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“Is that Tahir’s feather on your shoulder?

” Adam’s brother-in-law—and senior wing commander—drawled with an amused smile.

“I warned him he’d be late, but he told me to ‘stop hovering, Daaaad—it’s so kestrel.

’ Guess who’ll be explaining himself to his extremely not -amused mother today.

Though I suppose at least my youngest progeny’s insults are well-informed. ”

Adam picked off the feather with a grin.

“Wouldn’t want to be your boy.” Quite aside from being the lead engineer on WindHaven’s jet-shield projects, Saoirse was a senior maternal in the pack hierarchy and the terror of all misbehaving juveniles.

“Chirp already at work?” Adam’s sister had a tendency to rise at four a.m. bright-eyed and chirpy—hence Chirp.

Amir’s smile was slow and full of the secrets between mates. “I flew her in while the fledglings were asleep.”

And no doubt got up to all kinds of things Adam didn’t need to know about. He might be wing leader, but he was also Saoirse’s younger brother by a good six years. “I’m driving Mali down.”

“I’ll walk my girl to the garage. See you in a few.” Amir bumped fists with him.

Adam had only gone a few feet when he saw another clanmate with a mug of coffee in hand, but this one was barefoot and in a bathrobe, with her thick black hair held up by some sort of giant claw clip. He could just glimpse a lock of the white streak she’d had since she was a kid.

“Seriously?” Adam looked the tall wing-second up and down.

Dahlia just grunted before gulping down her coffee as if it was the nectar of the gods. “Hot date last night,” she said after the ritual gulping. “Damn tiger wore me out.”

“There aren’t any tigers anywhere near us.” Adam, as the most dominant being in the region, would have been alerted—for the other changeling’s own safety. Their kind didn’t fuck around when it came to territorial boundaries.

“Not an actual tiger, but man definitely could growl.” Dahlia shrugged off the memory the next second, her skin as vibrant and healthy as if she hadn’t been carousing all night. “Oh well, he was just passing through. One night is all we’ll ever have.”

Adam didn’t comment; he was used to his wing-second’s chaotic sex life over the past year.

Never relationships, only ever hookups. They didn’t talk about the whys of it—because Adam had been there when Dahlia’s fiancé left her at the altar.

Asshole had texted her later that day, saying that tall, voluptuous, and ruthlessly loyal Dahlia was “too domineering” and that he’d realized he needed a “more feminine wife, a woman who knows how to treat her man.”

Adam would’ve ripped off the fucker’s nonexistent balls and stuffed them in his mouth if Dahlia hadn’t told him to leave it, that she’d be humiliated if her wing leader went after a man for not wanting her. “This is my mess, Adam. I’ll clean it up.”

Worst of it was that she’d been in love with the dickhead.

Enough to agree to his request of a full-on wedding, complete with a formal white gown, when she’d never been comfortable in dresses.

In the aftermath, Adam had watched her rip the bottom of the fucking gown off with her talons.

She hadn’t cried a single tear while doing it, and all the while, Adam had known her heart was breaking.

He—all of WindHaven—had been ready to wrap their wings around her, let her vent and rage, but Dahlia had chosen to stride out to the limo that had been meant to take her and her new husband to their exclusive “wedding night” hotel.

Yet another thing the asshole had wanted—Dahlia, Adam knew, would’ve far preferred a quiet desert bungalow.

“I need to be alone,” she’d said to Adam when he’d got in her way. “I can’t stand anyone’s sympathy—please keep the clan away from me.”

It had gone against his every instinct to do as she asked, to let this wounded member of his clan fly on her own, but Dahlia so rarely asked for anything—and that day, he’d heard the tremor of tears in her voice and known this proud falcon would hate breaking down in front of him.

So he’d given her the gift of space and time despite himself.

Dahlia had returned to the Canyon twenty-four hours later, dry-eyed and back to her no-nonsense self. Except she’d never been the same. It infuriated Adam that a man who’d never deserved her had damaged their fiery, dangerous Dahlia so much that she didn’t trust her own heart any longer.

“You should’ve come—my tiger arrived with a firecracker of a fellow trucker,” she added today, as a passing clanmate grabbed her empty mug and thrust a full one in her hand.

Dahlia serenaded the clanmate with thanks as he walked away.

Adam folded his arms. “Now you’re training people to shove coffee in your face in the mornings?” he said, not worried that it was because Pascal was concerned about Dahlia being functional at the scheduled meeting of the day-shift team.

Dahlia would be ready.

“Won’t happen again,” she’d promised Adam the morning after she got blackout drunk at the local bar three weeks after her aborted wedding.

“I know,” he’d said, able to see the shame in her eyes and wishing he could beat her useless ex to a pulp without crossing the boundary she’d laid down; Dahlia had always been one of the toughest and most confident of them all.

Adam hated that she was still hurting, her breezy surface no barrier to a wing leader’s ability to see through to his people’s hearts, but there was only so far anyone could go with their tough Dahlia; she’d retreat if pushed on the subject.

“Hah, it’s a gift of thanks,” Dahlia protested after a gulp of the fresh coffee. “My tiger’s smoke show of a friend? Guess who she went home with?” A wriggle of the eyebrows. “I made the introductions.” Another gulp. “Seriously, Adam, you should come out with us sometime.”

“I have and lived to tell the tale. Never again.”

While Dahlia dropped it, Adam could see the wing-second was worried about Adam’s current monk-like existence. All changelings needed tactile contact to remain stable; the more dominant the changeling, the more important the need.

Without touch, they turned aggressive, dangerous.

Affection was enough to fill that need in their young, but the older they got, the more the sexual side of their nature kicked in—but if a changeling didn’t want to go on the prowl, intimate skin privileges could be found within the clan.

However, with WindHaven small in numbers compared to the larger packs across the border in California, Adam didn’t play within its walls.

He’d had a human lover in Raintree until eight months ago, when she’d moved to Brazil for work. Older than him by seven years, she was a widow who’d lost her husband too young and had no desire for anything beyond a warm and trusting friendship, which had suited Adam fine.

The truth was that he’d never been as carefree as many of his clanmates when it came to intimate skin privileges. He wanted what his parents had had. That wing-to-wing, side-by-side, endless-laughter, and forever-love kind of deal. A true mating of the heart and soul.

He’d never been interested in the casual, and Dahlia knew that. Only his best friend and second-in-command Jacques knew the rest of it, the painful reason behind Adam’s inability to commit to anyone, how his world had shattered in every way possible ten years ago.

The fact that Dahlia had brought up the subject at all…fuck.

Leaving her to continue on her way to breakfast, he changed course to swing by the infirmary. Naia looked up from where she was going over patient charts, all big dark eyes and dark hair against skin the shade of rich cream, her lips lush and her body a dramatic landscape of curves.

“Am I causing problems in the clan?” he asked bluntly. “Aggression, I mean.”

Naia was WindHaven’s healer. She didn’t ask him to expound on the subject. “No, but I’d say you were on the edge of it. I was planning to talk to you about it this week.” Rising from her desk, she walked over. “You’ll need to figure something out before you cross that line.”

Jaw tight, Adam was still chewing over her words when he walked into the otherwise silent garage.

He’d just maneuvered a vehicle out of its bay when Malia came jogging in with Amir prowling beside her.

She had her bookbag slung over her shoulder and an organizer clutched to her chest, her hair down but pulled back on one side with a glittery comb.

The rest of her was a cascade of color.

Tight jeans of vivid blue, a sunset-hued T-shirt over which she’d thrown a textured vest on which were sewn patches from all the places she’d traveled with her family, and long dangling earrings that she’d made herself of tiny shed feathers interwoven with turquoise beads.

She was a bright spark, their Mali.

“Ready?”

“Yep.” She turned to kiss Amir on the cheek, having to stand on tiptoe because she’d inherited Saoirse’s height rather than her father’s. “Bye, Dad. Your favorite child loves you!”

Amir chuckled as he shut the passenger door behind her, then leaned his arms on the window to talk to Adam. “You coming to the meeting this morning?”

“No. Pascal can give me the rundown when I’m back—got something to take care of.”

He drove out seconds later, his mind on the visitor who’d drawn his attention, the thought a niggling thorn in his mind. Adam wasn’t one to ignore his instincts. He’d check her out after he dropped Malia off at school.