Page 67 of Secret Shifters Next Door

Frowning, Blayne asked, “What?”

Then I heard the snapping twigs. Spinning around, I dropped the man and looked toward the surrounding forest. From behind a massive oak tree, Emily strolled out. She smiled without humor and raised an eyebrow at me. Blayne stiffened beside me. She wasn’t the same as the last time I’d been near her in Harley’s house. The power pulsing out of her was almost beyond description. Siobhan was nothing compared to Emily. This was a witch on a totally different level. The scent of magic was almost so overpowering that I couldn’t smell it anymore. I felt it in my pores, and in my hair follicles. It was terrifying. It may have been affecting me more than Blayne since I was a dragon shifter. Myspecies had a closer kinship to magic than bears or wolves or other earthly realm creatures.

“You’re a piece of shit boyfriend, Tate. Why couldn’t you protect Harley?” Emily spat. She looked furious. “Damned shifter garbage. You didn’t deserve Harley. She needs something better than one of you filthy animals. If I could undo the spell, I would.”

I pointed at her. “Explain that! What did you do?”

Emily smirked at me, like a teacher who knew the answer, and the student was too stupid to figure it out. I wanted to lash out at her, to attack her. Blayne’s body was humming next to me, wound tight and ready to spring. He felt the same way. Both of us knew we had to get information. We had to control ourselves to hear what she had to say.

“I tracked youthingsto this town. I created a spell, a very special one. I cast it across the entire town of Lilly Valley. It was supposed to force any shifter into a mating bond. Create fated mates that you couldn’t pull yourselves away from.” She smiled and winked. “You see the beauty, right? Pull you and another shifter together? Two birds with one stone? Well, two dead birds and one stone.”

“Bitch,” Blayne whispered.

“See, I can see all the connections. I can see what my spell is doing even though you can’t. Faint golden threads surrounding the shifters, leading to other gold threads of your mates. But I knew I’d fucked up when your gold thread was wrapped around Harley. Human threads are white, and that shouldnothave been possible. I followed your thread and found you. Disgusting thing that you are, I could almost follow my nose. Dragon shifter, aren’t you? Very rare. You’ll make a good trophy.”

“When I saw that gold thread tied to Harley, it was all I could do to keep my composure. I didn’t think it was even remotelypossible. I had to inspect my spell again. On second look? There are some interesting things I’ve done, very interesting.”

I growled. “Will the spell kill Harley? Will it?”

She looked at me like I was an idiot. “I like Harley, I care for her. I don’t attack humans. I don’t murder, pillage, and feast on humans. Not like you filth. No, humans have to be protected from things like you.” She raised an eyebrow, and a psychotic grin lit on her face. “Now, as for that abomination growing in her belly? That will need to be taken care of.”

It was so fast. I didn’t know I could move that fast. In a blink, I was on her, covering the twenty feet between us in less than a second. I slammed into her, wrapping my hands around her throat, throttling her. She was so caught off guard, she couldn’t even summon her powers. My fingers dug into the soft flesh at the back of her neck, my thumbs pressing into the weak skin of her throat. My dragon’s rage spilled out of me as I choked her.

Emily beat at my arms with her hands, then choked out, “I have more to tell you.”

The words bounced off me, almost completely unheard. All I wanted was to watch the life spill out of her eyes, and then my dragon would incinerate her body so her ashes could scatter in the wind. Emily’s face grew red as I squeezed tighter.

“You’ll… you’ll all die if you deny your mates… souls… ripped apart.”

Blayne was at my side, pulling on my arm. “Tate. Tate, let her go, man. You aren’t a killer, come on.”

Blayne was one of my best friends, but in this, he didn’t know what he was talking about. At this moment, I most definitely was a killer. I would kill her, and I was sure that I wouldn’t regret it. She’d threatened my unborn baby. Neither I, nor my dragon could let that go unpunished.

Emily was slipping away, barely able to keep her eyes open, then she hissed, “Human… mates… if they’re… claimed… they’ll become shifters, too.”

My fingers jerked open on a spasm, the words hitting me like a shotgun blast. Emily dropped to the ground, retching and gasping for breath. She sat on her knees, dry heaving and trying to get air into her body. Blayne’s eyes looked just as wide as mine must have been. Had we heard that right?

“If you claim Harley, she’ll become a shifter?” Blayne asked.

“But if I don’t claim her, I’ll die. That’s what she said.”

Emily, now partially recovered, chuckled maniacally. “How about you do us and the world a favor and don’t claim Harley. I’ll sit outside your house and listen to your screams as you die the most painful death you can imagine. Besides, if you claim her and make her into a shifter, then she’s as unclean as you. She’ll be a target for the hunters.”

My blood ran cold. She stood, wiping the dirt off her jeans, and took a few steps away to put distance between us. My hands were still clenched into claws. I could still imagine her neck between my fingers.

“Tate, this is not what I’d planned. We’ll call it a happy accident. One way or another, my spell will be the end of your kind.”

Before I could say anything, my cell rang. I pulled it from my pocket and answered when I saw it was Steff.

“Where’s Harley?” I barked.

“I’m still following the van. I haven’t lost sight of them.”

Emily was walking back into the woods. She called back to us, “I’m going to save Harley, Tate. Do us a favor and go die. Alone.”

The seething hatred in my heart for Emily was screaming for me to go after her. To sprint into the woods, shift into my dragon, and tear the flesh from her bones, but Harley was myfirst priority. I watched her disappear into the shadows and reluctantly turned back to Luis’s hired man.

I knelt next to him. He looked beyond confused by everything he’d just heard.

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