Unbound: Shifters Forever Worlds(22)

“Your father’s family was reinstated back to power. And you’re the only heir.”

Behind Perry two of the shifters began to cough. He gave them a dirty look. “What’s your problem?”

The two shifters glanced at each other.

“Nothing. Sorry,” one said.

And yet the shifters didn’t look apologetic.

“So if I’m…” Glory didn’t want to use the word dead. “So if I am not around, my nearest relative…”

Perry nodded and indicated Sara with a flip of his wrist.

“He’s using you,” Glory warned Sara.

“No he’s not. He’s not using me, are you?”

“Of course not, dearest.” Perry put his arm around Sara. “Let’s get you away from this damp forest. I can’t have my lovely bride catching a cold.” He gave the shifters a pointed glance. “Take care of her,” indicating Glory with a nod.

He turned away from Glory and guided Sara into the woods.

“Surely you’re not okay with this!” Glory yelled toward Sara’s departing back.

Her shifter hearing picked up Sara’s question. “You’re not going to let them kill Glory, right?”

“Right.” Perry glanced back at Glory then looked at the shifters once more.

Glory was certain Sara couldn’t see Perry’s eye roll.





13





Basil approached Glory, a menacing look on his face, features drawn down in a scowl, yellow teeth bared. His badger was very definitely beginning to make an appearance.

“You killed Abel. You’ll pay.”

“It’s not like you planned to let me live, anyway.” Glory fidgeted with the binds fighting to release herself, calling for her ivy to come forward, but to no avail.

Her ivy remained absent.

Was it the tranq that had rendered her unable to shift?

“We can’t let Basil have all the fun,” the shifter called Morton said. “Come on, Bill.”

Bill let out a laugh that reminded Glory of a hyena. His eyes traveled over Glory in a way that made shivers run over her spine. She couldn’t hide the shudder that racked her body.

Catching her response, Bill released his scavenger giggle again. “Aw, don’t worry little ivy shifter, we won’t hurt you.” He winked. “Too much. How do you like the way that tranq takes your shifting abilities away? Did the same thing to your sister.”

Fury plunged Glory into an abyss of anger. “Let me loose, you bastard.” She had no idea what she could do to them without her shifter powers, but she’d try to kill them with her bare human hands for hurting her family.”

More of Bill’s laughter, then the other shifters joined in his mirth.

A roar shook the forest, silencing the laughing thuggish shifters.

Glory’s pulse began a beat, synchronizing to another heartbeat nearby, one she was familiar with. One she’d synched with many times in years prior. .

Dane.

That was Dane’s roar. Dane’s heartbeat.

She looked around, hoping her shifter eyes could find his mottled camouflaged colors amongst the forest’s shadows, but had no luck. Wherever he was, he was managing to keep his location secret.

“Who’s out there?” Bill said, a tremor vibrating his voice.

“You’re dead now.” Glory told them, keeping her volume low and calm, not letting her concern for Dane show in her tone. Dane against these three wasn’t the odds she’d wanted him to face. And Dane had no idea she couldn’t shift to help him.

She called for her ivy, though she knew her requests were futile, her ivy couldn’t respond, couldn’t help her, and couldn’t shift.

Another roar. She concentrated on the sound, picked up a general location but didn’t look in that direction because Basil’s eyes were glued on her, watching for her reaction, probably.

She closed her eyes to slits, and sent a silent prayer that Dane would not be harmed. The roar stopped abruptly and out of the forest leapt a large silhouette, landing with a soft sound on the wet leaves and yielding dirt, then bounding upward and crashing into Bill.

Dane’s snow leopard jaws locked on Bill’s shoulder, massive canines gleaming before sinking into flesh.

Bill screeched, the sound almost inhuman, then bones began to crunch as he tried to shift into his animal. Bristled fur poked through human skin. Bill’s face elongated, a hyena’s snout forming.

That explains the laugh.

His eyes darkened to black, then morphed to a beady shape, gleaming with feral anger and pain from Dane’s bite.

Basil rushed toward Glory, pulling a knife from his pocket and releasing the blade with a flip. A measure of gleaming steel was a mere inches away from Glory’s face when he yelled, “I’ll kill her right now. Release him.”

Dane didn’t. Instead, he shook his head, throwing Bill into a screaming frenzy, making his shifting freeze in a mid-state, looking like a genetic experiment gone very badly. A hyena’s skull with a hyena’s snout, but human cheekbones and chin. His arms had remained human though his paws had shifted.

Basil placed the knife against Glory’s’ throat, piercing skin with the tip of the blade.

“I’ll cut her. She can’t shift to heal.”