Page 9 of 3 Shifters to Break a Curse

Surely, he would give up at some point. As laughable as the thought was, I wasn’t about to take the gamble and stop. Even if only to catch my breath for a few precious moments. By the looks of the shadows around, and the moonlight overhead, casting its light on my surroundings, I was almost to the top of the mountain.

The downward incline of the side of the mountain made things much easier on my dwindling strength. I crossed a small creek, hoping the water would throw him off my scent, if that was somehow how he was able to find me, and I smelled the hint of burning wood.

Hope flooded through me as I ran in the direction of the smell and came across a secluded cabin nestled against the tall pine trees of the mountain forest. I made a beeline toward the door as a branch snapped from somewhere behind me. As I stopped at the door, my lungs ached. My legs screamed at me. My body felt drained. I was dizzy and struggled to regain my breath and lower my heart rate.

Still, my desire to live outweighed the discomfort I felt. I found the strength to thump against the door. While I waited for someone to answer, I worked to catch my breath and kept my ears trained for any sounds of Jared coming up from behind me.

After several seconds and no answer, I banged on the door with the palm of my hand.

The door opened to three men staring at me as though I had appeared out of thin air.

I gasped for air and forced out between breaths, “I need help. Please, help me.”

4

EZRA

We were busy working through what Luke had told us when we thought we heard a slight thump on our front door, but the sound was faint and easily dismissed. After sharing a concerned glance, we waited for another knock at the door. When nothing happened, we shrugged off the sound and sat together in our living room, trying to make sense of the news Luke had shared.

He still wasn’t convinced the source of the magic he had detected wasn’t heading our way. He was worried it meant trouble. None of us had much experience with witches, but from my understanding, and what Luke was willing to share, his history wasn’t the greatest.

Luke sniffed the air. “That wasn’t nothing.”

“Well, whatever or whoever it was, they seemed to have gone away,” I said with a shrug.

Someone banged on the door. And we knew there was no mistaking the sound this time.

“There is no shrugging it off now,” Rin growled out. “Someone is at our door.”

I held up my hand. “Let’s just see who it is and go from there.”

“It’s too late for visitors,” Luke said.

“Well, maybe whoever it is needs our help,” I said and stood from the couch.

With Luke and Rin behind me, I answered the door.

A woman, beaten up and looking worse for the wear, stood on the other side. The three of us stared at her in silence for several seconds. She was covered in magic, and I wondered if she was the source of what Luke had detected just minutes before. Considering how badly she reeked of it, I was sure she was. And just like he was worried about, she showed up at our door.

But something told me the circumstances of what brought her to us were very different than what Luke had in mind.

“I need help,” she said, gasping for breath. “Please, help me.”

This was a first for us in the several years we have lived here. The three of us lived off the grid and normally didn’t get any visitors outside of Cadence, Luke’s sister. With the three of us being bear shifters, living a normal life was getting harder by the year. Living off the grid had given us more freedom to be who we were, and we preferred to keep things that way.

But whatever the poor woman had gone through, it almost destroyed her. She collapsed to the floor in our doorway. That was enough to snap us out of our initial shock.

Luke helped me carry her in and sat her down on the couch in front of the fireplace while Rin looked out front for any more unexpected visitors.

“This is a mistake,” Rin grumbled and closed the door.

Luke and I ignored him.

The woman shivered. I pulled the blanket from over the back of the couch and draped it over her. Tear streaks that covered her cheeks glistened within the light of the fire from our fireplace. Her teeth quietly chattered. I nodded to it. “Let’s get a couple more logs on that fire.”

Luke nodded and tossed three more onto the flames, filling the area with more warmth.

I took a seat next to the woman while Luke remained standing. Taking in her condition, I noticed she was in rough shape than I had originally thought. Bruises and cuts covered her body. Her long, chocolate-colored hair was a tangled mess with bits of leaves and dirt. Whatever made her show up at our door, she had gone through hell to do so.

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