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Music pulsed a thumping beat, every note from the drums like a punch to the chest as I stood next to the speakers. I needed the distraction even though it hurt my ears. Bodies gyrated all around me. Good old Rochester giving the local shifters a place to unwind and get freaky to the sound of early 2000s dance music.
A beautiful deer shifter ground her ass against me, but it did absolutely nothing for me. It was stupid of me to be here. I was close enough that all I could think about was her, but still too far away that I could give into the impulse and show up out of nowhere.
Her.
Logan.
My brother’s mate.
She was the one woman on this godsforsaken earth I couldn’t have, so of course she was the one woman I was so fucking in love with it was physically painful.
It wasn’t my fault. I’d tried not to be. It didn’t matter how many people I tried to be with in every sense of the word, none of it touched that ever-burning torch I carried for her.
I pushed away from the deer shifter and went to get a shot of vodka at the bar. It never helped. It didn’t matter where I was, I could feel her as if she were magnetic north. I was nothing but a hapless compass needle, drawn always in her direction.
Fuck.
I downed the shot, hoping one day I would find the unique balance between drowning out my awareness of the woman I couldn’t have and the point just before I was hurling my guts out.
Tomorrow I would have to go farther. I could never stay away as long as I needed to, because even when I made it to the other side of the country and that awareness dimmed, it was replaced by the incessant need to feel it again.
Another shot. Another glass slammed back down on the bar as I savored the burn.
Nausea churned my gut. I stumbled to the bathroom and expelled all the money I had just consumed. I lingered for a moment to splash cool water on my face before venturing back out into the music, the sound as I opened the door like walking into a brick wall.
One of my buddies found me as I turned the corner back into the main room. “There you are. Someone can’t hold their liquor.”
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up, Tommy.”
Unease prickled up my spine. I spun around but saw nothing out of the ordinary. I’d felt it on a few occasions since the last time I saw Logan. There was never anything to cause it, but I never stuck around for long to investigate further.
I was about to ask if Tommy was ready to leave when a scream rent the air.
We both turned to the sound. One of the club patrons, an owl shifter I vaguely recognized, was held aloft in the air, shouting his head off. The crowd backed away and it was then I realized nothing was holding him up.
I jerked back against the wall.
What the fuck was that?
I watched with rising horror as the light in his eyes faded and snuffed out. He was tossed aside like a ragdoll, and the deer shifter who had tried to dance with me was snatched up next. She screamed and flailed, neither doing anything to dissuade the invisible force that held her.
“Shit,” Tommy mumbled. “We have to get out of here.”
By now the crowd was panicking, stampeding to the exits, with more than one person disappearing beneath their feet.
Being a panther shifter meant not much in this world that scared me. I was the predator. But…whatever that thing was made me feel like a mouse under a cat's paw.
It felt wrong.
I’d encountered a lot of shit in my life; some things felt out of place, like they didn’t belong, and this thing, this fucking thing, sure as hell didn’t belong.
I felt like a dick leaving the deer shifter, but I couldn’t fight something I couldn’t see, and I wasn’t ready to die. Something brushed against me, feeling like ice sinking straight into my bones, and I surged forward, desperate to escape the feeling.
Tommy dragged me outside with the herd and shoved me into his car. “What the sweet fucking hell was that, man?”
“I don’t think we want to know. Do you think the owl’s dead?”
“Looked that way.” Tommy slammed his foot on the gas and ripped through town until we hit the interstate.
