Page 92 of Shifters Awakening

When I stepped out of the car, the humidity wrapped around me. Sweltering didn’t begin to describe it, and I suspected the tension and strain of the last few weeks made the temperature worse. It felt hotter than it should be for October, even for Louisiana.

Jasper escorted me from the vehicle up a slight incline.

“Ye don’t get to hide behind clothes,” he said. “Only yer sweat.”

“You’re shitting me.” I wasn’t sure I could convince my brain that my sweat sheen was actually clothing.

“Ye can undress if ye like.”

“As opposed to what?”

“Shifting out of yer clothes. That’s what most of them do. That’s what I’ll do in an hour or two.” A group of naked women strolled by, and one of them waved at Jasper, who leered at her, wagging his eyebrows. “Many of them show up without clothes.” He sighed as though he’d just had a tall glass of water on a hot day. “Which I do appreciate.”

I sniffed and rolled my eyes. “Do you ever quit? I thought you had a thing for Olivia.”

“Appreciation is required when someone should be appreciated,” he said. “Now, before I can march you in there, ye have to shed yer clothes, lass.”

“My nerves are bad enough without being naked,” I whisper-yelled at him. “I’m the multimorph, so I can veto, right?”

“The offense is bigger than ye care for. No multimorph would dare enter the Conclave clothed, not even lacy panties.”

“Dammit. Dammit. Dammit,” I muttered to myself as I climbed out of my clothing and tossed it to the side. “I selected that on purpose, you know.”

He nodded toward my feet. “Shoes too.”

When I wore nothing but my skin, Jasper offered his elbow. “Now ye won’t have to picture them in their underwear,” he said. “No need to be nervous.”

“Shut up,” I whispered at Jasper.

“We’ll move through the thick trees and the magical wardings that have been here for centuries. Ye’ll feel it slip over your skin as we move into the amphitheater.”

“What’s the warding for?”

“For climate control,” he said, “and to keep what we say to ourselves and to keep the private ceremony private. It’s like an invisible building.”

“Unlikemyprivates, hmm?”

He chuckled to himself.

The parking area had been clipped to a reasonably short length. Otherwise, the thick undergrowth obscured everything from waist-level down. Other vehicles arrived about the same time we did, and the occupants studied me, their faces pinched with concerned curiosity.

We stepped between tightly spaced loblolly, white oak, live oak, and several more species I didn’t recognize. I shivered as we seemed to walk through an unseen wall. The magic caressed my bare skin, a little like slipping into the water of a warm pool.

Suddenly, the interior design came into view. The warding not only blocked out noise, it had made the football-field-sized amphitheater and the large meeting space at the back invisible from the outside.

Jasper chuckled again, as though he had heard a joke, and I glanced at him, suspicious about what he had going on in his head.

A moment later, as we moved fully into the protected clearing, surrounded by trees marked by intricate designs, I understood why he was so pleased with himself.

Most of the shifters, at least two or three hundred of them, seated around the natural amphitheater, wore clothes. Only a handful of them were naked, and Jasperdidn’t look like he was about to get dressed as he held a steaming cup of coffee, handed to him by a duo of on-the-fly baristas in the nearest corner. One of them offered me a cup of coffee that I declined.

Shock quickly overrode my irritation. The gathering place was huge. The far end of the space had been landscaped downward into a natural amphitheater. Probably where they meant for me to address hundreds of shifters.

Yet here we were.

Jasper meant for me to make a splash by being a naked-ass multimorph. Despite my desire to shy away from the observers, I lifted my chin, meeting each gaze with an intense look.

A breeze twisted through the leafy canopy all around us, and Jasper’s head jerked toward me.

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