11. Emma #3
“Over fifty warriors at Six-Mile and more arriving every day,” Phil said.
“Training runs seven a.m., rain or shine. The ravens and the raccoons got into it over bunk assignments two nights ago. Feathers and fur all the way to the mess hall. Olivia broke it up.” He paused, choosing diplomacy.
“Loudly. And two of the clans sent three warriors instead of six, so somebody’s testing whether you count. ”
“I count,” I said.
“We know that, Multimorph. They’re learning it.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Also, the alpha sends a message.”
“Say it the way he said it.”
Phil cleared his throat, and his impression of Logan’s growl was frankly disrespectful in its accuracy.
“‘Tell my mate her social experiment has turned my compound into a middle school, and if she’s not home by the Beaver Moon, I’m coming to get her.
This time, I’m bringing the Tahoe with a fucking mattress in the back. Literally.’”
Marcus snorted.
Phil dug in his jacket and passed me a folded scrap of paper, and he returned to his own voice. “He also wrote this. Wouldn’t tell me what it says.”
Two words, in Logan’s aggressive handwriting, pressed hard enough to deboss the paper. Race ya.
I laughed until my chest unknotted.
“There’s more,” Phil said, and the last of the ease went out of him.
“Jace flew his drones south, down over the parishes past Ville Platte, tracing the heat signatures like you asked. He found where Acheron’s been.
” He met my gaze. “There’s a dead zone, Emma.
Miles of it. The trees have gone gray. No obvious birds, no deer, no heat, nothing moving.
It’s like the land’s been strip-mined, completely ruined.
In the middle of it, the scans just… stop.
Static. Jace lost two drones trying to scan his way in. ”
The silence settled heavily then. Beyond the tree line, a bear called low to another bear, and the sound rolled away between the trunks.
“He’s not retreating,” Marcus said. His blind eyes were fixed on the southern dark like they could see all the way to it. “He’s digging in. Feeding.”
“Or building something,” I said. The words tasted bitter, like blood. Every hour I had spent teaching bears to watch the sky, fuckwad Acheron had spent turning Louisiana gray.
Torbin stirred. “Bear Trees relinquishes the remainder of its claim to the multimorph’s time.”
I turned. “Torbin—”
“You came, as you promised. You trained us, as you promised. You stood in my clearing and bled with my people. My warriors will follow you now for reasons that have nothing to do with prophecy.” He raised one massive hand before I could argue.
“Honor is not measured in days, Emma. You are needed in Six-Mile, where all the clans are gathering, and the war will not wait for the rest of your visits. Red Tail will understand. Flynn, of all alphas, understands what it is to wait for someone. I will send word.”
My throat tightened, and I had to swallow the lump before I could speak. “Thank you.”
“Also,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his enormous coat, “I have made you a gift to remember your time here.” He opened his large hand to show a bit of white in his palm.
It was a doily, an intricate, snowflake-patterned round of white cotton, crocheted by fingers the size of bratwursts.
“For your mate’s desk,” Torbin said solemnly. “I will quilt the banner next.”
“We’ll treasure it until the day I die.” The choking sound I made was not, technically, a laugh or a cry.
Marcus’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline, and Phil suddenly needed to inspect the four-wheeler. Torbin sniffed the air once and folded the doily into my hands.
“I’ll make sure it gets a place of pride,” I managed.
Levi materialized out of the dark at the foot of the mound. Privacy was a concept squirrels had rejected long ago. “So we’re going to Six-Mile,” he said. “Great. I’m coming.”
“You’re supposed to be one of my exchange warriors in Bear Trees.”
“I’m exchanging myself. It’s in the name.” He shrugged. “East Nuttal votes on a new alpha at the Cold Moon. It’ll be the twins, both of them or neither, so we don’t split the set. Until then, home is…” He let it go. “I train better where the war is, boss. Put me to work.”
“Fine,” I said, “but Otis rides with us as far as the border, and you’re fixing his pivot the whole way.”
“Cruel,” Levi said, delighted.
“I’ll be coming along as well,” Marcus announced from the doorway of Torbin’s den. “Ville Platte can enjoy missing me a while longer, and you shouldn’t travel undefended.”
“You’re blind, Marcus.”
“Which is why you will watch the road,” he said, “and I’ll watch your blind side.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny, niece.”
Ipacked what little I had by lamplight while the hollow creaked its old wooden lullaby around me.
When there was nothing left to fold, I sat on the edge of the bed with Logan’s note in one hand and Torbin’s doily in the other, like a woman weighing her whole ridiculous life.
After taking a deep breath, I leaned back on the mattress.
Tomorrow, I’d run home. Tonight, the nightmares could take a number.
“Can you release the warding, Torbin?”
“Not for long, Multimorph,” he rumbled from the front of his den.
“Understood.”
Once the warding had been lowered, I reached through the bond, past the miles and the warded trees, and found Logan, seeming like he’d had his mind on our link for hours.
Heard you lit up the sky down there, he pushed through, and even his thoughts sounded smug. Rainbow sky or something remarkable.
Heard your compound is a middle school.
It’s worse. Today, two raccoons unionized. His warmth wrapped around me, and the hollow felt less empty. Come home, Emma.
Tomorrow. At dawn. I closed my eyes. Logan… Jace found where he’s been. It’s bad.
I know. The smugness dropped away, exposing the iron of Logan’s determination. Whatever he’s building down there, we’ll be ready. All of us. Your crazy-assed plan is working… foxes bunking with bears, cats drilling with wolves. None of us thought it would work, but you did that.
We did that.
We are everything, he agreed. His grin came back. Now hurry up and race me.
You can’t race me. You’re already home.
Then I guess I win. Desire, rough and soft, moved through the bond, the feeling too big for either of us to say plainly across the miles. Fair warning, Multimorph, I intend to be a terrible loser about tomorrow either way, and I will demand soothing.
Until tomorrow, then.
“You can return the warding to its place, Torbin.”
“Yes, Multimorph,” he rumbled.
The sensation of Logan in my head winked out, but I fell asleep smiling, his note tucked under my pillow like I was a lovesick teenager, and thankfully, no one screamed in my dreams.
Morning dawned chilly with a clean blue sky. I gathered my bags with the efficiency of a shifter who might get to fuck her fated mate before sunset.
Naked, I stood in front of Torbin’s den mound with a Willow Creek girl’s lingering blush and tossed my bag into the four-wheeler’s trailer next to my other bags and one carefully wrapped doily.
Drawing on my magic, I let the energy take me down into a cheetah form while the bears of Bear Trees gathered in the silver light to see us off.
Torbin bowed his great white head. “Until Six-Mile, Multimorph.”
Then we ran west—a cheetah, a squirrel streaking branch to branch above, a blind cat moving through the woods after me, and Phil’s engine growling along the trail behind. The cold burned my lungs, and home pulled at the center of my chest like a second heartbeat.
Behind us, winter sharpened its teeth over Louisiana.
To the south, in a forest gone gray and silent, so did Acheron.