was ready to be on her way out of DarkRiver territory by late afternoon. "Take care of my people, Finn."
The twenty-one-year-old healer didn't bother to conceal his worry this time. "What about you, Tam? Who's looking after you?"
"I'll be fine." She tightened her hands around the straps of her bag. "It might be permanent, you know that, right?"
"Yes." He stroked his hand over her hair, offering comfort in the changeling way. "But it shouldn't be. You were born to be DarkRiver's healer."
"I can work with another leopard pack." But Nathan couldn't be replaced.
Not when it was clear that Lachlan was preparing Lucas to step into his role as alpha sooner rather than later. When the time came, Lucas would need to rely on Nate's experience and rock-solid advice. "Try it here," she made herself say. "If everything works out..."
"No rush." Finn's tone was gentle.
"I'll hold your place until you come to your senses. Then I'll happily return to the civilized world of our territory instead of this jungle."
She smiled at his joking, but as she walked away, she had the sick feeling she might never return. When she neared the fir she'd strung with Christmas decorations and lights, her eyes stung.
"I'm sorry, Shayla," she whispered to the ghost that reproached her for leaving her pack when it still needed her.
They would be okay, she told herself. She'd started them on the road to healing. All they had to do was follow it. Tempting as it was to pass by quickly, she made herself look up. There was the ornament Vaughn had painted, right next to the one by Cian. Around them wove the string of lights Nate had hung after he'd growled at her for putting her fool neck in danger. And there was the star she'd almost thrown at him, she'd been so mad.
"Oh God." Blinking, she looked away...and kept walking.
Happiness Chapter 10
NATE RETURNED HOME close to dawn, coming from a night raid to "suggest" Solias King look elsewhere for his development.
The damn, encroaching Psy would follow their advice, of that Nate was certain. Even in leopard form, he wanted to grin.
He'd stood watch for hours as Cian and a couple of others with tech training had methodically taken apart every piece of Psy equipment already onsite. While that might have been enough, Nate had gone a step further and buried several of the most expensive pieces in a section of DarkRiver land that bordered SnowDancer territory. No Psy would dare venture that close to wolf land. The feral pack had a reputation for ripping out intruders' throats and using the bleached-out bones as fence posts.
Just in case Solias King missed their point even after all that, they had also removed the semipermanent survey markers and disabled the rudimentary comm tower erected a few days ago. It was why DarkRiver had allowed the thing to go up in the first place - so they could destroy it, and in a fashion that made it clear they would brook no further trespass on their lands.
Nate was particularly proud of the crowning touch. Inspired by Tammy, he'd taken along a large Christmas ornament - an old-fashioned picture of the man in red and white - and hung it from the now useless comm tower. Then he'd wrapped a string of blinking multicolored lights around the metal skeleton.
He couldn't wait to tell Tammy - she'd bust a gut over it. Taking on the Psy wasn't usually a laughing matter, as the cold psychic race didn't hesitate to kill. But from everything they had been able to unearth, it appeared that Solias King's darker impulses were currently being curbed by his political aspirations.
He couldn't afford to come down hard on the changelings. Any violence and his own Council would turn against him.
Nate had no illusions that the Psy Council cared about changelings, but they damn well did care about their bottom line. And that would suffer massive depreciation if people thought the Psy were declaring a racial war. The Council would never allow such a panic to start over a small piece of land in the territory of what they considered a minor pack. Nate had a feeling DarkRiver wasn't going to stay minor for long, but until then, they could and would use the Council's sense of arrogance to their advantage.
Shifting the second he cleared the doorway to his home, he pulled on a pair of jeans and an old cable-knit sweater.
He had to see Tamsyn, no matter the ridiculously early hour.