Page 62 of Shifters Unifying
“I sent her to No Man’s cabin,” she murmured. “I’ll make excuses for a day or two, but that’s all the time I can give you two. You might be the only reason she won’t completely shatter in the coming months. Work it out, huh?”
“Will do.” Then I waved at Phil and marched away from the impromptu barbecue. After I deposited the drive in the safe in our room, I’d pass the time in the giant study Emma loved, processing invoices for Blackwood Construction. Boring shit compared to what I had planned later.
Ready or not, I’m coming, Emma.
CHAPTER TWENTY
emma
Somewhere
North of Six-Mile
Running doesn’t solve anything…
So, they say.
But the last hour of it felt damned good. The bright moon rose over the horizon, and lunar shadows spread over the ground like the shadowy fingers of Acheron reaching into every part of my existence.
Insects and frogs chorused in the undergrowth and the trees. Being this far from any population hubs meant that the stars already winked down clearly. It’d been a lifetime since I’d gone camping, gotten attacked by a mountain lion, and had my first shift.
I slowed from a gallop to a lope as I came to the edge of a dirt road, each direction looking as abandoned as the last. Tall grass grew down the center, and I settled back on my haunches to scent the air and rest my paws.
This had to be the one Olivia had mentioned, and I stopped at the edge to think. She had said to follow it north. So… if I waspointing north, that meant west would be to the left. Because West/East always spelled WE.
I doubted my first-grade teacher would have believed that was the thing I recalled most often from her class. Directions weren’t always easy for me, and that handy little tidbit had gotten me through more than a few lost moments. According to Olivia, west would lead me to a stocked cabin, and that was the direction I went, choosing the slower pace of a trot.
Fuck my life.I missed the simplicity of existing in Willow Creek. I needed a breather and running for the sake of running as a cheetah made me feel alive and carefree, at least for now. My adoptive father had always taught me to seek the peace of the woods when the everyday got to be too much. It’d been our habit through my teenage years, and I kept on even after he’d passed. So maybe this lonely excursion was less about my throwing a whining tantrum, maybe it was more about organizing my thoughts.
In the last few months, I’d turned into a shifter, found a fated mate, fought blood-soaked mages, saw a bunch of shifters die, abandoned my thriving business, ignored my adoptive mom, watched my mate die, healed him, claimed leadership of the clans, attended a heart-breaking funeral, and caused nine shifters to drop to the ground, writhing in pain and clutching their blistered skin… afterIhad done it to them.
And I was supposed to take it all in stride, to pretend like none of it impacted me.
Or maybe I was supposed to pretend I didn’t need some time to process some of the craziest shit I’d ever witnessed. Either way, I needed a day or two to myself to lick my wounds without an audience and prepare for whatever came next.
Another rise brought me to an intersection with another washed-out dirt road. It stretched to the left and to the right,looking equally abandoned both directions, and I took the northern route. The cabin couldn’t be much farther now.
The snap of a twig behind me brought me up short, and I stopped in the center of the road, my ears swiveling back and forth. The underbrush trembled, and my heart squeezed. A breath of wind signaled a burst of magic in my cells. My skin prickled, and I held my breath.
About a hundred yards behind me, an armadillo toddled into the road, stopped to study me, and then began digging in the dirt around a fallen tree. I snuffed, testing the air for shifter magic. But it was just an animal.
I had no idea how many animals in Louisiana could be shifters. Hell, I had no idea how many humans in Willow Creek might be shifters. How many of Sheila’s patrons in Vixen’s? It boggled my mind.
On I went, running through the woods, following the path Olivia had given me, glad for the respite from being needed in ways I didn’t fully grasp. At least as a vet, I’d been trained for triage, for treatment, and for long-term care. Not true of my stint as the multimorph.
Soon, a small driveway came into view with a well-kept cabin at the end. The tiny home and the manicured lawn seemed out of place in the middle of the Louisiana wilds, but this had to be the place Olivia mentioned. When I reached the small porch, I shifted back to my human self, thankful for the rush of wind over my skin.
I tested the door.Unlocked.Cautiously, I turned the knob and stepped inside, only switching on a small light, remembering the off-grid nature of the place. Batteries would only store so much electricity, so I intended to be mindful of my use.
“Hello? Anybody here?” I called.
Only silence greeted me.
“Anybody here?” I repeated, taking a deep breath of the stillness. So quiet. So alone. So much like camping out in Site 52 at Magnolia State Park. It’s what I had been missing through all of the recent changes.Dad, if you could only see me now…
The living, dining, and kitchen areas were all one room at the front of the cabin. The bathroom was to the left, the pocket door partially open. A corridor on the right side of the cabin led to what was probably a bedroom beyond and probably another entrance to the bathroom on the left.
Woodwork dominated the space, multiple finishes and textures played off one another, and the craftsmanship was exquisite. Oil-rubbed bronze unified the metal of the lamps, the plumbing fixtures, drawer pulls, doorknobs, and other hardware. Even the leather seats in the living room had oil-rubbed bronze studs as accents. A stained-glass lamp sat between them.
