Page 17

Mating is a complex subject on which changelings are reticent to speak with outsiders, more so in the aftermath of the catastrophic violence in the recent past. And even those willing to speak on the subject a minor amount will shut down when asked about rumors of mates who ended up on opposite sides of the battle lines during the wars.

Four hours after convincing Naia to go to bed, Adam woke from a dreamless sleep of his own.

He’d forced himself into it—he couldn’t feed their healer energy if he was out of it himself.

And being wing leader didn’t allow for such niceties as emotional exhaustion.

Adam functioned because he had to function.

Since Amir hadn’t woken him, it meant nothing had changed.

Wanting to rage at the world, he got ready for the day though it was still pitch-dark outside, then went to track down one of his senior people who was awake.

Someone would be, not only because that was how a clan functioned, with the watch never down, but also because they’d work around the clock until they found the person who’d dared hurt one of their own.

He ran into Saoirse a minute later.

She took one look at him and enfolded him in her arms, the springy curls of her hair a familiar brush against his cheek.

And though he was the most powerful person in the clan, for a moment, he allowed himself to be nothing but Saoirse’s little brother, whom she’d bossed around and protected in equal measure throughout his childhood.

Her hold was warm and strong like their mother’s, the scent of her a thing of comfort.

“You off to work?” he asked when they drew apart, having noted that she’d already showered and dressed for the day.

“No, I’m going to the kitchen to grab coffee and snacks for Amir and Kavi.” Worry in the familiar tawny brown of her eyes. “I’ll stay put and get our fledglings to school—I have a feeling they’ll want to fly or drive down with Mom today. They love Jacques.”

“Yeah.” Jacques was a champion at putting on a grim face, but the fact that the kids followed him around just the same told the true story of his nature.

Adam had seen his gruff friend sit down in a tiny chair across from a five-year-old Malia after Adam’s niece invited them both for teatime with her plushies.

Now he tugged on one of his sister’s curls, the act one he’d done since he’d been that little brother who wanted to annoy his much older and cooler big sister. “How about you, Chirp?” With Jacques and Adam having been friends since crèche days, she treated him as another little brother.

A hard swallow. “Telling myself he’s stubborn and will make it out of pure contrariness.”

It was Adam’s turn to hold her, press a kiss to her curls as he’d done to Malia only yesterday…and a lifetime ago. Before they parted, his big sister said, “You want me to get you coffee and snacks, too, Bear?”

Jacques would’ve grinned at that sisterly offer—then demanded his own snacks. “No, I think I’ll grab something after I get an update on the situation.”

“I saw Dahlia in her office.”

“Thanks.”

“You take care, little brother, or I’ll go big sis on your ass and make you sit down for a proper meal.”

He found Dahlia where Saoirse had last spotted her—she was pacing the space, which had a direct exit to the Canyon—while she stared at a large wall screen on which he saw a report from local Enforcement, along with information on everything their own people had found.

Dressed in khaki pants and an olive green tee that she’d tucked into them, she’d scraped her hair off her face into a tight ponytail. Multiple cups of half-drunk coffee sat on her desk.

“DeeDee,” he said, the nickname a young Jacques had given her when they’d learned her last name was Dehlavi rolling off his tongue before he could think better of it.

She flinched.

“Shit. Sorry.”

Dahlia waved it off. “No, it’s fine. I’d do anything to hear him call me DeeDee while turning down yet another invitation to a party.” A rough inhale. “You want a recap?”

“Yeah. What’ve we got?”

“Not fucking much,” Dahlia spit out. “Signs a vehicle was parked toward the end of the nearest road, but the tire impressions were smudged and, from what we could tell, could fit half the vehicles in the region anyway. Enforcement forensics took a print, will run it, but I don’t hold out any hope—Beaufort also pointed out that it hasn’t rained for a while; print could’ve been there for days. ”

“Not much cause to be on that road. It dead-ends in the desert.”

Dahlia nodded. “Yeah, I’m with you—prints have to be the shooter’s.

” Folding her arms, she turned her attention back to the screen as Adam came around to stand beside her.

“I can confirm the shooter didn’t leave Raintree.

We overflew the area in every direction for miles as soon as Jacques was away and only saw three people heading out of town.

“One was Jerry, on his usual delivery route—no time in there to fit in a detour, and the other a young Psy couple heading off to the airport. I had a quiet word with their neighbors—the two were definitely at home at the time of the shooting. On the off chance that the fucker had just hunkered down until we lost interest, I’ve kept up the sweeps, and we’re making note of every vehicle that’s heading out. ”

“What’s this?” He tapped an image of a vehicle that looked like the kind of old runaround a local might keep for desert excursions.

“I think this is what got Jacques hurt.” Dahlia’s expression was grim; she and Jacques weren’t close, not like Adam and the other man, but they were clan through and through, would go to the wire for each other.

“We located it not far on the wing from where Jacques went down,” she continued.

“Unregistered for the past two years—Beaufort already tracked down the previous owner, and he’s a hundred-year-old currently enjoying retired life in Fiji.

Was excited to get a call from Enforcement and very happy to talk.

“Says he sold the car at a vehicle market and that the buyer was a ‘nice young man’ who promised to take care of all the paperwork. The buyer did exactly that in the sense that the previous owner is no longer responsible for it, but he never registered it under his own name. Deal was done in cash.”

“Any description on the buyer?”

Lips pursed tight, Dahlia shook her head. “Owner sold it because he was having vision problems. Fixed now, but at the time, he could ‘barely see beyond his own foot’—and per Beaufort, that’s a direct quote.”

Adam liked the detective, but he’d have felt better if Chief Cross had been handling the investigation.

The older man had come into the position while Aria was wing leader, so Adam had known him for two decades, while Beaufort had only moved to Raintree two years prior, after accepting the open position on the small force.

“That’s not a coincidence—the buyer going for a seller with vision issues,” Adam murmured. “Someone planned this out.” And the fact that he’d done it two years ago? Fuck.

An image of Eleri flashed to the forefront of his mind, her changeable gaze emotionless as she talked to him about a serial killer who might be using Raintree as a base.

Dahlia folded her arms across her chest. “A drug thing? Everyone knows we don’t put up with that shit, but there’s always some idiot who wants to try.”

“Could be, but there’s another possibility.

” He told her about Eleri’s theory, having always intended to bring her into the loop.

If Jacques hadn’t been shot, the three of them would’ve had a meeting last night to touch base—Adam only had two wing-seconds, a small number in comparison to the seconds who reported to the SnowDancer alpha across the border, but SnowDancer was massive in size when compared to WindHaven.

The reason the wolves as well as the leopards had allied with them had nothing to do with the size of their clan, and everything to do with their cleverness at having held their territory for centuries, including through the Territorial Wars, melded with how far Adam’s people flew, their range vast.

WindHaven was not only one of the oldest clans in the entire country, it had a seamless record of transition from one wing leader to another, with no battles for succession.

It wasn’t about blood, either, his and Aria’s relationship an anomaly; it was a thing of pride to support the clan rather than chance tearing it apart, a fierce loyalty born of their very size.

The sum of it all had put them on equal footing when it came to initial negotiations.

As for him, Dahlia, and Jacques, the three of them worked as a streamlined unit with support from their senior wing commanders. Naia was welcome to sit in on any and all meetings, her rank in the clan akin to Dahlia and Jacques’s.

Now his sole remaining wing-second just stared at him, her dark eyes huge against the cream-toned skin she’d inherited from her Iranian mother—who’d also passed on that white streak in her hair.

Dahlia’s Diné father had been known to joke that his mate had cloned herself to create their fledgling, but he’d given Dahlia her height and physical strength.

“Seriously?” she said at last. “Well, shit.”

“Make sure Enforcement orders a full sweep on that vehicle. If he’s left anything of himself in there, I want it.”

“I already got Beaufort to put in that order,” Dahlia said. “Stayed with the vehicle until the forensic crew came, did the site sweep, then loaded up the vehicle. Spoke to the head forensic technician myself—she’s solid.”

Adam thrust a hand through his hair. “Sorry, D. I should’ve known you would.”

“We’re all on edge.” She leaned slightly into him, about as far as this new, prickly Dahlia would go toward asking for affection from her wing leader.

He wrapped his arms around her, her height so close to his own that he could press his cheek to hers. “He’s tough.”