Page 65 of Shifter Situations

“I should have fucking known,” Briggs grumbled. “We’d speculated, but—”

Baylor grunted. “Don’t beat yourself up, Big. Leave that for the rest of us.”

The young woman’s eyebrows shot up, and she rushed to the outer wall of the cage she was in. She hissed when she touched it, but she didn't let it stop her.

Tentatively, she called out, “Bay? Briggs?”

Briggs’ back went ramrod straight, and all the color faded from Baylor’s face as they stared at her.

“Ripley?” Briggs questioned quietly before turning to me. “Can you get her out?”

“Give me a second.”

I closed my eyes, focusing on the feel of the magic around me. And try as I might, I couldn’t break it. I struggled to grasp the magic; it burned me, physically and mentally, every time I touched it.

“I… It’s not working.” I grimaced as I opened my eyes.

“It’s light magic, Love. Ye can’t use dark magic to reverse it,” Palmer explained from the doorway. “Ye can use my magic; not yers. Amelia King is a nightwitch, and that’s a type of dark mage. Ya have some light in ya, but it’s not much.”

“Can you break the spell then? We need to get everyone out.”

My mage placed his hand on the door of the closest cage, closing his eyes as he focused on the magic. Words and runes filtered through his mind for a moment, swirling together before they stopped.

Stormy gray eyes met mine as he nodded his head at the cage. “Try it. That should’ve reversed the spell for all of them.”

“Should have,” I muttered to myself, cautiously wrapping my hands around the metal poles. “That godsdamn spell just blew me across the fucking room.”

But there was no shock.

My mage winked at me, and I squeezed my eyes shut as I reprimanded myself.

This was not an appropriate moment for half a fucking blink to turn me on.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

I snatched the chain-link door away from the rest of the cage and tossed it to the ground. The guys started opening the others, and Blaire spoke mentally to me, calling out numbers as they checked on everyone.

Jack sidled up to me, handing me his cell phone before I realized that I didn’t have mine.

“We need to call Dad.”

“Do we have a total count?”

“Forty-three that are alive, three dead, and one body that’s been... chewed on,” Jack responded, wrinkling his nose. “Rotting flesh is disgusting.”

I took the phone from his outstretched hand, scrolling through a ridiculous amount of contacts until I found Bad Wolf and hit call. I didn’t wait for a greeting. As soon as he answered, I started talking.

“Dad, there are forty-three captive shifters in this building. We can’t verify which ones have been infected or not right now, but we don’t hear any static from them. They need to be seen by a doctor; most of them are severely malnourished and emaciated. Some have breaks that didn’t heal right.”

“I’ll call him in.”

“We’ll bring them through the Void. There’s no other way to get this many people to you, and no one will see us taking them outside, so there’s that. We don't know if this place is being watched or not, but there aren’t—”

I stopped abruptly, surveying the upper walls and corners of the building for cameras.

“There was only one,” Jack whispered. “I ripped it out of the wall before you made it in here.”

I sighed deeply, continuing my thought to Dad. “But there aren’t any cameras inside, and Palmer has put a ward up around the building. I'd rather not risk exposing them by moving them to you any other way.”