Page 54 of Shifters Unifying
“Sure, she can.”
“She doesn’t know how to shift yet,” Izzie snapped. “She’s still trying to figure that part out.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Maybe I can heal you.” Ahmie reached for Blaze’s injured wrist, but Izzie spun around, lifted her staff, and brought it down on the back of Ahmie’s neck.
“You’re dead,” Izzie crowed.
Blaze raised her supposedly injured hand for a high five which Izzie delivered with a loud slap. “We win.”
“Hey,” Evie yelled and darted toward the two young women, her guard down. “That’s not?—”
Blaze swiped her staff from the ground and shoved the end of it into Evie’s middle, just beneath the squirrel shifter’s ribcage and to the right.
“Oof,” Evie grunted with the impact.
“Liver shot!” Then Blaze twisted the weapon in a small ‘z’ shape. “I believe you are now dead.”
“Nicely done.” Evie stepped back with a smile of her own. “Just remember that shifters can morph and heal quickly.” She pressed her hand to her side. “Though, that move would be hard to come back from.”
“That’s how we beat some party asshole who wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Blaze replied with a shrug. “Though, we didn’t have sticks.”
Evie rubbed the spot beneath her ribcage. “Oh? What’d you use? Swords?”
“Umbrellas,” Blaze said. “It had thunder stormed that day, so he had a couple big ones, leaned against the wall near his door.”
Izzie giggled. “At the end, you know, where we shoved the end of the stick into your ribcage?” She paused long enough for Evie to nod. “That’s when we opened one of the spring-loaded umbrellas, and it startled him so hard that he slipped in some rainwater we’d tracked in and fell backwards on his marble tile.”
It was Blaze’s turn to laugh. “He landed flat onto his back, knocked the wind out of himself, and we strolled out of there like we owned the world.”
“Lucky break.” John shook his head. “That would only work once.”
“Once is all you need,” Levi snarked, his mouth twisted in a wide grin.
Jasper cackled from the sidelines and slapped Oliver on the back. “Yer two girls are something else.”
Even Olivia laughed.
After our shared mirth faded, I kicked off my shoes and clapped my hands. “Time to try shifting. Eight of us can shift.” I nodded toward Blaze. “Maybe it’s time to figure out what she can do.”
The young woman groaned. “You know I’m not any good at that.”
“Then it’s the perfect time to practice,” I countered. I had a suspicion that if it was, indeed, the influx of my primal shifter energy that had woken the latent cells in the four young shifters, my magic might be necessary to push Blaze into a full-blown shift.
“Gather round,” I said, using my best teacher-y voice. Nine shifters, five squirrels and four newbies, circled me. “Levi, Benjamin, Reuben, Evie, and Ahmie are all squirrel shifters,” I explained to the younger ones. “Oliver and John are…”
“Wolf shifters,” Oliver supplied.
“Izzie is a swamp rabbit, and we don’t yet know what Blaze is.”
“I believe I’ll wait by the door,” Dr. Wise said, shoving her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Easier to take notes.”
“I think I’ll wait by the door, too,” Olivia said, and Jasper agreed before joining her.
Abruptly, Dr. Wise crossed to my side and pressed her aging hand on my shoulder. “I’d like to speak with you when you’re free, Emma. I’ve discovered some important details about your abilities.”
I nodded. “Sure, once we all get to see what kind of shifter Blaze turns into.”
The blue-haired young woman snorted and stomped her foot as Dr. Wise left the mats. “What makes you think today is going to be different than any other day I’ve tried?”
