Page 23 of Shifters Awakening

Oh, so naked.

I’d seen sexy Logan Blackwood naked, and it hadn’t been in the front seat of his truck. The contractor extraordinaire had an incredible, muscular body with the most gorgeously shaped man business I’d seen…maybe ever.

But something was wrong.

Logan had been in my sacred woods, near my campsite, crouched down by my car as though he’d been watching me at the campfire for hours and hours. Now my skull felt like it was being split from the inside out, like something clawing to get out, and the void in my stomach had grown cavernous. I wanted to blink away the piles of sand in my eye sockets, yet my eyes wouldn’t open. Fabric scratched my cheek as I shook my head back and forth.

Logan must have followed me and drugged me afterI’d skipped out on him, leaving him turned on and alone in Vixen’s parking lot. However, even as the accusation bumped through my fractured thoughts, I didn’t—couldn’t—believe it.

He wasn’tthatkind of guy, but how could I be sure he wasn’t? How could I possibly know? I didn’t know him. Not really. Had he kissed my hip?

I hadn’t eaten in weeks. With as empty as my insides felt, I was sure of it. My body wanted to kill me, or maybe it already was. I wasn't sure where I was or how long it was taking me to wake from the nightmare I’d been dragged into ass backwards.

The bedsheets pulled tight around my kicking legs, and the floor creaked as though someone was beside me or moving away. The pillows still weren’t right. The cover was rough on my skin. I always bought higher thread count sheets than this, didn't I?

Lightning struck in my memory, bringing flashes of what couldn’t possibly be real. I’d been a bear, and I’d been a fox. My arms had been furred, and Logan had watched it all.

I’d screamed his name, and he’d been there as I’d morphed into something other thanEmma the humanand sent the mountain lion tumbling over the ground.

Logan!It thundered in my head. He was a part of whatever happened to me now. Somehow, he was tied to it all.

None of it made sense, and I thrashed in the strange bed, still fighting the mountain lion, trying to scream while no sound cameout.

Finally, I rolled over, slipping from one reality to the other as the mattress disappeared from beneath me. It felt like a million miles to the floor below, and days condensed to seconds. I was flying and falling, and a part of me was dying all at the same time. Insanity circled me, yet a part of me knew I was being dramatic and over-the-top, since nothing could be as bad as all that and humans didn’tactuallyturn into animals.

When I hit the ground beside the bed, I couldn’t catch myself. My chin slammed into the wooden floor, knocking me straight into a version of consciousness accompanied by a swirl of spots, and a rush of dizziness rolled through me. My room spun around me.

“Oof. Mother of all…” My voice trailed away as I blinked into the brightness and craned my head to figure out where I was. No wounds from the mountain lion attack met my fingers, and I should have been gushing blood after that fall.

Shit.What the hell was going on? I should have had injuries all over me.How long had I been out of it? It had to be at least mid-morning on Sunday, gauging by the light streaming into the room. It couldn’t be Monday. I had patient appointments on Monday.

However,thisroom wasn’t mine at all. The light fixtures were antiques, the walls whitewashed wooden planks. The gnarled wood flooring creaked beneath me, and the bed frame held a patina older than anything in my house. Maybe I’d gotten conscripted into a living museum. On some level, I should’ve been screaming andcrying and trying to get away, but my situation didn’t seem that dire.

Another swivel of my head brought a window into focus. I couldn't be sure, but based on the view of tree limbs outside the windowpanes, it seemed like I was on a second floor. Carefully, I eased to all fours and crawled to the window to peer over the cushioned window seat. No city beckoned me, no town, none of the high-rises in downtown Willow Creek, not my suburban neighborhood. Yep, I was definitely on the second floor of a home I didn’t recognize, so I wasn’t going to escape out that way.

IfI needed to, that was. Because a historic home with a manicured lawn didn’tseemlike a prison, and nobody sat in the room with me. A key rested in the keyhole beneath the crystal knob on the door, so it wasn’t locked. Kidnapping didn’t seem likely.

Using the bed to steady myself, I climbed to my feet, but a wave of dizziness sent me tumbling back down to my knees. The stained-glass lamp on the bedside table rattled with the force of my fall.

A rush of footsteps sounded from somewhere well below me, moving closer and upward as though a group of people were coming up a stairway. Fitting for the home I’d been deposited in. At least I was in my own T-shirt and shorts. They hadn’t been what I was wearing last time I was conscious, and I didn’t want to think about how I had gotten into them orwhohad put me in them.

Instead of scrambling to unsteady legs, I curled into aball, flattened, and tried to scoot beneath the bed, but the gap between the bottom of the mattress and the floor wasn’t tall enough. Instead, I edged as close to the bed as I could, drawing toward the wall until I wasn’t in immediate view when my captor stepped into the room. Hiding under the bed wasn’t going to be the way I escaped.

Think, Emma. Think!But my brain was still a muddle of sludge.

The floor creaked in the hall outside, and the doorknob jiggled as though it didn’t work. I held my breath. Finally, the heavy door slammed open. The crystal knob shattered upon impact with the wall, sending a shower of glitter-shards over the floor.

I took a deep breath and held it.

Three sets of people came into the room, their legs visible under the mattress. They whispered together before coming around the corner of the bed to stare at me. I glared back at a blonde I didn't recognize, another man I didn't recognize, and…

Fuck me sideways.

It was Logan Blackwood.

Notnaked this time.

Traitorous disappointment knifed through me, and my mouth practically watered as he stood there. Apparently, my body hadn’t given up on the idea of a sexy reunion.

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