin remained as grim-faced as the ones behind them and kept their eyes on me.

“Let’s begin.” I dropped to the ground and shoved my hands in the dirt beneath me. “Now attack me.”

Ten sets of eyes widened, and Reuben furiously tugged his beard. But Ahmie and Evie laughed and shared a gleeful look. As one, they twirled their sticks and rushed toward me. I sent a surge of energy through the earth and exploded the ground beneath both of them, launching them into the air.

After I knocked them off their feet, Reuben came at me.

Benjamin and Levi had better sense, leaped at me, shifting into squirrels and skittering two different directions, zigzagging over the ground, but I sent pulses of magic through the earth and took them out just as easily.

In quick succession, I made my way through the shifters, feeling more and more in control of myself and my abilities with each moment. Finally, I straightened and rubbed my hands together, knocking the dew-moistened dirt from my palms.

“Can you teach us how to use the earth like a weapon?” Ahmie asked, leaning on her staff. “We’d be more helpful if we could do that.”

“I don’t think it’s something I can teach you to do, but I might be able to do it through you. We can try that at the end of today. For now, take your positions in your column formation once more.”

The group shifted into a more organized layout, each one an arm’s length from the one next to them. I gestured to Ahmie. “Can you grab me a bo staff?”

Her eyebrows scrunched together over her nose. “Of course.” She jogged away and returned with a small branch similar to hers. She handed it to me. She whispered, “No magic?”

I grinned at her, glad for the quiet question rather than a public challenge. “I’d rather move through attacks and defenses while it’s cool out. Wanna be my partner?”

She grinned and nodded.

To the group, I said, “Let’s pair up.”

Eight sets of fighters faced off with one another.

“Ahmie, you go ahead and lead us through. Tell me what to do.” At their confusion, I added, “You’re good at what you’re good at, and I’m good at what I’m good at.

Other than magic and what comes by instinct, I don’t know much about fighting moves, and I want to learn what you know. ”

Based on the respect shimmering in their eyes, honesty was still my best policy. “Go ahead, Ahmie.”

Ahmie bobbed her head. “Of course, multimorph.” Immediately, she took her stick in her hand like a bat and swung it at me, stopping just before the wood slammed into me. “First position.”

“First position,” the collected shifters answered, half of them following suit. “Trade and repeat.”

“Second position,” she commanded and jammed the end toward my chest.

On the training went, as the sun rose higher and higher in the sky.

Each of us following positions, reacting, and trading offense and defense.

Until my muscles burned and sweat clung to me.

Many of the moves had been the same when I’d been trained by Olivia back in Six-Mile, but some of their applications were new.

1… 2… 3…

“Now spar!” Ahmie yelled and lunged for me.

I knocked her stick aside, deflecting the attack, and grinned.

She advanced again.

We mixed up the moves, beat for beat. Move, move, and countermove, learning to read our sparring partners. Fighting reminded me of sex. A gesture here, a darting gaze, the nearly imperceptible signs of an attack or defense.

Ahmie glanced to the side, and I bit back a gasp at her misstep, bring my staff around to knock her legs out from under her. She slammed into the dirt, landing on her back, and I brought the end of my stick down in the center of her chest without making contact.

“Dead, you are,” I said.

“So, I am.” Her smile relayed no irritation. “A good morning of training.”

I lowered my weapon and offered her my hand, pulling her to her feet with a quick yank. ”Enough! Rest your weapons.”

The group stopped and shoved their staffs into the ground beside them. All except for Evie. She landed a whack! to Levi’s upper arm. The sound echoed in the clearing. Salali laughed from her spot, seated on the sidelines.

“She said stop,” he bellowed. “Besides, you weren’t actually supposed to hit me.”

“I hit you after she called an end to the sparring, so there were no more rules,” Evie quipped. “Maybe I wanted to hear you yell a little after all that grunting and sweating.”

Ahmie rolled her eyes and leaned close to me as though she meant to share a secret. Instead, she kept her voice loud. “Methinks my sister is inviting mouthy Levi to her drey. What better place to hear him yell?”

“I am not,” Evie cried.

Levi’s eyes widened, and he studied Evie as he rubbed his upper arm. “Well, now, that might be different.” He turned to Benjamin. “It did sound a little like a pick-up line, didn’t it?”

Evie pressed her lips into a tight line and slammed the end of her stick into the ground, burying it several inches.

Without warning the others, I drew a large portion of shifter magic and let the energy fill me. The others chittered quietly, excited by the rush. A burst of wind tore through and cooled the moisture on my skin.

“Do you trust me?” I asked softly.

“Yes, multimorph,” she murmured. “You have my permission.”

I placed my hand on Ahmie’s shoulder, taking a lesson from my last failure and visualizing long strands of magic going into her.

Her mouth fell open in a silent ‘o.’ Her eyes glowed bright.

“Can you feel that?” I asked.

She nodded, her face awash in euphoria. “I’ve never felt it like that before. Is that how much magic courses through you every time? It’s a flood.”

“Not all of it,” I said. “A portion.”

She blinked. “That’s what happened before.”

I gave a slow nod. “I grew distracted and didn’t keep it under control. Without control, too much leapt from me into them. I didn’t know my cells held so much more…”

“So much more than the rest of us,” she breathed.

I gave her a sheepish look. “Instinct often leads me to the well but doesn’t always explain how to best share a drink.”

Carefully, I controlled her morph from human to squirrel and back again. The absence of crunching bones seemed to surprise the others. Then I withdrew the energy and released my magic. “That’s how it should have gone. Shall we try two?”

Evie stepped forward. “I’m ready.”

Ahmie and Evie shifted together, nose and tails twitching.

When Evie returned to her human form, she said, “I never knew shifting could be so peaceful. It’s always so… so…”

“Violent.” Sweat beaded on my upper lip, and my chest heaved from the strain of maintaining control.

“I wonder why that is,” she said.

“I’m not sure, but we’re all stronger, better when linked. It’ll be easier to sneak up on enemies, too. This is what our afternoon will be.” I met the gaze of each of the warriors and put my hands on my hips, forming an idea, a plan. “Now let’s try something fun.”

Salali climbed to her feet and dusted earth from her lower half.

“On me,” I yelled, charging toward the nearest and tallest oak.

“For the multimorph!”

“For East Nuttal,” I answered. “Shift!”

I shifted into a flying squirrel form and launched up the trunk.

Then I scrambled to the top, taking a long branch to the left.

Fifteen squirrels of all kinds and colors scampered after me.

Darting to the end of the narrowing twig, I fought the desire to hang on with four legs.

Then I leapt into the air, aiming for a faraway tree and sending tiny tendrils of magic out behind me, lifting the others who followed into the wind after.

Beneath us, Salali watched, her face upturned, her hands clutched over her chest, and cheering. Sixteen of us had sailed farther than we could have alone. As one, we landed safely and made our way down the tree.

Squirrels knew how to squirrel, and as a squirrel, I could make them better than they were without me. Whatever my insecurities were, or my failures had been, I was going to be the best damn multimorph I could, and today was a magnificent, flying step in the right direction.

When I reached the bottom, I shifted to my human self once more.

Salali came to a halt beside me, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. “That was…”

I waited for her verdict.

“…Incredible.”

I nodded once. “It’s only the beginning.”