Page 111 of Shifters Unifying

“Not in the slightest.” I switched off the lamp and the overhead light on my way out. “Sleep tight.”

Outside, John and Oliver waited beside Jasper, who was cutting up about something. Probably giving the younger men pointers about bedding shifter females.

“No ATVs?” Phil asked.

“No, we’ll be running as quietly and as quickly as possible. We’re headed north.”

“Care to share where?”

“Not yet,” I said. “You’ll know when we get there. Everybody shift, and we’ll get started.”

A burst of magic revealed a pack of five wolves and one fox.

When I started to run, the others brought up the rear.

We were on an overgrown country road, but the stench of Acheron was unmistakable: blood, death, and fear. Those were his calling cards.

A crumbling, square brick column on either side of the road marked the entrance to a driveway, and dark shapes loomed beyond. Some kind of dilapidated plantation home, long abandoned. No lights burned in the windows.

I loped to the closest column, avoided brushing against the rune etched on each side of the surface, and paused, testing the air. Warding wasn’t generally visible, but we’d know when the magic slid over our skin. I placed a paw on Olivia, signaling for her to wait. Then I slipped over the cattle guard.

No shivers, no tingles meant no warding. I scanned the surroundings and startled.

Shit.A pile of dismembered arms rested on the ground behind the right column, the dirt beneath blackened with dried blood, and amputated legs were behind the column directly in front of me. Acheron’s experimental tortures knew no bounds.

I lifted my nose and gestured them in. Olivia came first, followed by Jasper, Phil, and the two young wolves. We followed the perimeter of the formerly white-washed wooden fence, and I noted the myriad gaps between the wooden slats, many of the remaining ones had been eaten away by termites.

A quick circle around the home revealed more piles of carnage. The worst of which was the pile of rotting skulls, eyes widened in fear, and mouths contorted in no-longer audible screams.

Olivia smelled nervous, and she panted with her mouth wide. She scanned the windows and whined lightly.

I dipped my nose in agreement. Acheron wasn’t a fool. If this was the place, we should have spotted lookouts. Perhaps the map planted in Marcus’s head had been a ploy to get us here.

But we’d come this far, so we had to check the house, too.

Another paw on Olivia earned a canine nod. They’d wait until I signaled for her to follow.

Then I jogged toward the front porch and placed a paw on the first step. Nothing happened. The massive front door hung askance on its hinges, and I darted inside and pressed myself against the closest wall, expecting an attack. A chandelier had fallen from the ceiling and rested, shattered, on the foyer floor. A rotting, split staircase led to the second floor.

Carefully, I continued into the expansive entrance hall, my nails clicking over the marble floor. Runes covered the walls, some burned into the wallpaper and some painted in what had to be blood. The scent of death overpowered everything else.

If this wasn’t the place, it had been… recently. We had to search the house.

I loped back to the entrance as Olivia stuck her pale nose inside. A low whine brought her all the way in, and the others crept in behind her. Jasper zipped past me and to the right, his red tail stretched out behind him, and I let him go.

Fool of a fox.

Phil stayed behind Olivia while John and Oliver nosed the walls marked in blood, and Oliver trembled. We continued into the middle of the grand entrance where a chair sat, binding wrapped around the arms and the legs. Bits of flesh and bonelittered the floor. Layers upon layers of smells assaulted my nostrils.

How many shifters had Acheron butchered here?

Abruptly, flood lights lit up the interior of the house and momentarily blinded me.

Then the floor shook under us, split open, and swallowed us whole.

Iwoke to muffled howling nearby. By the timbre, it had to be either John or Oliver. It sounded like they’d been locked in a box.

No longer in my wolf form, I had been splayed on the ground, my arms and legs chained to metal pegs that had been driven into a concrete floor. Sweat slicked my skin. Above, the roof gaped wide with jagged edges resembling teeth of some kind of constructed beast.