Page 4 of Shifters Reckoning

My legs buckled.

A cacophony of agonized screams fractured the daylight as the shadows twisted and writhed. Inky blackness ascended. A dark cloud coalesced around us, and I breathed them into my lungs. The flesh Emma had healed in the center of my chest sizzled and blistered as the energy I held turned sour, and I willed them into weapons, drawing them out, reforming them into balefire projectiles made of malice.

Eat death, asshole.

Bright white energy flowed out of me, tainted dark by the souls of the shifters Acheron had consumed and added to his army. Every hope of his premonition be damned. I roared and sent them back to Acheron.

Shuddering, I collapsed to the ground, hugging the earth, wincing as twigs jabbed the burned parts of me. A moment later, an explosion rumbled through the forest, silencing their voices.

Fuck. A part of me wished the blast had ended the hell of Marcus’s sister—shit, Emma’s mother—too. Maybe Emma could forgive me for the aftermath of what I’d done.

Acheron’s maniacal laughter echoed in my head, and my stomach dropped. At that moment, I knew I hadn’t destroyed him. He lived on to fight another day.

Olivia’s soft footsteps came near. “What the hell was that, Logan?”

Carefully, I rolled over, avoided my beta’s eyes, and climbed to my feet. Instead of answering, I shifted from my human form to my wolf form, repeating the change twice to heal the damage I’d done to my body. Somehow, I’d turned the shadow mages into balefire.

Olivia waited silently with her arms crossed. When I finally met her gaze, she shook her head. “Just…” She wiped at her wet face and shoved her hand through her blonde hair. “What the hell was that, Logan?”

“I don’t know,” I murmured. We stood in the epicenter of the portion of the forest I’d leveled. Broken trees and gouged earth surrounded us.

She sniffed, the scent of her disapproval heavy. “Jasper was right. That was… not you. You destroyed their souls. You used them.”

“Fuck off, Olivia. I did what I had to do.”

“No, you did something worse.”

“I returned them to their maker,” I growled. “Can you fault me for that?”

Olivia said nothing, but her shoulders drooped.

“Let’s get back to Six-Mile,” I added. “Emma needs me.”

Olivia summoned her shift, her sandy fur bright beneath the darkening sky. A thunderstorm boiled on the horizon, and lightning darted from the clouds to the ground.

My pulse thundered in my ears, three words keeping time with each beat.

Death becomes me.

CHAPTER TWO

emma

Six-Mile Manor

Monday

Early November

Naked, I stumbled across the lawn and reached the manor, blindly groping the exterior wall of the large house, which had become my home, my safety net. Overhead, lightning stabbed the sky, and thunder followed as I climbed the porch steps.

Sobs choked my throat, and I moved down the decking toward the front door. It opened with a creak, and I slammed it behind me, collapsing against the surface and sliding down until my ass landed on the cool of the hardwood floor. I pulled my feet inward and rested my arms on my knees.

Chunch! Splat!

The cut-off scream, followed by the scent of blood filling my nostrils. The sounds replayed in my head like a warped vinyl record stuck on repeat.

I hadn’t watched. No, I couldn’t look. Not with every other shifter observing me.