Page 83 of Tangled Fates

I threaded my strength through the muscles of the little girl, and I watched her leap into the air. Pride filled my entire being as she swiped her talons through the air, raking them along the faces of the panther. She chomped her knife-like teeth into their sides, spilling blood where we stood as we dodged attacks the best that we could.

She was light on her feet, and it served her well as we took both of the panthers down together.

Yes! We did it, Alpha! We did it!

I couldn’t help but laugh. Now, you go find your parents. Take my strength with you, and know that all you have to do is call out for help. Okay?

Thank you so much!

I gazed around and found yet another wolf that had been backed into a corner, and I focused my attention onto them. I squeezed my eyes closed, conjuring the fear in their eyes before I opened mine again. I still had no idea how the hell I did it, or what I was really doing, because I wasn’t controlling them. I wasn’t taking over their bodies. It was almost like I was gaining access to their nervous systems. Like they were giving me control of their muscles in order to fill them with the strength and power they needed in order to succeed.

It made me wonder if I could somehow jump into the bodies of the bears and panthers, too.

One by one, I hopped into the musculatures of those that belonged to my pack. I allowed them access to my energies, even though it zapped me of my own strength. I wasn’t the one that needed it, though. We all needed every shred of it that we could get if we were going to win this fight. We were completely outnumbered by at least three-to-one, and I was still shell-shocked at the fact that there were fucking panther shifters roaming these mountains as well.

Were there deer shifters, too? Or squirrels? Were all of the animals in the forest shifters of some sort?

God, how much would it suck to be a shifter ant?

After completely bleeding myself dry of any and all energy, I zapped myself back into my own body. I mean, it wasn’t like I had ever left my body in the first place, but still. I stumbled around, traipsing around the corpses of bears and panthers as blood coated my feet and left marks behind where I stepped. I wanted to find a perched position. Somewhere where I could survey the forest in order to clock just how many shifters were headed in our direction.

But as I turned toward the forest where I had first seen that panther poking its eyes out from the darkness, something moved. Something undulating. It didn’t make any sense, though.

Jesus, I’m losing it.

The sound of growling and thunderous running rippled around me as I stalked toward the moving object. It wasn’t really an object, though. I saw something moving. Some sort of outline that enabled me to see the forest behind it. I felt like I was going crazy, honestly, and the closer I approached the moving mirage, the further away it seemed to go.

Wait up! Hold on a second!

Just as I found the strength to bolt after the undulating mirage, something tackled me from the left. I fell to the ground with a grunt as my right side slid across rocks and twigs and dirt. I kicked my feet, sinking my long, sharp claws into whatever the hell had decided to come at me from the shadows. And as I heaved the figure over my head, my back still sliding across the ground, I released the animal into the sky.

Before I scrambled to get back onto my feet.

Not this time, you mangy little cat.

Just as quickly as the mirage had appeared, it faded out of the corner of my eye. The black panther dripped with blood from the holes in its stomach as it teetered on its own feet, its eyes still leveled with me. It hobbled toward me, almost as if it were attempting to charge, but didn’t have the ability to do so.

And the more it crept closer, the more I focused on it.

Come to Mama.

I closed my eyes and conjured the scenery around us. I saw the struggling cat right in front of me, then the scene pivoted, and I imagined what it would be like to sink into the cat’s body. The idea overwhelmed me with nausea, but I still tried. I still attempted to dig myself into the cat’s body so that I could control it.

But when I opened my eyes, I hadn’t moved an inch.

Fuck.

I watched as the cat crept closer. I did my best to try and insert myself into the mind’s eye of that creature, if anything to see if I could root around in its brain. I wanted answers, and if I had to dig around in the enemy’s mind, then so fucking be it.

Before the cat could get to me, though, a black wolf came from out of nowhere. It jumped out of the shadows and tackled the little kitty to the ground, ripping at the black coat of fur with its claws. The wolf went wild, tearing the damned animal limb from limb. And when the wolf turned its onyx stare toward me, it grinned.

Hey there, Hudson.

You okay, Alpha?

I nodded. Yeah, you okay?

He walked toward me and perched at my side. I’ll be better once we chase these animals off our turf.

---