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The light of the moon was enough to see the fight by, but the two bears tumbled over each other, ripped shreds of flesh from each other, scratched and bled, healed and attacked again.
Through the trees, a howling sound caught my attention.
Wolf shifters.
Ours? I hoped so.
Movement caught my eye, and a panther silently crept through the trees close to me. Not too far off, an eagle and an owl flew silently through the air.
Magic rose as a whole pack of shifters assembled, but the two bears were too busy fighting to notice.
When the panther came close enough, it sniffed me.
“Felix?” I asked in a whisper.
He dipped his head.
“He’s powerful. He’s using all the power he has of every shifter he ever killed. I don’t know how you’re going to—”
“Ah, you’re all here,” Dad said, and he was suddenly in his human form again. Jameson was still in his bear form, curling on the ground, fighting something that I couldn’t see. “I was hoping you would come. I was in the mood for some fun. Come on, what are we waiting for?”
Felix growled and attacked.
Before he reached my dad, Tate turned into an eagle, and he slammed large talons into Felix’s panther neck. Felix let out a horrifying cry.
Wolves attacked, but Tate shifted into a bear and slapped them across the heads so hard they staggered. When Jameson attacked, Dad was human, but he threw magic at Jameson that was so powerful, it glowed in the night, and Jameson growled and scrubbed at his bear face as if it burned.
More bears arrived. These were all my dad’s bears. I could tell by the way their magic scraped against my skin—I’d been around this kind of magic often enough to know what trouble felt like.
They attacked the pack, and each shifter had its hand—or paws and claws—full with bears that had a larger dose of magic than they should have.
Of course, none of them would have been as powerful as my dad. Tate would never have accepted something like that. He was the kingpin, and he would always be the kingpin, no matter what he allowed his loyal subjects.
I stayed out of the fray. Xantha was dead, but her darkness still clung to me, and I had nothing I could offer, not yet. I didn’t know how long it would last, but if I shifted now and started fighting, I would get myself killed.
A white-robed figure moved through the trees. She looked like a vision, a ghost, or an angel at first. I had to blink a couple of times to realize who I saw.
Carletta.
She was barefoot, her long brown hair streaming behind her, and the dress she wore shifted and swayed in the breeze. She came toward me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’m doing the right thing,” she said. “I’m doing what I should have done ages ago.”
“What?” I asked.
Carletta kneeled next to me. “I’m sorry I blew your cover.”
“What?”
“My magic. It’s unstable because I don’t shift, and I think that’s what broke your veil of protection.”
I blinked at her. “I don’t think…” I wanted to tell her it wasn’t her fault, but maybe that wasn’t true. She’d touched me once, and Autumn had had to help me. When she’d touched me again, protecting me against Jameson, my dad had found me.
The amulet had been safe until Xantha had used me to find it because Carletta hadn’t ever touched it with her unstable magic.
“It’s not your fault,” I said, and this time, I meant her magic and how unstable she was. It wasn’t her fault that her sister had been killed.
