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As he tightened his arms around her and rested his cheek on top of her head, a surge of power drew the breath from her lungs, and her eyes flew open.
The gasps from the others were audible over the wind created by the beam of glowing power that shot straight up into the sky above them.
The murmurings of the others picked up as she looked around at the floating green ashes that fell to the ground. A small boy of perhaps five or six yelled in delight as he caught green sparks from the air.
A crackling sound filled the clearing, and someone shouted, “The trees!”
Chest heaving, she scanned the glowing clearing, absolutely baffled by what she was seeing. The trees that had been burning were blooming leaves of green fire. She could see it clear as day in the glowing clearing.
“What the hell?” Wreck murmured, cupping the side of her neck with his strong hand as he looked at the others. His gaze landed on a dark-haired man with silver at his temples. He was watching the healing trees, and when he looked back at Wreck, he wore a small smile. His eyes looked strange. The shape of his pupils was off, and his eyes looked silver.
“Detach from her fast just to be safe. We don’t know how much this will drain you. You’ll need to consume ash.”
She didn’t understand his words, but before she could ask, that green shock of power pulled from the sky and back into them, and she was thrown backward. She hit the railing hard, and then Wreck was just…gone.
All that was left behind was a red streak of fire that drove straight into the atmosphere, and the burn of the heat he’d created.
She shielded her face as the intensity of the hot temperature dissipated.
“Holy. Shit.” A blond-haired man uttered, looking up into the sky. Owen, if the pictures of the Fastlanders were anything to go by. “Well, that was pretty fuckin’ cool.”
“Owen!” A big, barrel-chested man said, settling his massive hands over the little boy’s ears. “Language, man!”
“I can’t see the fuckin’ fireflies anymore!” the kiddo said.
The barrel-chested man shoved Owen in the shoulder so hard, he flew backward a few steps.
“Honey, I don’t know what they were, but I don’t think they were alive, and also, we don’t say the F-word,” a woman said from beside them.
“You should go look inside,” the silver-eyed man said.
Timber looked back up at the sky, worried for Wreck.
“He will be back,” the man promised. “I’m Damon,” he introduced himself.
“Damon…” She cleared her throat.Be cool. “Damon Daye?” she guessed.
His slow, reptilian smile said she’d guessed right. “You’re Timber. We knew you were coming, we just didn’t know when. You are everything we hoped that you would be.”
“We?”
He didn’t explain further though, just turned and walked away. The crowd parted for him, and she was left feeling like she was in another world completely.
These were the shifters she’d heard rumors of for her entire life. These were the famous ones. These were the ones with trading cards that people went crazy over. She recognized some in the crowd. Willamena Barns, the Almost Alpha of the Gray Backs. Clinton Fuller of the Boarlanders. Tagan James was standing right at the front, and he was Alpha of the Ashe Crew.
She was among shifter royalty, and they were looking at her likeshewas something interesting?
She swallowed hard and gave a little wave. Was she going to have a panic attack? Maybe. “Um, hi.”
“We’re going to check out the house,” Hallie announced as she scaled the porch steps and pushed Timber inside.
The smoke had cleared out completely, and whatever had been sparking earlier had stopped. It was dark, so she pulled her phone out and turned on the flashlight function, then shone it around. “Oh my gosh,” she murmured, taking it all in. Everywhere that was burned was just…gone. There was nodried lava or singe marks. The edges of the open roof were just raw, not a single charred mark to be seen. There were just huge chunks of the house missing with no clue left behind as to what caused the damage.
Hallie sat heavily on the good side of the couch, but it shifted and fell at an angle into the emptiness that had been burned and then healed away. She laughed a shocked sound.
“I didn’t know he could do green fire.”
“Me either,” a woman said from the doorway. Her eyes were glowing gold.
