Page 144 of Shifter Situations

Stone stood in place, having no reaction except a slow tilt of his head. He padded forward, his steps soundless on the concrete floor. I followed closely behind him, noticing that the air smelled sweet but stale.

I hadn’t been in the wrong place earlier, though something was terribly off about this space. My anxiety ratcheted up a notch with every foot of distance I put between myself and the threshold. My breaths grew more rapid as the seconds ticked by.

The apartment wasn’t a residence at all. It was four exterior walls with nothing inside. The entire area was empty save for a silver tin in the dead center of the floor.

I strode to the windows on the far side of the room, looking out to see a perfect view of the front door of the office building across the street.

The office that, up until May, I spent my workdays at.

“Where did the cluttered entryway go?” Briggs whispered, perplexed as he looked around.

Stone lifted a shoulder in indifference. “I’ve never passed her foyer, so maybe it’s always looked like this?”

“This is where I landed earlier,” I confessed, more to myself than them. “I didn’t stay long enough to take anything in.”

Along the thin, black sills at the base of the windows were beautiful fae crystals. I knew better than to touch them, though. They were too similar to the ones we took from the camp.

"Vaughn? How do we destroy these? They could be the answer to all the weird shit that's happening here."

As my fae lumbered over to where I stood, Palmer called out to me. I held my index finger up, silently asking for him to wait as Vaughn leaned closer to the colorful crystals.

His eyes iced over as his ire rose, frosted lashes touching his cheek. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

“See what Palmer needs, Princess, and ask Stone to come over here.”

I furrowed my brows, wanting to push back, but I didn’t. Those magic crystals were unchartered territory for me, and I didn’t want to fuck with them. I simply wanted them gone or out of sight. We could put them in the safe at home if needed.

As long as they couldn’t drain our power without our knowledge, then I didn’t mind…

That was a lie.

I wanted them destroyed. End of story.

I made my way to Palmer, sending my demon back to Vaughn.

Briggs and my mage were kneeling beside the tin and had removed the lid to expose cookies and a note. Palmer grabbed the grease-stained paper.

My wolf picked up a cookie, sniffing at it before shrugging a shoulder nonchalantly. He brought it to his mouth, and Novak slapped the treat from his hand so hard that it flew across the room, crumbling when it hit the wall.

“What the fuck are ye playin’ at?” Palmer admonished.

Briggs raised his hands in surrender. “Damn, Mage. Chill out. It’s only a cookie.”

“Did we miss you hitting your head or something?” York questioned.

Novak kicked the tin, launching the rest of the cookies to the other side of the room. Briggs rolled his forest green eyes, though they twinkled with amusement as he winked at me.

“Just trying to break some of the tension,” he muttered.

I glanced at my demon and fae, watching as Vaughn formed a tight ball of water around the cluster of crystals. Stone covered it with a layer of hellfire, and my fae added a shell of ice to that.

When the ice was fully hardened, Vaughn closed his fist and twisted his wrist. The sphere they’d created began to shrink in size until it imploded. The noise it created felt like an echo against my eardrum. It wasn’t a loud sound, but it was deep.

Glittering drops of water pelted the concrete floor, and Stone was quick to dry them up.

“Can you two do that to slime?” Novak inquired.

We all snapped our heads in the direction of his voice, finding him standing next to the crushed cookies and silver tin.