Epilogue
Five hours later, we sat in folding chairs scattered around the small Shifter Shield office—me, Kade, Eduardo, Jeremiah, and Shadow. Janice, the current leader of the Shifter Council, had been and gone, taking our statements in between. I pulled a slice of pizza from the box sitting atop the main desk, and offered it to Kade, who held Serena in his uninjured arm. She had taken human form for him, happily snuggling into his arms and taking a bottle, though she had stayed in her serpent shape the entire time she had been with me. I wondered if that was going to be a pattern. I’d had Dr. Jimson come examine her over here, but had refused to let her out of my sight since we saved her from the werewolves.
I still didn’t have everything straight, though I was beginning to get a better picture of what exactly had happened.
“Were you there when Janice and the Shields questioned the survivors from this morning’s attack in the parking lot?” I asked Jeremiah and Shadow. Shadow shook her head, as Jeremiah said, “I was. They didn’t get much information out of them, though apparently the plan to attack you was an escalated timeline from something else they had put in motion a while ago—the fact that Shadow and I came here to you seem to the wolves to be serendipitous timing.”
“None of them seemed, from what little I overheard, to have any knowledge of what the one I killed in the lead-in on the road from Georgia said to me.” Shadow shrugged.
“It sounds like this was a one-off, then.” Kade bounced Serena in his arm.
“What did you do at the house?” Shadow asked me. “I could only see part of it, but it looks like it left behind some kind of… wound in the world.”
“Yes, were going to have to discuss that,” Eduardo said, back to being my mentor and instructor now that the crisis was over.
I felt bad about what I done to save Serena. There really were now two brand-new tears in reality, all because of me. Was beginning to wonder if disability had been part of why the shifters had originally wanted to take out lamia in the first place.
I shrugged. “I think we need to see if we can figure out what these cracks are, anyway. I seem to be the only one who could create them, even if I’m not the only one who can use them, so I think we need to see if we can figure out—is this a lobbying ability, or a Lindi ability?” I put down the uneaten half a slice of pizza, suddenly no longer hungry.
“I agree,” Kade said. “It might be time for us to put some effort into determining the source of all those magical hotspots we know of.”
Everyone looked sober for a moment, reflecting on what that might entail.
I expected none of us really knew.
We were still engrossed in our individual thoughts when the door to the office swung open and two people rushed in and shut it behind them.
They both had shiny dark hair, but whereas the woman was small and fair, with skin so pale I could almost see the blue veins running under it, the man was taller, darker, his skin the color of bronze.
They gazed around at all of us, their eyes wide and slightly crazed. The woman wore her arm bandaged. It must’ve been a really horrific wound, because even from here I could smell the shifter on her—she should have been able to heal anything less than major trauma. He was a shifter, too, though of an entirely different sort. The air around her tasted of freedom, flight, and air, whereas he smelled of close, dark jungles. And cat.
Whatever their specific shifter animals might be, they were at the very base a cat and a bird.
Yet another odd shifter pairing.
I seemed to be collecting those. Starting with my own.
I wasn’t technically on duty, but the next Shield wasn’t supposed to check in until at least another hour had passed.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, we are here in Dallas to meet with the lamia.” The man had a deep, Hispanic accent.
“Yes,” the woman added. “We need to speak to her as soon as we can.”
A sense of déjà vu swept over me, making me dizzy and leaving me reeling toward the desk, where I sat down with a thump into the office chair.
“That’s me,” I said. I finally decided there was no advantage to be had in hiding any longer. “I’m Lindi Parker, the lamia. What do you need?”
“It’s werewolves. They’re coming to get you,” the man said.
I sighed in relief, and the rest of the room seemed to exhale at once, as well. “The werewolves attacked this morning. We survived. Everything’s fine.” I interlaced my fingers and said my elbows on the desk, dropping my chin down into my hands. “Thanks for coming in, though.”
But they were both shaking their heads. “Whatever you saw today,” the man said, “it wasn’t the werewolves we’re talking about. That was a small group.”
“What’s coming next is an army.” The woman added.
I shot my gaze toward Kade, who, along with everyone else in the room, seemed frozen in place. “Tell me what you know,” I finally said. “Tell me everything.”
“We don’t have much information. But we know for sure that the werewolves are coming for you,” the woman said. “They’re determined to make sure the lamias are wiped out for good this time. And they’re building an army to do it.”
Oh, hell.
This wasn’t nearly as close to over as I had hoped.
I glanced around the room, at the people who had joined me today to help me fight to protect Serena.
If I had to go up against an army, this was exactly the group I’d choose.
One by one, each one of them nodded, answering my unspoken question.
“The werewolves are coming?” I asked, then answered without waiting for a response. “Let them.”
One thing I knew for sure: their army would never expect what we’d have waiting for them when they got here.
* * * * *
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Missed Jeremiah and Shadow’s sexy first meeting? Keep reading for their story in Laugh Out Love, included below!