Page 22 of Shifters Unifying

“Oh.” He scrambled backward and sat back into the rear passenger seat. “What’s the ETA to the location from here? An hour? Two?”

I settled in the other rear seat.

The driver’s door opened once more, and Olivia climbed inside. “Motherfucker. It smells like shifter sex in here,” she growled. “How is this my life? Everybody roll your windows down, and we’re stopping back at Six-Mile to get a different SUV.”

Jasper didn’t stop laughing as he climbed into the front passenger seat, and we took off. Every second tickled his sex fiend self, and I found myself grinning along with him.

Within minutes, Logan’s hand creeped toward my knee, and I shimmied to the center seat, glad for his renewed attention.

“Hey, there,” I purred. “Fancy meeting you here. Do you like to consume animal doctors?”

Logan chuckled, deep and low. “Idevourthem.”

When Olivia abruptly crammed on the brakes, I was thrown half-way into the front seat, landing on the center console between her and Jasper.

“What the hell are you doing?” Logan roared, vibrating the windows.

“None of that while we’re in here,” she snapped. “In fact, Jasper you get in the back, and Logan, you get up here. When we get back to Six-Mile, we’re not just getting a different SUV, we’re splitting up. I’ll go with Logan on the ATVs, and Jasper, you take Emma to see her Willow Creek people in the SUV.”

Jasper rubbed his hands together. “Aye. At least yer finally letting me drive.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

logan

Six-Mile Manor

The Next Morning

My mate casts balefire…

The revelation pulsed through my head, and I fought to keep from replaying the last time I’d seen balefire. Acheron had been on the other end, and he’d used it to cut a hole through my chest. If not for Emma, I’d still be dead, unable to protect her.

Before sunrise, I stood on the porch of our headquarters, dressed in a t-shirt, tennis shoes, and gray sweats, surveying the acreage our pack owned. Two work trucks with the Blackwood Construction logo on the doors were parked near the workout warehouse, probably still too early for those employees to be at their residential worksites. I checked my phone for any business updates. Finding none, I tucked it back into my pocket. At least my construction company was a well-oiled machine.

It’d been a while since I’d been down to Vixen’s for Boss’s Buy Friday. My cousin, Sheila, kept the tab open for my employees on Fridays, but I typically made a showing. I’d needto rectify that as soon as possible, once I figured out what day of the week it was… and after we sent Acheron to hell where he belonged.

As a people, we’d built so much here. Acheron threatened it all. Emma and Jasper had already left in the SUV, and I’d taken the opportunity to slap her ass as she climbed inside, and I wondered again if I should have followed them to Willow Creek.

One four-wheeler with a supply bag already waited on the circle drive in front of the sprawling, historical manor house, and the engine of the second one hummed in the distance.

Phil brought a larger one around from the storage building onto the circle drive in front of the historical house. He untethered a gas can and unscrewed the lid for the fuel tank.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ll top ‘em off. You can get on with your normal duties.”

“We’ll be meeting you at Acheron’s encampment once we complete our patrol.” Phil grinned at me. “Glad to see you’re in a better mood now, Alpha.”

I chuckled. “Better mood than when I bested you and your workout buddy?”

“That would be the mood I meant,” he said. “None of us like to see you hurting or lonely, sir.”

“I appreciate the sentiment.”

Phil loped away without another word.

Olivia strolled out of the house, dressed in protective gear. She held a helmet under her arm, and she nodded to me. “Is that all you’re wearing?”

“Nothing is an option,” I said. “I’m a shifter, and a quick-heal is always an option. Why are you going all out?”