Unbound: Shifters Forever Worlds(17)

I don’t want to do this, stop!

She railed at her ivy, and pushed the shift away. But her ivy had gathered strength and overpowered Glory’s will.

I hate you. Leave me be, Glory screamed in her mind.

Again, to no avail. The ivy had made her decision and had one goal in mind. The ivy pursued it doggedly.

One agonizing inch after another, her legs took form, muscles pulling together while branches cracked, creaking with the effort to create tendons and bones that had not been operational in years.

With jerky spasms, her legs took shape, covered in mud. The transformation took an hour. At the end, Glory looked down at the human body she’d long ago abandoned.

Her clothes, which always shifted with her, had become rags after all those years, not completely preserved. They’d fallen away from her body, tattered filthy fabric, she was nude and laying in the muddy puddle she’d made even deeper from her own thrashing.

Glory studied her body with an impartial eye, as if it was no longer hers. Indeed, she wasn’t sure it was hers anymore, it no longer looked like the body she’d had when she’d shifted into her ivy all those years ago.

She’d lost weight. Her curves were gone, she was a caricature of her former self.

Blood seeped through dozens of scratches and gouges from the rocks she’d struck with her flailing movements.

A crack of thunder heralded another bout of heavy showers. Glory moved to a seated position and leaned her back against the brick wall her ivy had grown against all these years.

She looked at the baby’s marker. A large unformed, untouched white boulder, lined with green and gray veins. She’d picked that boulder herself. She’d found it near the spot where she’d lost the baby those years ago. She’d hefted it, a little distance at a time, until she finally got it to the garden, and placed it as a remembrance of where their baby had been created.

That stone held meaning. The gray lines had been the color of Dane’s eyes the day he’d made love to her. The green was a color close to her own eyes. It was as if that stone represented and had taken their baby’s soul into itself.

Now it was covered in mud from her thrashing branches as she’d fought off the shift. Raindrop after raindrop washed the stone while she stared at it, immobile. The same rain pelted her body, clearing away the mud and blood, leaving her there, a nude gaunt, haunted being.



A moan and movement pulled Glory back to the present, leaving the memories of that day and the baby behind, though never completely faded.

She peeked up at Dane’s face. His eyes were still closed, his breathing regular. The arm he’d flung around her moved to above his head, leaving her no longer a captive in his embrace.

The hot tears she’d shed began to cool against her flesh.

What have I done?

If anyone found out they were together…

What kind of repercussions would there be? Could Perry file charges against her with the Shifter Supreme Court? Could he take her family’s property as collateral? Would he ask for that? Why would he? What if he wanted revenge for being cuckolded? What if he wanted revenge that didn’t involve the Shifter Supreme Court? The kind of revenge that shifters took when they hired rovers.

What if he wanted Dane to pay the price?

With his life.

Glory’s hand flew to her mouth. She bit her knuckle to keep the outcry at the thought of Dane having to pay for this with his life, if Perry chose to have him killed.

She couldn’t have Dane dragged into this.

She’d have to leave.

And never see Dane again.

And deny this ever happened, deny it, even to herself.

She lifted herself off Dane’s body as quietly and with as much stealth as she could, grabbing her clothing as she made her way to the front door. She stopped in the hallway, threw her clothes on, then tiptoeing and holding her breath until she’d turned the knob, then she slipped out and pulled the door closed behind her.

Once outside, she released the breath and ran toward her own property.

Hot tears blinded her. She stopped, swiped them away, and then began her brisk pace again.

She was halfway home, no small feat as their land between her family home and Dane’s family home spanned many acres. She paused.

I have no plan. What will I do if he comes for me?

She’d have to tell him she was taken. That it was a mistake.

Her heart ached at what he’d have to go through, it would be a flashback moment for him, not unlike the one he went through more than a decade ago.

A lump in her throat signaled that she’d be going through more tears. She cursed at the idea of crying again.

A crack sounded behind her. She turned toward the noise. Her ivy senses on high alert. Could Dane have found her already? She remained motionless, listening for more sounds.

Another crack.

There it was. Definitely closer.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

She rose to her feet, ready for a showdown with Dane.

“Look, Abel. Look what we have.” That was not Dane’s voice. It sounded slick, like dirty motor oil would sound if it made noise.

A man stepped out from behind a thick tree trunk. His voice matched his face. Long hair, pulled back into a greasy ponytail, an eagle’s beak for a nose, and a craggy, pitted face was perched on a thick neck.

Shifter!

And not a friendly one.

Another shifter stepped out from behind another tree, clearly Abel was related to the first shifter. “I see her. And she’s sweeter looking than her sister was. I wonder if she’ll be as difficult to break.”