Page 48 of Shifters Unifying
Marcus placed his hand on Emma’s arm, and she glanced down at the place his fingers touched. Her upper lip curled, and she yanked her arm away. Anger and shock flooded the bond between us. She waved her hand, and the privacy spell disappeared.
Marcus reached for her again.
But she vehemently shook her head. “No, no, I can’t do this right now. Leave me alone.”
I wanted to go to her, to comfort her and find out what she and Marcus had discussed. However, I gritted my teeth and kept my distance, as she had requested, so I waited for some sign from her to signal that could go to her.
Emma hurried toward the raised platform. She stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled sharply and so loudly several shifters whined. “We consider this meeting concluded. We’ll be in touch, and I’m looking forward to meeting your best warriors. Thank you for your attention.”
Then she marched up the stairs and out of Gathering Place…
Without a single glance back.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
emma
The Gathering Place
Between Bear Trees & Red Tail Territories
“Emma!” Logan’s voice reverberated behind me, and his heavy footsteps followed.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I yelled over my shoulder and kept marching, determined to find a place to be alone to process what Marcus had unloaded. “Leave me alone!”
Thankfully, my mate listened this time. Still, maybe I would have preferred his presence. Maybe we could still a few moments away to ourselves to reconnect.
I glanced over my shoulder, but he had already disappeared back inside the warded amphitheater.Shit.Everything inside me was all shaken, stirred, up ended, and mixed up, and what I wanted warred with what I needed. When I’d healed him, I’d worked my self, my magic into his cells, and he’d worked his way into mine. We were two parts of one soul.
I didn’t want Logan’s “help” sorting out how I felt about all the new shit with the birth parents. I’d have given almost anything for a few hours to reconnect with my mate. Makingout, fucking, snuggling, whatever. He brought a stability to the middle of the insanity which had become my life, and I craved him. He anchored me, and the absence of him was noticeable. The hours since we’d been together felt like a lifetime, like I’d been forcibly starved.
I’d told him to leave me alone, and he had, so I wasn’t going to go after him, sniveling like a woman who didn’t know her own damn mind. Navigating my new life as the multimorph was one thing, navigating a fated mating was something else.
Another wave of tears surprised me, and I flicked away the droplets as though they were horse flies landing on my skin to bite the life out of me.
Logan had already told me that Marcus knew who my birth parents were, but I was positive Logan didn’t know Marcus believed I was related to him. I had had no idea that I was related to asshat alpha Marcus Steele… at least not until my mom had mentioned the last name on some of the paperwork.
I didn’t trust Marcus or like him.Reallydidn’t like him. My feelings were probably amplified by Logan’s opinions of the rival alpha. However, Marcus was a cat, through and through. He was nice when it suited him, and as far as I could tell, practically every decision he made served himself first and his pride after.
Logan would flip his fucking lid when I told him Marcus was my uncle. He’d probably ban Marcus from Six-Mile, and I wouldn’t blame him, wasn’t even sure I’d argue with the decision. Maybe it wasn’t very “unifying” of me, but I didn’t care.
Sure, as the multimorph, I had to treat Marcus with the respect due his position, but I had no desire to invite him to dinner or to get to know him on any kind of personal level. And now…
Now he implied that I was the result of his shifter sister’s teen pregnancy. Not just any sister, the sister who had recently gone missing with her son. Which meant Marcus was my uncle, and Ihad a mother and half-brother whom I’d never met… who were both missing and presumed dead. Thanks to Acheron.
How the fuck was I supposed to feel about all that?
Six-Mile Manor
Phil returned me to the manor on the same four-wheeler we’d ridden out to the Gathering Place. When I’d gone to hunt Logan down, he’d disappeared completely, and Olivia had no idea where he’d gone off to sulk. So, all-around-good-sport Phil had brought me home to Six-Mile.
After we eased to a stop, I climbed from the seat with a groan. “You coming inside?”
Phil didn’t climb off with me. Instead, he said, “I should garage this and refuel it.”
“Sounds good.” I reached for my toes, stretching to try to work the kinks out of my butt. If Logan had stuck around, he would have been able to help me with my kinky ass. A grin twisted my mouth, and I wondered how long my mate would be out pouting by moody self.
Phil cleared his throat and tapped me on the shoulder. “Multimorph,” he murmured, bending closer. “I believe you have some visitors. At least two of them are from the squirrel clan. Salali is their alpha.”
