The other Fascinators and I sat at a round table chatting while the cleaning crew swept up around us. Tabi, who sat beside me, linked her arm with mine and gave a tug. “You know we aren’t just a fundraising society. We’re a bit more.” The wink-wink was implied, but I got the gist.
“I think I’ve figured that out by now.” I wasn’t ignorant any more. They were a pack. Esther was their alpha. I was a new recruit. But I chuckled.
Esther nodded and delivered a wan smile. “You’ll be formally sworn in at the next full moon.”
The next full moon. “All right.” I wasn’t going to complain. After everything, I knew the importance of being in a pack, and after seeing Esther’s armory room, no way was I aligning myself with anyone else.
“Some shifters don’t survive their first full moon shift.” Tabi was beaming. “But you’re a rockstar. You have shifted at will, have shifted into animals based on what you needed.” I hadn’t really told anyone else about the mouse or the eagle, but they all knew anyway. I assumed Tabi tattled. “You are a treasure.”
I ducked my head. “Thanks.”
This was the first time I’d had a group of friends since Tilly’s first grade PTA moms sent me packing because I was a single woman who said one of their husbands was good looking. Plus, Declan had asked me out for a date. This was aDear Diarykind of night.
And it would’ve continued had my phone not buzzed from the pocket hidden in this fabulous dress. “Hello.”
“Mom?” Her voice was high and shrill. This wasn’t a normal call for help and my stomach clenched.
“Tilly? What’s wrong?” Silence fell over the table. Probably because I sounded frantic, like I was about to lose it to panic.
“I’m in trouble, Mom.”
That was all I needed to hear. And this time when I went to save her, I would have a new pack of friends with me.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
With Esther and Tabi beside me, we drove to the edge of town where Tilly had said she had ended up. The moonlight shone brightly, not full, but still enough to give us ample light. “Here,” Esther said, holding something in the palm of her hand.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A charm,” Tabi said from the back seat. “Wear the ring all the time and your clothes will shift with you.”
I took the ring almost reverently, looking down at it in awe. “How’d you get this?” I whispered as I slipped the gold band on my right ring finger. It was way too big at first, but a few seconds later, it fit perfectly. Not too tight but wouldn’t fall off. “Whoa.”
“I have a witch friend who makes charms like this for a small fee,” Esther said. “It takes her several days to make them. That’s the only reason we’re just now getting it to you.”
“Thanks,” I said, awkwardly wondering how much it had cost her and if I should offer to reimburse her. Maybe when I knew her better I’d ask. One day.
Tilly had said she hadn’t had a lot of time to talk, so she’d given me the basic details and asked me to hurry over. This felt like when she was little and called me to pick her up from a sleepover, or a bad date, but the stakes now were so much higher.
Still, I was thankful she’d called. The fact that I was still the person she went to when she was over her head reassured me that a lot might’ve changed, but we were still mother and daughter. We would still do anything for each other.
I was out of the car almost before it rolled to a stop. And in this dress, shifter or not, that was no small feat. An old gas station was boarded up on one side. It’d closed after the main road into town had been built, and now few people traveled the longer, less-well-maintained road. Which, for some reason, made this the perfect place for a psycho pack of shifters to hang out at.
Tilly had sounded so desperate, telling me they weren’t far behind the gas station. Just the tone of her voice was enough to make panic flow through my body. I ran into the forest, running faster than I had in years, and listened as Esther and Tabi arrived beside me. For three women our age, we moved with agility and speed that was shocking. I knew shifters were said to heal faster, move faster, and so on, but this was the first time I was really seeing it in my human form.
And then there was the way my senses seemed to flow all around me. How hadn’t I noticed it before? I could hear the ladies’ heartbeats, and I even thought I could hear Tilly’s, not far away, and feel my daughter’s tension in the air. Being a shifter had heightened my senses. All of the training of the past four days had involved me tuning into my new senses, which apparently, had worked.
I raced ahead to where I could feel her fear better and stopped short when I saw her. Her boyfriend—the bear shifter—had his arm around her neck. Anger bubbled up inside and I growled. “Let her go.”
“Please, Cam.” Tilly’s tone was thin, lacking the air to make a full-voice.
“Shut up.” He glared at Esther then switched his glance to me. “You want her to live, you come with me, quietly. Alone.”
My gaze didn’t waver. I didn’t care what this little punk had to say. I wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was Tilly. If he wanted to face down this Mama bear, I could make that happen. And my money would always be on my Mama bear.
“Nobody has to get hurt. Just come with me,” he growled, and it was clear, that thing I saw in him. That cruelty that shone from his eyes, reaching deep into the black pit where his soul should’ve been.
This man, he wanted to hurt someone. I didn’t think he cared who it was.
