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Dad bounced back and stared in horror at what Jameson had just done.
“You’re next,” Jameson growled.
Dad’s smirk had been wiped off his face. He wasn’t laughing anymore. He held up the amulet, and more power pulsed around us, dancing on my skin like electricity. It became searing hot, and I screamed.
Dad bellowed, too. The amulet started to glow, the light becoming so bright, it blinded me. Then, as if it had found its direction, it slid along Dad’s arm into his chest.
Oh. Shit.
Dad let out a growling sound that was nothing like the sound of a normal bear shifter.
“Do you know what this means, Jamie?”
“Don’t call me that,” Jameson snapped.
“This means you’re in deep shit.”
“I can still take you,” Jameson challenged.
“Yeah?” Dad asked. “Which one of me? My bear?”
In a flash, Dad was in his bear form. It had happened so fast, I’d barely seen the shift at all. When Dad talked again, the sound of his voice came from the bear’s mouth, and it was disconcerting.
“What about my wolf?” He slipped into the form of a wolf with ease.
What the fuck?
Dad wasn’t a wolf. He’d never been a wolf.
“The amulet has turned you into a shapeshifter,” Jameson said. I couldn’t tell if his voice held fear or surprise.
“I can turn into whatever power was in this thing,” Dad said and shifted so that he was an eagle.
A panther, a lion, a leopard.
A fox.
When he shifted back into human form, he looked pleased with himself.
“Pretty neat, huh?”
“Did you kill all of them?” Jameson asked.
“Oh, no. At least half of them are still alive. The other half…” Dad shrugged. “It’s a means to an end, the greater good. Few must die so many will live.” He burst out laughing. “Okay, okay. That’s not true. Many died soIcan live. I am the greater good.”
Before I could process what was happening, Dad shifted into a bear and attacked Jameson.
Jameson shifted, too. It was a normal shift—faster than any shifter who wasn’t an alpha, but slower than the magical freakshow my dad had become—and the two bears stood on their hindlegs and fought. They slapped each other, sank their teeth into fur, and the grunts and growls were accompanied by surges of magic.
I yanked and pulled at the ties around my wrists, trying to get free, trying to help. What the hell had they tied me with?
When I could, I did what I did best. I shifted into my fox form, became smaller, and slipped out of the ties easily. As soon as I was free, I shifted back into human form. I pulled my clothes on again as quickly as I could and scrambled out of the way when the two bears tumbled over the car and debris landed on top of me.
The fight was brutal. The magic was so thick in the air, I couldn’t breathe anything else. Goosebumps ran up and down my arms, and I struggled to breathe, found gulps of magic, felt like I was being suffocated and revived at the same time.
The fight moved out of the wreckage and into the trees. I had no idea where we were—I’d thought we were in the city, but it looked like we were in the middle of nowhere.
The bears still fought, and I couldn’t tell which was which anymore. It was dark outside, the night sky littered with stars like a diamond bowl upended.
