Chapter 7

Chapter 7

RainStone: 27 survivors, including 12 minors, no alpha, no sentinels. Seniormost-ranking survivor a young maternal; she has advised the Peace Accord Resettlement Board of the survivors' unanimous decision to join the new amalgamate pack, SkyDawn.

Any remaining RainStone funds to be added to SkyDawn's. RainStone lands to be surrendered to the trust in return for a compensatory addition to SkyDawn's newly assigned territory.

Transfer signed off by the Resettlement Board in conjunction with all adult survivors of RainStone (see appendix 21C for documents).

—Handwritten entry made in August 1781 in the Changeling Historical Codex, maintained by the Peace Accord Land Trust

"COME ON," REMI said to the escapee in his lap. "Let's get you back to your table."

After chatting with the pajama-clad family, he exited out onto one of the canopy walkways. This early, the world was rich green and darkest gray shrouded in diaphanous mist. Light glowed from the windows of the aeries that perched in the branches of the massive trees that formed the heart of his pack, a scattered string of jewels.

RainFire's small size and disproportionate number of young members was why the aeries remained snugged together in this area, multiple homes perched in the branches of each tree—trees that had been planted long ago by another pack. RainStone hadn't survived as a pack after the Territorial Wars, but it had left the gift of these incredible trees for the future.

It had felt right to incorporate part of the old pack's name in theirs.

Now, he used the high walkways to do the rounds, greeting those who were awake, and ensuring that those who slept were safe. Peace reigned, the only sounds that of the light morning wind—and the quiet movements of leopards on their own business, their bodies whispers of stealth in the mist.

After spotting motion inside the large plas-enclosed activity area that they had on the ground, he jumped to the forest pathway with feline grace and made his way inside.

"Remi!" Little Jojo, her fourth birthday soon on the horizon, ran in his direction.

All glowing brown skin and the yellow-gold eyes of her leopard, her face bearing clawlike markings on the right-hand side of her face, she wasn't wearing her favorite purple corduroy overalls today.

She asked her doting aunt to make a bigger version of her most treasured item of clothing each time she outgrew a pair. He had the feeling he'd one day be seeing an adult Jojo in the same overalls.

The idea made him grin.

Today, however, she'd chosen a sparkly black jumpsuit with golden paw prints all over it. He knew she'd chosen it because Jojo had been opinionated about her fashion choices since the day she could make those wishes known. Her sneakers were a matching gold, her curly black hair pulled into lots of tiny knots all over her head, each knot anchored with a golden hair tie.

"Miss Jojo." Grabbing her racing body before she could run headlong into his legs, he threw her up into the air.

The cub shrieked with laughter before settling into his arms, her legs at his hip, one arm around his back and the other lifting up in a questioning motion. "What's up?"

Man and leopard both grinned. "I should be asking you that. It's dawn o'clock. Why are you awake and playing?" The play area was otherwise deserted of children, though three adults and one juvenile were making use of the climbing frames—and had no doubt kept an eye on Jojo.

"JD's babysitting me," she said with a huge smile. "No rules for Jojo!"

Remi glanced over to where Jayden a.k.a. JD—age sixteen—was making his way up the climbing frame. "I guess that's the prerogative of a big brother. He do your hair?"

"Yup." She tilted her head this way and that to display the tiny knots. "I love JD." The words were innocent in their sincerity.

"He's a good brother." And a young male Remi knew would be a future core member of the pack. "Want to do the rounds with me?"

An enthusiastic nod from the little girl in his arms.

After alerting Jayden that he was taking Jojo with him, Remi put her on the ground. Where she stalked next to him, her tiny hands in the pockets of her jumpsuit. Unlike most young cubs, Jojo never forgot to take off her good clothes before shifting. He'd seen her literally growling at her more impatient friends who were yelling at her to just shift.

When they stopped by the kitchen aerie—connected to the dining aerie by a covered walkway—his tiny shadow stood there with a serious listening expression on her face through his entire discussion with Fabien's team.

The trained French chef was one of the founding members of RainFire. Remi had run into the other man—ten years older than him—during his years on the racetrack; he'd soon discovered that Fabien never stayed put in one place long. The same restlessness that drove most loners had led the chef to do stints in five-star restaurants around the world.

When Remi had asked Fabien to help him kick off his new pack for the princely sum of no actual salary but all the hard work he could stand, the tall and rangy "silver fox" of a chef—per Lark—had said he could give him six months.

Turned out grim and temperamental Fabien liked the challenge of setting up a new pack—and he had a soft spot for all the "ferals" Remi had collected into RainFire. Today, he threw Jojo a wink while he stood with his arms folded against the side of a counter. Many an adult woman would've died for that wink, Remi thought in amusement.

Afterward, once they were on the ground again, on their way to the infirmary, his little assistant gave him a proud look. "I was good for a whole hour!"

Remi's leopard huffed inside him at that highly inaccurate gauge of the time involved. "Yes, you did a great job." He tugged at one of her knots, careful not to dislodge it.

"Can I have a cookie now?" A plaintive look. "Fabin always gives me cookies."

The cubs alone could get away with butchering Fabien's name, of which he was very proud, passed down as it had been from his grand-père.

"Strong dominants have a good breakfast," he reminded her. "Cookies are for an afternoon snack."

She sighed. " Maaaaan ."

He had to squeeze his eyes shut not to burst out laughing at that mournful exclamation. He had no idea who she'd picked that up from, but it sounded just like an adult except in a pip-squeak voice.

Talking of pip-squeaks, he said, "How's your friend Pip?" The little Arrow boy and Jojo were as thick as thieves, with Pip now having enough control over his psychic abilities that he'd been permitted to overnight with RainFire a couple of times.

Never alone, of course. Kid was too strong. But his Arrow babysitters made it seem as if they were also having a sleepover with a friend—while keeping Pip within their psychic shields. The last babysitter had been an Arrow with gray in his hair who was so obviously out of his element that it would've been funny if it wasn't so touching.

The Arrows, raised without love, without tenderness, without play, were trying so fucking hard for their children.

RainFire would always be there for them. Even if it meant handling older Arrows who sat around stiff as mannequins and awkward as all fuck. Last time around, Finn was the one who'd made a breakthrough, talking the gray-haired Arrow into a card game after stating it was about strategy.

Then there was twenty-three-year-old Zinnia. Remi was pretty sure the bubbly and confident maternal—a brunette with all the curves—had initiated more than one Arrow into skin privileges. Since Aden hadn't come to Remi with complaints about shell-shocked no-longer-virgin Arrows, he'd left her to it.

A virgin could do a lot worse than an affectionate maternal who liked taking care of people and knew how to be gentle.

"Oh, oh!" Jojo jumped up and down. "Pip's gonna come!" She held up three pudgy little fingers. "In one, two, three"—a little tap on each finger—"days!"

"Is that right?" he said, though he was well aware of the scheduled visit. "You speak on the comm every day?"

"Yup. Every day. Mama says rain or shine, Pip and Jojo gonna talk up a storm." Jojo's tiny hand tucked into his as they walked down the path to RainFire's infirmary "cubes," her smile when she looked up at him a sunbeam of trust.

Kid was going to blow up his heart one day, he knew it. Probably go off roaming when she turned eighteen. Because if Remi had a flaw, it was that he wanted to hover over all his people and keep them safe. But to do that to a pack of predators would be to destroy them.

So he'd learned to deal.

Didn't mean the urge had gone away.

"Yo." Finn raised his hand in a casual hello from where he sat at his desk in the main cube of the three that made up the infirmary. All three were connected in a chain but had biohazard doors and other protocols that meant each could be cut off to create an isolation zone if needed. Painted camouflage green on the outside so they didn't stick out against the trees, the cubes were pristine white on the inside.

The setup had eaten a significant chunk of the pack's budget, but this far out from a major hospital, they needed their own medical care—Remi hoped no one in his pack would ever face the same choice as his mother, but if the worst happened, he wanted them to be able to stay home, near the pack.

"I see you brought along a future sentinel." Finn, the fine strands of his light brown hair pushed back from his face, bumped a fist with Jojo's tiny one.

"Any broken bones or other injuries overnight?" Remi asked.

"Nope. To my great shock." Finn helped Jojo clamber into his lap. Pressing a kiss to her temple, he rubbed her back as she propped her elbows on his desk, her chin in her hands as she looked at the medical charts on the screen with a squint of concentration.

"I hear we have a new neighbor." Leaf green eyes met Remi's.

Remi wasn't surprised at his knowledge—Finn had been on night shift, too, and was their third-in-command. "I'm going to scope out the situation now that I've done my morning walk-through. Just have to walk Jojo back, and have a quick meeting with the junior soldiers."

Part of building a strong young pack was ensuring his packmates knew they had the right to their alpha's attention and time. No adult or cub in RainFire would ever feel as if they had to beg for crumbs of attention.

Because Remi was his mother's son.

His father's DNA could rot in hell for all he cared.

"I can walk back with Miss Jojo." Finn nuzzled at her cheek. "How about it? You and me and breakfast?"

Jojo's stomach rumbled on cue. "We gotta get JD, too," she said loyally.

Remi rubbed the back of his hand over her cheek. "You did a great job as my assistant today."

Her beaming face stayed with him when he left the pack twenty minutes later, after meeting with the group of shiny-faced new soldiers who were training under pretty much the entire senior team—RainFire didn't have enough people yet to have specialists, so each of them led classes whenever possible.

Today, he left the youths in the care of Jojo's thirty-one-year-old aunt, Serenity. Look at her in her grim-faced senior soldier avatar and you'd never peg her as the same Aunt Sisi who sewed Jojo's clothes and who'd been known to play princess tea parties with her behind closed doors.

Remi left to the sound of her ordering the trainees to fall in line for a "wake up your lazy butts run." He'd decided to make his journey on foot, too—and had made the call to stay in human form on the off chance that he needed to speak to the new resident.

Several familiar scents brushed over his skin as he passed, the lingering echo of his people coming and going. Those scents thinned out the farther he ran, until by the time he reached the border with the Scotts, he couldn't scent anything but the myriad tones of a forest clothed in the colors of fall. That didn't mean a soldier hadn't come by during a regular security run, just that enough time had come that the scent had dissipated.

Chest heaving after the pace he'd set himself, he stood in the trees and took in the cabin. Prefabricated, the contractors had put it up in a day, but it was a good imitation of a real log cabin. Mist curled around the edges of it, the morning light muted. Clouds had grayed out the sunrise, the mountain in a moody frame of mind.

Light against the nearest window, a yellow rectangle in the gray.

The front door opened before he could decide on his next move.

Auden Scott stepped out, her hands cupped around a mug of something that sent tendrils of steam into the air, curls of white against the cloud-shadowed fall foliage in the background. She was dressed in black tights and an oversize sweatshirt in the same dark hue. Clothing flexible enough to accommodate a belly that could mean only one thing.

Auden Scott was very, very pregnant.