Page 97 of Shifters Unifying

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. Nota littlewrong… Something wasa lotwrong.

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! Sparethem.”