Page 62 of Shifters Awakening

As the alpha, I had a responsibility to care for mypack, and Rachel was a member of my pack. Six-Mile had been my duty for a long time, but saving the multimorph was the way to take care of them in the long run.

My skin flushed, and my fists pumped the dashboard. “Fuck!”

Rachel needed to be found, but I needed to see Emma now!

As though she heard me, Olivia mashed down on the accelerator, and the truck launched forward. Neither of us spoke.

In silence, we pulled to a stop at Willow Creek Veterinary Clinic. The sunset had come and gone, and the neon sign in the parking lot flickeredSpecializing in all animals.Emma could strap that sign to her ass, and it would be just as true as it had been for the years she’d been in business.Specializing inallanimals…

Nobody was there. No cars were parked in front, but when I hopped out, I smelled them. A band of shifters had come… and… Marcus. Marcus had been here.Fuck.Jasper had been here too. Death and shifter magic danced in the air, and I sprinted around the building. The wrought-iron gate wasn’t closed. Something bad had happened here. The smells were only a couple of hours old.

A rectangular shape rested on the ground, and I darted over to a cell phone in the middle of shredded clothing in the graveled parking area. The screen had been badly shattered, and I couldn’t read anything on it. It buzzed in my hand, still receiving notifications. Blood marred the white gravel in several spots.None of the blood was Emma’s, but the clothing was. She’d been afraid enough to shift again. Bear… Fox… Mountain lion. It would have eaten every bit of energy she’d built back.

My wolf whined, begging to be let out.

Olivia appeared at the gate. “Jasper has her.”

“How do you know he wasn’t working with Marcus and whoever else attacked her?”

She put her hands on her hips. “Because Jasper isn’t that way. He probably took her back to his lair.”

His lair…

“She should have been brought to mine,” I growled, handing Emma’s phone to her. “Get that fixed.”

“Get in the truck,” she said, taking the phone. “It’s faster than running yourself into the ground trying to get there.”

“Fine. Emma had better be okay.”And Rachel too.

“Just don’t cause a civil war. We can’t afford to fight the foxes while we’ve got Acheron stirring shit up. Too much at stake,” she cautioned and climbed into the passenger seat.

“Yeah,” I said, making no such promises. “When we get there, you go check on the others. We can’t afford to lose any more of our pack.”

“Will do.”

I slid into the driver’s seat and raced toward the fox clan. We made it in thirty-five minutes and eased to a halt at the edge of the fox clan’s territory. Then I leaped from the car, frantic with worry, shifting to my wolf form before my feet hit the ground. Olivia let me go, and the truck pulled away as I bounded over the border.

Like Six-Mile, Red Tail Pack had a fence around most of their area, except here where the driveway led to the interior of their lands. Emma was in their domain, and I had to respect the laws governing clan interactions. Jasper had bedmates in Six-Mile, and he had permission to come and go… At least until I’d tossed him on his ass.

I had no such permissions in Red Tail.

And it was unlikely, as a rival clan’s alpha, I would ever be granted permission.

I sat back on my haunches to wait for their guards to scent me. In short order, a gray fox trotted up to the fence line. He considered me for a long time, studied the forest behind me, and finally shifted into his human form, complete with gray hair sticking out in all directions.

“Hello,” he said, stroking his beardless chin. “How can I help you?”

I summoned my own shift, relishing the burst of air, filled with power and magic. “I’m here to see Emma Carter. I know she’s here.”

“You know no such thing.”

“Sure, I do. Her scent crosses here, and Jasper’s with her.”

“That’s what you suspect,” he said, crossing his arms.

“No, that’s what my nose tells me,” I snapped. “Same as yours tells you that I’m alone out here, though I’m sure you can tell Olivia came and went.”

“Oh, maybe, and maybe I’ll head back to our den and leave you here to rot.”

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