Page 127 of Shifters Reckoning

Emma sent a stream of energy at the dark mage, and Acheron returned the volley. The two streams met and locked together, nearly matched. She screamed.

I marched across the remainder of the space in the dome. Four strides brought me to Emma’s side, and I placed my hand in my weakened mate’s hand.

Flesh on flesh. Skin on skin. Together. Real. Under the scorched air and the reek of Acheron’s decay, I scented blueberries and sage.

She’d held my scarred hand in a bar, on battlefields, and hundreds of midnights since. The bond was as strong as it had ever been. Every thought in her mind echoed in my head. With no dome between us, no wall, no distance, simply the two of us, hand in hand, at the end of the world, we were one.

You’re here, but I am, too, love.

Mentally, Emma paused and turned toward the sound of me. We’re here, she answered.

Acheron took one staggering step back from the two of us.

We are everything.

And my mate, almost consumed, clutched me…

…and held on.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

emma

The Wound in the Veil

Beneath the Cold Moon

Ihad locked magicks with Acheron, and I couldn’t break away. He held me in place, and my exhaustion threatened to give the wizard the edge he needed. I had one chance left.

My knees buckled, and I sent another thread of energy into the relic in my palm. Energy surged through me like a shot of adrenaline.

You’re here, but I am, too, love.

My mate’s voice filtered through the bond. Fresh-cut pine, smoked whiskey, and cigars stirred my mind. The option I’d had my hand on, the last choice, the one that would cost Logan everything, suddenly stopped being the only option in the world.

We’re here, I sent back, and the light in me hesitated.

For a breath, the whole burning future paused.

My alpha, my stubborn, ridiculous alpha, had made a break in the warding and pushed through the barrier. Now his scarred hand was closed around mine in the center of a dome he was never supposed to enter, and the oldest story in the shifter world had a new detail.

I wasn’t by myself.

So, I didn’t have to fight alone.

I straightened and, once more, planted my feet in the dirt with Logan’s hand in mine. The dome roared. Cracks had spider-webbed out from the gap Logan had forced through it, and the frequencies from the rest of the shifters filtered into me. I ceased throwing battle spells at Acheron one at a time like a woman rationing herself toward a death she’d already agreed to. Instead, I let a tsunami of energy rush into me.

The emergence expanded in my chest.

Every multimorph before me had reached for this alone and been swallowed by it because there had been nothing to hold the woman in place while the culmination had poured through her. No anchor, no tether, no hand.

But I had Logan.

You reach for whatever you have to reach for. I’ll be there.

And he was. Each degree brighter I burned, Logan absorbed the overflow. The storm grew and moved, but I held. I stayed lit, furious and entirely myself in the middle of becoming everything I needed to be.

I am the multimorph, but I am also Emma Carter.