shaking my head. “What the hell is wrong with me? The power’s there… I’ve been hyperconscious of it ever since I got here and this stupid estrous shit started.”
Heavy footsteps squelched through the dead leaves and mud behind me. “Try using this,” Dad said.
I looked up and frowned. He stood offering me a long steel punty. I straightened and took the rod from him, then twirled it like a staff. Turning back toward Mom, I let the power flow through me again. This time, it felt second nature to send it out into the steel. Normally, there would be a molten glass bubble at the end, ready for opening and shaping, but I tried anyway, visualizing the glass even though it wasn’t there. The magic flowed as easily as it had for the past two weeks in the studio. I pivoted and aimed the end at Mom, but rather than letting the magic ease through the metal, I actively pushed it and didn’t temper the power the way I did when I was shaping glass.
A thunderous bang filled the air like the report of a gunshot, and a bright orange orb of flame blasted out the end of the rod. I stumbled backward with a gasp. It happened so fast, Mom nearly took a faceful of fire but managed to erect a shield of shadows in the split second before she would have eaten the flaming ball.
When the shield dropped, she was grinning like a madwoman. “I knew you could do it! Are you ready to fight?”
The sounds of fighting continued beyond the house, and my sense of all my guys was still strong. I broke into a jog between my parents but broke stride when Dad started taking off his clothes.
“What are you doing?”
“Just channeling my magic like you. You didn’t think your old man was still just human after all this, did you? I learned a few things too.” He ran ahead as he unfastened his jeans and pushed them off his hips.
“Oh my god, Dad!” I shot a horrified look at Mom, who was too busy ogling Dad’s naked butt.
“He still looks great naked,” she said, grinning at me.
When I looked forward again though, all I saw was the rear end of an enormous brown bear, hauling ass toward the fight. Mom seemed completely unfazed.
“Did you know?” I shot at her.
She just smiled and picked up her pace to catch up with Dad. I huffed as I booked it after her.
“You two are going to have to explain this to me later!”
We reached the house, and the frantic yells and noises of the fight grew louder. My ears ached from the repeated dissonant screeches emitted by the attackers. From the sound of it, there had to be several of them, though I couldn’t guess how many. All I knew was that my mates were still alive and fighting, and I ran faster to reach them.
I came to the house and decided to run up the steps to the deck to bypass more wet, treacherous ground. Mom stayed at my side, taking the steps two at a time. We rounded the corner to the front and down the steps on the other side then headed down the slope toward the water where the fighting was happening.
Dad had outpaced us, disappearing past a copse of trees that blocked our view of the water. The sounds of conflict were fading, then I heard a loud, unearthly roar so jarring I had to cover my ears. My heart pounding, I reached the bottom of the hill near the dock and skidded to a stop several yards from the water’s edge. Towering over us was a monstrous beast with hundreds of heads, several of them whipping and twisting over the shore, snapping massive eel-like jaws at my ursa mates while they struggled to defend themselves. Overhead, my dragon mates repeatedly dove, breathing fire and clawing at more of the creature’s heads from above.
But something wasn’t right. At first, I couldn’t put my finger on it beyond a vague sense of panic tightening my gut. The guys were all here, shifted into their ursa forms, desperately defending themselves against some creature that had evidently crawled out of a primordial rift.
Then it hit me. There were three ursa fighting the beast at the water’s edge. If Dad was one of them, who was missing? I forced myself to stop and focus, fixing my mind on my connection with my mates and frantically taking inventory.