Page 18 of Shifters Unifying

“It’s the way our pride earned the land we’re standing on.”

I scowled at the disinterested alpha. “There has to be another way.”

He waved to battle lines. “When they refused to settle it the way they had decades ago, I suggested you. Giselda agreedimmediately. Tossle took more convincing. So, be my guest. Consider it your first test as a multimorph.”

My head shake brought a puzzled expression to his face. “Not until you agree to abide by whatever I decide.”

“Done,” he said. “It was my idea, after all. I will abide by whatever you decide to do with these old shifters who’ve stirred up both clans.”

I turned to the assembled warriors. If each of them joined my army…

Midway down the line, somebody yelled and threw a punch across the boundary. A big cat screamed, and a female black fox launched itself across, snarling and biting at the air. She darted between the shifted big cats, biting their heels as she absorbed a dozen cuts from sharpened claws.

“Ye’re all sons of bastards and hellspawn. Forever a thorn in our sides,” a human fox roared. “For my mate! Red Tail to the death!”

Then he lifted his spear and threw himself into the cats, sparks glinted between his spear and the talon shaped knives of the cats. He slipped to the ground between two cats who clawed him relentlessly. Answering affirmation spread through the foxes, and they rushed the border. A panther screamed, and three others echoed.

The clang of metal on metal set my teeth on edge, and anguished screamed sliced through their air, making it clear I’d have a long line of warriors who needed healing when this day concluded.

All hell had broken loose.

“That’s it,” I bellowed, suddenly furious at the bickering between them. The petty in-fighting had no place in our battle with Acheron, and it would only destroy our kind from the inside out. “I will finish this.”

I dropped to the ground and sank my fists into the earth as a rush of wind crashed through the trees, charging toward us with more energy than I’d ever embraced. It slammed into me, and my eyes bulged as my cells drank it all in. The rainbow tattoo on my hip tingled and then turned bright.

My hair lifted from my neck. Colors spun in the gust as multimorph voices called from centuries gone by. The magnolia tree burned in my mind. The ground shook beneath us, sending warriors tumbling aside.

Never again. Never again.

Snap!

A line of fire ignited over the border, hanging in the air over their heads. The burst shone down like a horizontal thread of lightning, turning the ground below as bright as day. Thunder followed each electrical popping sound. Branches shot out from it, and the battle lulled as thirty shifters looked up.

“Emma,” Logan yelled. “What are you doing?”

Go big…

Or die.

CHAPTER SEVEN

emma

“Balefire! It’s balefire!”

The terrified shout rippled through the assembled fighters. “She’s casting balefire.”

Tendrils reached toward the shifters beneath, like a creeping vine seeking a hold on some unsuspecting warrior, more interested in fighting than surviving. As one, the members of the group returned to their respective sides, their altercation silenced.

A pulse of energy built in my chest. It exploded from me like a concussion grenade, cutting through the shifters, knocking several to their asses. A multi-color glow engulfed me.

But I wasn’t finished.

My eyes burned, and I cycled through a dozen shifter forms. Each one larger and more impressive than the last, the magic winds fluffed my hair, my fur, my feathers. Thunder and rushing waters echoed inside me, whooshing from me.

“I am the multimorph, and you will listen tome!” I no longer sounded like me as multiple voices spoke through me.

Logan staggered back, his brows nearly to his hairline. Beside him, Olivia stood with her hands clasped over her chest,her eyes glistening. Jasper’s face had gone slack, and every bit of mischievousness had drained from him.