discuss with his son.
Damn, he really needed to talk to Lily.
Reaching for the phone, Sebastian thought of the sense of unclean magic clinging to his father. He had no proof, so he wasn’t in a position to accuse him of the murders, but he needed to find some answers, and damn it, as much as he needed to talk to her, he didn’t want to involve Lily.
Not yet.
He stared at the phone in his hand. Slowly, he put it down. He’d try once again to access the astral. See what he could find on his own.
Then he’d call Lily.
The flight had been smooth, the trip from the airport to the Chanku estate with her mom giving her a chance to talk privately about her feelings for a guy who might or might not be the one.
With her parents’ curiosity appeased for now, it was time to visit Eve. Hopefully, she’d find answers with the goddess, but even if Eve didn’t know a thing, Lily could kick back and relax.
Besides, Eve always had the best food and wine, though where it came from remained a mystery. No matter what, it felt so good to be home. The air was fresh and clean, and the big Montana sky an absolutely perfect shade of blue. Lily drew in a deep breath as she closed the door on her small cottage at the edge of the woods. Walking quickly, she crossed her mother’s beautifully landscaped gardens that set her parents’ quarters apart from some of their packmates’ houses.
Damn, but she’d missed coming home. Missed her own kind. No matter where she was, Lily knew she always had the pack, but it was so much better when they were close by. She drew on them, on their strength, their strong sense of family.
Since birth, she’d been surrounded by people who loved her, who wanted only the best for her. Family. Always here. Always looking out for her.
Sebastian had never known anything like that. No wonder the guy had issues, but issues or not, she missed him. She hardly knew the man, and yet . . . she missed him.
That made no sense. None at all.
It was quiet this afternoon. Babies must be napping. Not everyone lived within the main compound, though all the original families now had homes on the same huge piece of property her father had purchased years ago. Many of their children remained, and some had their own homes on site. Others, like Lily, kept small cottages where they could come and go at will.
She sometimes wished things were still the way they’d been when she was small, when so many of them lived in the main house, except for her adopted older brother Oliver and his mate, Mei Chen. She’d loved their little cottage, just across the driveway, but all of that changed after the fire.
None of them would forget the terrible fire that burned much of the forest almost three decades ago. The original house and Oliver’s cottage had burned to the ground. That fire had been a defining point for the entire pack. The fire and the fact their existence—a closely held secret until then—had suddenly become public knowledge.
In one single, unexpected event, in less than a heartbeat, they’d gone from legend to reality when one of their own shifted from man to wolf in front of dozens of network news cameras. The fact he’d shifted publicly to prevent a terrorist attack on a group of young people—including the president’s daughters—outed the Chanku in a totally positive manner, but once their secret was caught on film, there was no turning back.
That event had forced a decision they’d been vacillating over for ages—to live closer to one another, to become a single, united pack rather than continue on as separate family groups scattered about the country. There was safety in numbers and a chance for the children to develop in a society where they never felt alien, were never alone. Unlike their parents who had grown up isolated and unaware of their Chanku birthright, this new generation had been raised with pride in their amazing heritage, surrounded by others just like them.
They’d been free to explore their shapeshifting nature, to know their roots. From the very beginning, they had existed as they were meant to exist—shifting from human form to animal whenever they wished, with thousands upon thousands of acres of forest and meadowland set aside for their use.
Lily appreciated the beauty of her upbringing, the freedom she’d known, and