Sascha found it hard each time one of their young adults left the pack; her instinct as an E was to hold her family together, keep them safe and happy. Consciously, she knew the majority of leopards needed to roam to settle into their adult skins, to be truly happy, but that didn’t lessen her worry at watching them go. “He’ll come back.”
“But he might leave again one day, more permanently.”
“Yes.” There was a high chance that, bonded as closely as he was to DarkRiver and Lucas, Kit would offer to remain in the pack as one of Lucas’s sentinels. But should Kit make that offer, Lucas would decline it. Not because he didn’t want Kit’s strength and loyalty beside him, but because he knew Kit was meant to lead his own pack—he was one of the most promising young alphas Lucas had ever known.
Lucas would do him a disservice if he didn’t push him to be all that he could be.
“Often,” he said to his mate, “our chicks have to leave the nest to find their wings.” Turning, he wrapped his arms around her. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t still ours. Even when Kit leaves DarkRiver, he’ll still be one of us.”
Sascha nodded, took a breath. “I’m trying not to think of Naya going off on her own one day in the future.”
Chuckling, Lucas nuzzled her. “Kitten, our cub isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.” Not to roam and not because she’d been stolen away by enemies.
Lucas would protect his child to the death. If Pax Marshall proved to have been the mastermind behind Naya’s planned abduction, Lucas would take vengeance against the Psy male. And if it turned out that Pax had been set up, then Lucas would go after the shadowy figures pulling the strings of what could’ve been a deadly game.
“But Naya will eventually go off roaming,” Sascha insisted and, a scowl on her features, said, “Do you know what Jamie did while he was away? Race cars at dangerously high speeds, make friends with bears who got him drunk every day of the week—”
“You gotta watch bears. They can drink anyone under the table.”
“Stop laughing.” She pushed at his shoulders. “I’m not sure how he made it back in one piece, especially after he decided to go deep-sea diving. What cat does that?”
“Jamie’s always been a law unto himself.” Lucas shuddered at the idea of being submerged that far in the deep. “Did you notice the weirdest change?”
When Sascha frowned and looked around for the male Lucas had just promoted to sentinel alongside fellow former senior soldier, Desiree, Lucas said, “His hair’s the color he was born with.” It happened to be a rich chocolate brown.
Sascha’s eyes widened. “I didn’t realize. But he feels all right.”
He knew she meant that in the empathic sense. “Well,” he said, nipping and sucking at her lips in a teasing kiss, “when a cat takes up deep-sea diving, changing hair colors probably isn’t very exciting anymore.”
Sascha’s laughter drew the attention of one of the cubs who hadn’t yet given in to exhaustion. Normally, they’d all be down by now, but since it was a special occasion, he and Hawke had relaxed the rules. Catching Roman in her arms, the boy in human form and miraculously dressed in the same clothes he’d arrived in—which meant he’d actually cached his clothes pre-shift—Sascha hefted him up.
“Oof,” she said as she settled him on her hip. “Did you eat an entire cake?”
Roman’s eyes widened. “I shared with Jules and Issy and Dai and Naya.”
“Well, that’s all right then.” Sascha kissed him on the cheek, and Roman put his head on her shoulder.
He was asleep by the time they reached the other side of the pack circle. Seeing them, Nathan reached out to take his son into his arms. Rome didn’t wake, sleeping with the carefree abandon of a child who knew he was safe and loved.
After pressing a kiss to his son’s silky black hair, Nathan caught Lucas’s gaze and angled his head to the left. Lucas looked in that direction to see a pile of cubs and pups, Naya included, fast asleep on a soft blanket someone had laid out. Two little girls lay in human form amongst the furry bodies: Noor, and Aneca, one of Teijan’s pack.
Nathan walked over to place Rome with his playmates, including Jules. The boy stayed in human form but curled around the others. They, in turn, moved in their sleep to snuggle around him, and he was