hands sunk deep under a carpet of new, just born grass. I pulled my hands from the earth and winced as tiny roots pulled from the skin of my fingers like ant bites.
I felt Bastien's warmth, inhaled his scent, and looked up into his beautiful golden eyes. His hair was dark under the light of my suns and I saw my Salamander touch his cheek. A blessing?
"Chérie…what…what did you do?"
I smiled at him as the Gnome's song ended and I thanked my Elementals, and I, at last, thanked my Arcane. "I have no freak'n idea," I said before I closed my eyes and sighed in his arms.
* * *
I WOKE UP TO A THICK, wet tongue in my face.
Raising both of my arms to fend off the onslaught of puppy kisses was hard, but not impossible. My muscles protested with tiny bursts of fire. When I opened my eyes, I saw the cute and adorable face of a wolf pup as she tried to clean my nose. "Ugh…Regine…"
I heard a giggle in my head. It was answered by soothing and cooing from the rest of the pack. Great. I really needed to shut that link fast.
"She really loves you," said a voice to my right. It was a voice I didn't recognize. "Your mother sleeps to your left."
I turned my head to the left first to see Grey's beautiful wolf face. She rested on her back, her chest rising and falling as she breathed deep, and I put my hand against her neck as another set of hands took Regine away.
Trailing the pup, I saw the hands belonged to the man I'd seen take Dharma away. Bastien had called him Ben. And that's when the previous events came rushing back and I remembered that Ivan…was gone.
The emotion I felt because of that hit me hard and I wiped at my eyes. Ben set Regine on the floor and she tried desperately to jump back up on the bed. "It's okay. Don't hide those. You need to shed them. You've suffered a terrible loss."
Ben didn't have the Acadian accent like Bastien, like most of his pack. Ben sounded more Georgian, or closer to South Carolina. He had salt and pepper hair cut short and a string of tattoos along the back and side of his neck, dotting around to his chest. He wore a green plaid shirt and silver hoops in both ears. "Apogee?"
"Yep," he smiled. Apogee meant he'd been turned to the life of a Lycan, and not born like the little puppy running around. Regine was perigee. "Everything working?"
"I think so." I pushed myself up on my elbows first and then Ben helped me sit up as I swung my legs over the side of the bed. I spotted my boots next to the chair Ben had been sitting in. I noticed sun coming through the windows of the cabin and put my hand to my lips. "What time is it?"
"It's just after eight."
"In the morning?"
Ben laughed at the stress in my voice. "Yes. You needed the sleep. You and the little Witch. Dharma? Is that her name?"
"Yeah. Is…is she okay?"
"I think she's coping. She's quiet, pulling into herself. Bastien was with her earlier while they surveyed the battlefield this morning."
"Battlefield?" But yeah…I guess it could be called that.
"Mmhmm. Hungry? I'm sure there's breakfast in the kitchen."
I assumed he meant a communal kitchen. I could be wrong. "No. I'm not that hungry." My stomach let out a loud noise. "Okay, so I'm not in agreement with hunger right now."
"Sick to your stomach?" he sat back in his chair and faced me. "I wouldn't be surprised. You channeled a lot of magic last night."
"Channeled?"
"Yes. When you made that," he pointed to the door.
Leaning on the frame beside the door was the rowan staff, whole and complete. I had a few faint memories of seeing pieces of the wood reforming, of watching something happen. "I'm not sure…I did that?"
"Yes."
"But it destroyed the Cairn."
"Yes," he nodded. "Originally. But that's not what it does now."
I slipped off the bed and walked toward it. It had a presence. Something tangible that both repelled and attracted. "What does it do now?"
Ben scooped Regine into his arms and joined me at the door. "Let's drop the pup off at the nursery and I'll show you."
SEVENTEEN
I did eat a bowl of the best oatmeal I'd ever had, with chopped apples and cinnamon. Ben formally introduced me to a few of the wolves lounging in the dining hall