Page 45 of Shifters Unifying (Shifters Destiny: Willow Creek Shifters #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

logan

No Man’s Land

Midday

Sneaking across Louisiana was going to take too long, and every step was a fight against turning around to save her and her son. I’d chosen to leave them behind. Fuck.

As it was, we hadn’t gone far, and a thunderstorm built in the sky behind us.

A scream shattered the silence, reverberating through the quiet, shaking the earth beneath my paws. I halted in the middle of the dirt road and turned around, whining. That had been her. Acheron had discovered her treachery.

Olivia shifted to her human form, her blonde hair moving in the customary wind. “That can’t be good.”

I shifted, too. “We should go back.”

“Not happening,” John growled.

“We’re not giving up our head start,” Olivia added. “We have to get to Emma. There’s no way Acheron is going to let this go without some kind of retaliation.”

Phil shifted from wolf to human, his face grim. “Wasn’t just me that heard it, then.”

Jasper appeared. “What’s going on?”

“She screamed. What’s he doing to her? To her son? Because of us.”

Shit. I hated second-guessing myself. If we’d stayed, we could have figured out how to break through the warding. All I could see was Callie. I’d left a child behind to be tortured and eventually die.

Jasper circled me, warily, and leaned close, taking a deep sniff of my neck. “Ye don’t smell right, Logan. Do ye have murder on yer mind?”

“Can’t you take anything seriously, asshole?” A hard shove put space between us before I decked him. “Get off me.”

His gaze narrowed. “Aye, but a seed of something has taken root in ye. Three parts desperate and one part reckless.”

Olivia moved cautiously to Jasper’s side and turned to study me. “What are you talking about, Jasper?”

“He’s talking about me leaving a kid and his mother behind to die. A kid and his mother. How could I leave them behind without even trying to break through the ward?” There had been something familiar about the woman, something I couldn’t put my finger on, and the decision already haunted me.

“That’s not yet concern,” Jasper said, tugging hard on his reddish beard. “Not anymore. Best ye not let it turn into vengeance of a darker kind.”

I spat on the ground. “Too late.”

An otherworldly shriek split the air, and a concussive waved rolled toward us, rattling the trees and sending birds into the air.

Logan. Logan. Logan. Save me. Save me.

Her whisper, in my head with Acheron behind it, twisting everything, perverting it all. It felt like dying from a million paper cuts. Such a coward.

I raised my fists to the sky. “Why won’t you fucking fight me? Face to face!”

Within moments, clouds boiled over our heads, filling the previously bright blue sky. Lightning stabbed the earth, and a downdraft brought the scent of smoke already in the air.

My half-mad grin split my face. “He’s coming.”

“Logan!” Olivia yelled. “We can’t stick around.”

“Too late,” Jasper said, pointing back the way we’d come.

Oily shadows zig-zagged over the ground, faster than any had gone before, and they lifted out of the ground without stopping. A wave of shadows rushed toward us.

“We don’t know how to fight them. You’re the only one who’s beaten them.”

“Run!” Jasper bellowed.

Oliver, Phil, Olivia, and Jasper all morphed and charged back toward Six-Mile, crashing through the undergrowth without looking back. They disappeared in a heartbeat.

Long tendrils reached through the air toward me, floating on the wind. The stench of death preceding them. Despite how much I wanted to stand and fight, I spun around and launched into my wolf form, galloping toward home.

But the living dead mages kept up with me and completely ignored my retreating allies.

A wide swath of inky black formed on either side of me as I fled.

A hundred yards later, I’d entirely lost track of the others, so I changed the speed and direction I ran.

No way I was leading the horde of evil back to Six-Mile.

When I cut through a clearing, the two columns of shadows shot ahead of me and joined in front of me, effectively blocking my path forward. The shadows were too wide for me to leap across, so I whirled to go back the other way. Instead, I’d already been boxed in on that side, too.

They’d meant to corner me, and they had.

The clouds thickened, blotting out the sun and rolling in the sky.

Thunder reverberated through my chest. I waited for the mages to rise out of the ground, to attack me, anything.

Instead, the mages circled me without moving in.

In the distance, a red glow filled the woods, and the smell of smoke increased.

Soon, a wall of bright orange wildfire appeared, burning through the forest, consuming everything between the dilapidated mansion and where I now stood. Closer and closer, tree trunks snapped, crackled, and caught fire. Animals fled without stopping.

A robed figure rode on top of the tallest part of the wildfire, standing on the smoke which billowed out from him. Acheron stepped down off the fire, off the smoke, and onto the ground below him.

“You,” I snarled.

“Oh, you shouldn’t be so quick to mistreat me, Alpha Logan Blackwood,” he crooned. “We could make an incredible team.”

I crossed my arms. “Is that so?”

He nodded. “I have a gift for you. Shall I show you? It’s the overnight dreaming.” He flicked his fingers, and he materialized directly in front of me. An inky shadow slammed into my forehead and brought me to my knees.

A scene exploded in my mind. But it wasn’t a memory. It was his premonition.

You can’t die. You haven’t told me your secret, my love. I pushed the words toward her, willed her to ignore the sting of the injuries all over my crushed body. Shifting wouldn’t save me now. I couldn’t summon the strength to do anything.

One hundred yards away, blood dripped from Emma’s nose, but I couldn’t reach her, and she didn’t respond to my repeated pleas for her to run. The dome she’d constructed around her and Acheron allowed no one through.

To the end, she protected us all, and I could no longer help.

Marcus’s sister might be my birth mother. That’s all. Her earnest voice whispered in my mind. Here, at the end of everything, I wished I had met her… before… before… this.

We should have made the time. Pain poured through our link, and tears welled in my eyes. God… what I wouldn’t give to go back to Vixen’s and Boss Buy Fridays.

Instead, despairing, I could only watch as my mate tried to beat Acheron alone… and destroyed herself, piece by piece, in the process.

Acheron threw balefire through her side, and she faltered, but she didn’t fall. She exploded the ground beneath the evil mage…

And achieved nothing.

He shrieked, his eyes wide with his madness. Then he launched himself at her, wrapped himself around her neck, and squeezed. Soon, emptiness was the only thing left of the bond, and my eyes slid closed, and I wished for death.

The image winked out.

“Isn’t that a lovely future?” Acheron rasped, his face next to mine. His acrid breath burned over my skin and scruff. “I’ve seen the inevitable end to Emma Carter, and with her death, my triumph is assured. The glorious Age of Acheron will soon dawn.”

With a growl, I reached for his deceitful throat, already gleefully anticipating the crunch of his bones under my fingers. But he disappeared in puff of smoke.

Wrath filled me. I would give almost anything to erase Acheron from existence.

Miles away, Emma focused on a complicated task, her consternation tripped across our bond. Then a massive amount of energy flooded her, almost spilling over into me.

The sensation of a barrier snapping vibrated through me. A rush of power followed, and white-hot light slammed into my back and exploded from my chest.