Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 93948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Fear slashes me, but I work to keep it out of my voice. We don’t have time for me to have an emotional reaction. “I know.”
“They did so much damage,” they murmur. “Any crops they managed to drag from the earth here will be destroyed. Fishing might be a problem, too.”
“Not to mention they have a brand-new acid lake.” Bastian scrubs a hand over his face. “How many people will die there before they realize what it is? How many kids will die after, ignoring the warnings of their elders about the danger?”
Evelyn frowns. “With a few earth-users, maybe they could cover it up and bury it away.”
“And have it resurface later, even worse than before?” Nox shakes their head. “I’ll send word—”
“How?” I guide them down to sit on the ground. “Your communication with the Council has been destroyed.”
They set their jaw. “There are other ways.”
“Those ways are going to have to wait.” Bowen stumbles a little as he makes his way to us. “I think we’re about to have company.”
I look over his shoulder and, sure enough, a small group of people are following the same path we took out of Kanghri. The distance is too great to pick out their features, even for me, but their movement is intent enough that I have no doubt they’re tracking us. “We need to move.”
Which is a damned problem because most of our party is dead on their feet. Nox can barely stand up on their own. Bowen is leaning heavily on Evelyn, Bastian has deep circles beneath his eyes, and Dia, while spry enough, is as old as dirt. With how fast the other group is moving, they’ll be on us well before we reach the beach, let alone manage to row out to the ship.
“We’ll never make it.” Bowen rolls his shoulders. “Better prepare for a fight when we can choose the location.”
A fight where all of our magic users are tapped. Best case, they remove the threat and go under from magical burnout. Worst case, we all die.
No. Not today. Sure as fuck not here.
“I’m going to shift.” I speak the words numbly. It was one thing to shift with only myself and Bastian as witness, but doing it in front of other people—especially when one of them is a person I care about deeply—feels vulnerable in a way I’d normally do anything to avoid. “I’ll carry you.”
“You’re a shifter.” Evelyn blinks. “Right. That explains a few things. What is your other form?”
“A hound.”
Nox plants their hands on their thighs and seems to focus on breathing. “Even though shifters are larger than normal animals, at best you can carry one other person.”
Bastian shakes his head. “You’re talking about normal shifters. Siobhan isn’t a normal shifter.”
“I can carry all of you.”
Nox is already shaking their head. “Not if you want to actually make it. Take Dia. Figure out the horn business. We’ll hold them off.”
Of all the—I can’t decide if I want to declare aloud that I love them or if I want to knock them over the head so they’ll stop being so damned dramatic. “No one is dying today.” The longer we stand here arguing, the more time we give our enemies to reach us. So I do the only thing I can think of to get us moving. I start pulling off my clothes. “Bastian, get ready with the glamour.”
Bowen spins around so fast, he almost topples over. “A little warning would be nice.”
“You’re so cute.” Evelyn gives him an indulgent look that’s only partially dampened by her clear exhaustion. “It’s just a little nudity. Shifters don’t tend to put emphasis on it the same way some cultures do.”
“All the same. The only person I’m interested in seeing nude is you.”
I do my best to ignore them and kick off my boots. I pass the bag I carried my clothes in to Bastian. “Hang on to this, please.”
Nox stares at him, the bag, and then at my half-naked body. “You certainly know how to make a statement, don’t you?”
Bastian laughs a little. “Siobhan is a true showwoman.”
I flush hot and then curse myself for reacting at all when there’s so much at stake. “There’s no more time for arguing.” I skim off my pants and shove them into Bastian’s hands. The cool air kisses my bare skin. Evelyn is right that shifters don’t worry overmuch about nudity the way some folks do, but I’m not a normal shifter. I don’t have a community like the solitary shifters do. Even before my parents died, they drilled into my head that no one must ever know our secret. In the rare times when we shifted, it was always alone and never as a pack; the better to avoid drawing attention to ourselves.
I allow the magic to unclench inside me. Between one heartbeat and the next, I shift into my other form. My eyesight becomes even better, my sense of smell incomparably superior to a human’s. My body stretches, and I land on four paws before the others.