needed to follow Aldara and gather the packs.
“They are still to the east.” He left her, feeling her gaze upon him. Wishing he could stay with her and knowing he could not.
* * *
Samantha watched him go, her senses prickling on alert. Nagi’s army was about, as were his ghosts. She shivered as she recalled their attack on her dad.
Should she sit alone in that big log target and wait for Alon, or should she follow him? She knew that he was her best defense. And the Delta Pack understood she was under his protection. At least they seemed to understand.
Samantha hesitated, weighing her options. She didn’t want to die. Perhaps if she kept him in sight she might stay alive long enough to find his mother.
Her dad’s words came to her again. Learn what you can.
Samantha shifted to her bear form and followed Alon’s scent trail.
* * *
Alon found his sister with little difficulty. Aldara met him in her fighting form. Not a good sign.
“Maybe the ghosts are after her.”
It was a possibility he already considered. Samantha’s arrival might threaten them all.
“We need to get rid of her.”
“If you mean kill her, I won’t.”
“They kill us.”
Aldara changed back to her human shape. In this form she was slim and curvy, with pale skin and long, cascading silver-blond hair that covered her naked breasts.
Alon looked away. Aldara was constantly losing her garments and had little modesty. Alon tugged off his sweater and handed it over.
Aldara drew on the soft cashmere, which reached her midthigh. The sleeves fell well past her fingertips, but she scrunched them up to her elbows as if preparing to give him a thrashing. If anyone came close to succeeding in that, it would be his twin. She was much tougher than she looked in her petite human form.
Aldara snorted. “I can still smell her.”
He changed the subject. “Any luck with the Gammas?”
“They agreed to come after they finish their kill.”
She had done well.
“We’ll bring the packs with us. Get Samantha to Mom. Then we can resume the search for strays.”
“They’re not strays. They’re infants. Just like we were, alone and afraid. I hate the thought of leaving them behind.”
He preferred it to trying to reason with the feral little monsters. He made a face. “I don’t know how you can even bear to look at them.”
Her scowl held this time, and she pressed her lips into a thin grim line. “How can you not?”
Aldara knew how ugly they were, but somehow she did not find them repugnant. She forgave them their appearance in a way that both shamed and humbled him.
But he didn’t agree with her or his parents. The Ghost Children didn’t belong here. That much he knew. The Naginoka upset the Balance. It was why he had vowed never to bring another of his kind into the world.
“Even if we convince them all to go, that Skinwalker can’t fly. She’ll hold us back.”
She was right again. When he did not answer, Aldara snapped at him.
“Fine! I’ll bring the packs to Mom and Dad while you babysit the little animal.”
“I don’t want you traveling with them alone. What if he finds you?”
“He might just as easily find you and the bear.”
They stared at each other a moment as worry spiked in his belly, as sharp as a tack.
Aldara’s shoulders sagged. “They must have brought her for a reason.”
“I wish I knew what it was.”
Aldara looked miserable. Tears trickled down her face, and she used the cuff of his sweater to sop up them up.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“I know.” He glanced back toward the house.
“Can you think of another way?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then we separate. Perhaps we’ll both make it.”
She gazed up at him, her eyes no longer yellow but blue-gray, a shade much darker than his own. Her pretty face was contorted, her brow wrinkled, but in human form the words came easily now.
“I listen to the Niyanoka. I’ve been to their communities, attended their gatherings.” She could, too. They’d never notice her, a little gray shadow, a hazy cloud of vapor clinging to the ceiling like blue smoke from a pipe. “They’d like us all dead.”
Maybe we already are, he thought. Half-dead at least.
“They know that the Skinwalkers are hunting the
babies, and they do nothing.”
“What?” Shock struck him still.
“The Niyanoka chief said so. Sanctioned was the word they used.”
Alon shook his head in denial, knowing in his heart that her words were true. “Does father know?”
“I don’t have the heart to tell him. The Spirit