Page 36 of Shifters Unifying (Shifters Destiny: Willow Creek Shifters #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY

logan

The Gathering Place

Between Bear Trees & Red Tail Territories

He’s taken hostages. Dammit.

“An attack, an attack,” repeated through the shifters.

Emma gasped and released every ounce of energy she held.

The four young shifters sagged as the flood of energy winked out, and rain drenched them once more.

Lightning flashed, followed by the rumble of thunder.

She darted to their sides, her mouth moving with words I couldn’t make out over the racket.

We’re not ready for the final battle!

Fuck this storm. Maybe it would help protect us from a massacre of our people.

A rush of shifter magic burst through the conclave.

In front of us, each member, regardless of clan, jumped from the stone benches to their feet.

In moments, the whole amphitheater stood, shouting and pushing toward the exit with a fury that had been building for months.

Torbin, Marcus, Salali, and all the rest joined in the cacophony.

All except the young shifters Emma had brought into Six-Mile before she’d taken time to visit Salali’s clan in East Nuttal. The four practically cowered in place. Emma had taken them under wing and put them through their paces, but now they cowered in place in their spot in the front row.

Torbin morphed to his bear form, roared, and lunged for the center aisle, tossing his head and knocking shifters aside as he barreled toward the exit. A flood of shifters charged after him.

Instead of following, Marcus bolted down the stairs toward us, his hair slicked to his head. He halted in front of Emma. “How can I assist, multimorph?”

White-hot fury poured through me, and I gritted my teeth, preparing to throw myself at him for another round of beating. “Don’t you know anything, asshole? Now is not the time for ingratiating yourself with the multimorph.”

Emma rounded on me, and her gaze narrowed. “Not now, Logan,” she snapped. He’s our ally. Then she turned back to Marcus. “First, we take care of the threat in Bear Trees and then you’re going to escort me to Wolf Moon Cave to hunt for something we need to find.”

Marcus paled, and his eyebrows hit his hairline. “I beg your pardon, multimorph. I was not aware of any travel plans. Care to elaborate?”

But Emma shook her head, already drawing on another flood of change energy. She waved to the still huddled four. “Shift and stay behind us. Izzie, you hop on Blaze’s back, so we don’t lose you in the underbrush.”

“Fuck,” Izzie muttered.

“I’m my bestie bunny’s faithful steed.” Blaze grinned and flipped her blue braid over her shoulder. “I’m so here for it.”

Without comment, Emma morphed into her bear form, flashes of color showing through her dark fur.

Marcus turned into his large black panther form, and I turned to my wolf form.

The three of us galloped up the steps and out of the gathering place with two young wolves and a bunny riding a horse following close behind.

Jasper and Olivia joined us as we passed through the perimeter warding, and our paws thundered through the forest, covered only by the growing storm as we chased the wake of the shifters who had gone ahead.

The hostages only had to hold on a little while longer.

By the time we reached the far side of Bear Trees, the forest had grown eerily quiet, as though every creature held its breath.

The sky turned unnaturally black and boiled overhead.

No rustling, no growling, nothing. No sounds filtered between the tree trunks, though most of the shifters had already arrived.

Ahead, someone wielded great amounts of magic.

We came to a halt. A shiver ran through me, and I cycled between scenting the air and panting from nerves.

Emma pointed her nose toward the sky and chuffed.

Marcus slinked into the darkness, immediately disappearing from view.

Blaze pranced in place, nearly knocking Izzie from her back. John and Oliver loped away.

As a wolf, I couldn’t tell any of them to wait there. Instead, I moved closer to Emma and nosed her side. Anything?

She turned toward me, and I recognized Emma in the depths of her ursine eyes. No.

My ears swiveled, and my fur stood up in a ridge along my back. The earth beneath my paws seemed to quiver, and the unnatural darkness in the forest shimmered.

Something was wrong. Not a little wrong… Something was a lot wrong.

Emma… I pushed her name through the bond. Keep your eyes peeled.

Will do. I could feel her thinking through the bond. Reminds me of the quiet before a tornado. Have you ever been in a tornado?

Ever since I met you.

She didn’t respond, but amusement flickered between us as she inched toward the wall of black and disappeared inside. Icy fear stabbed through her mirth.

I saw nothing. Where? I don’t see him!

There!

She barreled forward into the darkness, and the shadows swallowed her. Her roar cut through the silence. Acheron!

Boom!

An explosion rocked the earth under our feet, and I dropped to the ground. Beside me, Blaze held her ground, but Izzie slid off Blaze’s back. Where had the others gone? More importantly, where had my mate disappeared?

Emma!

I’m fine!

I darted after her, still unable to see her. Where are you?

Here!

I reached through our bond, trying to locate her. More steps forward sent icy shards sliding across my fur, slicing down to my skin, rooting me in place. I bit back a yelp.

Bear Emma stood in a clearing ahead of me, on one side of the bank of a creek, her jaws wide in a silent roar.

Wind whipped her fur one way and then another as dark magic circled her, seeming to hold her in place.

A hundred shifters lined our side of the gully cut through the earth.

Many unmoving, each one with eyes widened as though they were being forced to watch their own private horror.

Others lay prone on the ground, some injured, some surely dead.

Boom!

Energy exploded out from a cloaked figure, surrounded by contorted, collapsing shifters, waited on the other side. A host of voices cried out as the bottom end of a tornado rotated down toward us, shaking the trees and quaking the ground under our paws.

“There you are, multimorph. I knew you would come,” Acheron cried, his voice cut sharply through the silence. “I’ve been waiting for you. I wanted to show off my latest creation.”

A magic-wrapped figure lifted into the air over the creek, above Acheron’s cowled figure, his bony fingers stretched up toward the naked shifter. Dark magic swirled around her, and tears streamed down the woman’s face. Moments later, a smaller shape raised beside the first—a young boy.

A harrowing scream cut through the ink. A black flash of feline fur zipped by and leapt across the shallow water, slammed into an invisible wall and fell back. Unmoving, the panther landed in the shallow stream, nose beneath the muddied liquid.

Marcus!

Waves of magic poured over the surface of the water and enveloped Marcus, morphing him from his big cat form to his human form, lifting his nose just above the creek. He dragged a shuddering breath in. “God, no! Please don’t. Spare her! Spare them.”

Ahead of me, Emma grunted. Despite her bear form, she called in her human voice. “Is it her?”

“It’s my sister,” Marcus yelled. But he didn’t move from his spot in the water.

“So, it is. So, it is,” Acheron crooned. “So much power inside her, but she is mine now. The love of her son makes her weak.” He flicked his finger, and the smaller, floating figure howled in aguish.

Emma’s face twisted, and panic shot through the link we shared. No, not just fear, complete and utter terror, as though she personally recognized the woman and boy who Acheron possessed.

Emma… Can you do anything? Move at all?

Noooooo! I can’t save them. I can’t save any of them!

Another flick of the Acheron’s evil finger stretched the arms of the woman wide, and she convulsed as the shadowed energy rushed around her faster and faster. Sobbing, she turned her head toward the side and peered at the spot Marcus lay, trapped.

She scowled and sent a blast of energy over him, splitting his skin and pulling chunks of flesh from his limbs to float on the water around him. He bit down on a roar as she separated more of his body from his bones.

God, Acheron meant to break my mate, show her weakness and shatter her… like he had Marcus’s sister. Fucking hell!

A burst of wind blew Acheron’s cowl off of his gnarled skull. His eyes glowed with power as shifters crumpled to the ground on both sides of the channel, wrung out husks, emptied of every drop of their life force.

The cyclone dipped closer. Trees snapped in two. Lightning stabbed the earth around Acheron, incinerating the bodies as the flashes lit his twisted face, illuminating the runes etched into the trees. He’d prepared this place, for this moment.

Branches tore through the air and slammed into Emma, into me. I wanted to crouch down, but I couldn’t move. My muscles ached from the tension of fury with no place to go.

“Come, pets, we must go,” Acheron shrieked, cackling as though he’d won. “Let us go.”

Emma howled in my mind, the sound echoing as though her soul broke in two.

Finally, the whirlwind sucked Acheron, the female shifter, and the boy beside her, sweeping them upward into the sky toward, carrying them into the clouds. Then the storm sped west, and daylight brightened the forest once more.

“It’s not her. It’s not her.” Marcus turned his face toward the water and wept.

I shot toward Emma, shifting to my human form as she collapsed to the ground where she’d stood. Smoothing my hands over her heaving side, I whispered, “Come back to me, love.”

She shifted to her human self, tears streaking her dirtied cheeks, and I dropped to my knees beside her. “I couldn’t save them,” she sobbed. “I wasn’t strong enough, and he held me in place. How could I let that happen? To them… to her?”