was obvious.
Blake led him to a healing circle, set up, he suspected, prior to the conflict in preparation for the inevitable injuries. Alon laid her on a buffalo robe and stepped back.
“What happened to us?” asked Blake.
“Nagi tore the souls from your bodies. He tried the same on us but we are immune to his powers.”
Blake adsorbed this.
“Because they have no souls,” said a tall handsome man behind Blake.
“Quiet, Mr. Healy.” He faced Alon again.
Healy? Could that be Jessica Healy Chien’s father, the one who disowned his only child for marrying a Skinwalker? Alon wondered what fate awaited Samantha for fighting with the Toe Taggers.
“Nagi?” asked Blake.
“The Ghost Children defeated him.”
“How?”
“Later. Your sister first.” Alon turned to go. Blake’s hand rested on his shoulder.
“Aldara?” he whispered.
“Working on the others. Many are injured.”
“My father is still on the field.”
“I’ll find him.”
“Your parents, Nicholas and Bess?”
“Restored.”
Blake’s shoulders sagged, but whether from news of Bess’s recovery or that Aldara was safe, he was not certain.
Blake turned to stare down the hill to the valley. The fallen lay strewn before him like rag dolls. He covered his mouth in horror.
Jessie Healy Chien charged up to Alon and clutched his arm. “Save him, quickly, before I lose him forever. My daughters! Quick!”
Beyond her, Alon saw the fallen wolves unattended. Alon turned to follow her.
“No,” said Healy, clasping his daughter’s shoulders. He swept an arm, indicating the fallen Niyanoka. “The Spirit Children first.” He directed his next comment to Blake. “Order him to see to us before the Skinwalkers.”
Had the man really just commanded that his son-in-law and grandchildren be left to die? Had he just given the War Chief of the Niyanoka an order?
Alon met Blake’s troubled gaze. Blake could not really direct him to do anything, but Alon waited to see what he would do.
“Go,” said Blake.
“Blake,” cried Healy. “Our people first!”
Alon billowed down the hillside to find the wolves, lying neglected between the buffalo and the bear. Just as he had ordered, his troops restored the healers first.
Sebastian was already on his feet and healing the wounded alongside a gathering of buffalo. Alon materialized in fighting form. Sebastian called to him.
“You are Alon?”
He turned to face Sebastian, wishing he was in his human form for this first meeting, dressed in a sports coat instead of bloody, matted hair and bristling quills. Alon used both hands to try to smooth the fur at his temples. It was the best he could do.
“Yes.”
“Where is my daughter?”
“With Blake. He is seeing to her injuries.”
“My wife?”
“Is well.” He wished his words were not garbled by his teeth. “I gave orders that the Seers be restored first to keep the souls from crossing to the Spirit World. Your son works on the injured Niyanoka above.”
He nodded, then he glanced at the wolves, before returning his attention to Alon. “Tell your forces to carry the wounded here to us.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alon turned to go, distracted by the many souls trying to cling to the bodies they had once inhabited.
“Son?”
Alon hesitated, blinking in surprise as the greatest of the bears, the War Chief of the Skinwalkers and the father of the woman he loved, extended his hand.
Alon reached, saw his own clawlike appendage and flushed with shame, but he clasped Sebastian’s forearm.
“You fought well.”
Alon broke away with a murmured thanks. He had expected many things from the War Chief of the Skinwalkers, frontal attack being foremost. But he had not expected thanks.
Alon worked his way along the wolves, restoring souls first to the wounded and then the fallen. He restored the daughters of Jessie Healy Chien, but he could not find Nicholas Chien. One looked like another and he did not know which one was Jessie’s husband.
Finally he reached the fallen body of a large gray timber wolf. Unlike the others, this one’s soul did not stray from his body and in fact seemed to cling to it, as if trying to anchor itself to the carcass. Alon nodded at the shimmering essence that still held some resemblance of the handsome form of the body it had inhabited for over a century.
His thoughts came to Alon. Jessie. Jessie. Katherine. Lauren.
This was why he did not stray. He had ones here who held him. His love for his wife and daughters was stronger than the call of the Spirit Road. Alon envied him that unwavering love.
“She’s all right. So are your girls.” Alon reached out and captured Nicholas’s soul and plunged it back into his body. Nicholas convulsed, waking instantly. Another outward