Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Mere fragments to remember an entire life. Precious fragments now lost.
Her lower lip trembled.
A flicker in her mind, the delicate spiderweb glittering to haunting life … this time in shades of silver shot with a striking pale blue. As she watched, the colors altered to a fiery orange edged with a red as dark as rage.
Wonder caught Soleil’s breath all over again, the beauty of the construct no less beautiful for being edged in a tone so harsh. She clung to it as she considered her options.
“You know there’s only one choice,” Farah said from beside her, her chin propped up in her hands as she perched her elbows on the windowsill. “You need to find out the meaning of the scent on Tamsyn, confirm if it was real or … like me.”
Eyes burning, Soleil didn’t look directly at her friend; she never looked directly at Farah, not ready to face the awful forever truth. “How am I going to get to that other roof, though?”
This building hadn’t been built as a prison, but it had been built with security in mind. There was no trellis that she could climb, no trees close enough for a cat to jump onto. Things a changeling mind had considered during the build.
Farah went as silent as the grave.
Agony tearing at her, Soleil slammed her hands against the window ledge.
That was when her eye fell on something she’d previously discarded: the fine decorative ledge that ran just below the window and seemed to go all the way around the building. It was a ledge far too slender for a leopard—or a human. Even a small human adult wouldn’t be able to maintain their balance with nothing above them but air.
But she wasn’t a leopard. Her changeling form was far smaller and more agile than theirs, her tail half the length of her body and built for balance. She might be too thin right now, in either form, but she wasn’t weak, had made sure of that, her muscles in good working order.
She looked again at the ledge, narrowed her eyes.
Yes, her claws, sharp and curved, could grip it.
Crawling along the narrow space would take time. But it could be done. Especially under cover of darkness, when she could become a dappled shadow against the wall, a shadow that moved so very slowly that it caught no attention at all.
She visualized the climb in her mind, and as she did so, wondered if she’d be able to shift when the time came. Her cat hadn’t emerged since the day everyone died. It had curled up into a ball deep inside her, and there it had stayed … until it saw Ivan.
It stretched luxuriantly inside her at the thought of him, and she felt its fur brush the inside of her skin, its claws prick the insides of her fingers. Oh yes, it was ready to come out again. And though it might be obsessed with Ivan, on one thing both parts of her were united: discovering the truth of what had happened to Yariela and the other survivors.
Chapter 20
Okay, y’all, we’ve discussed the whole wolf/bear food “situation.” If one of those two changelings is your sweetie—or a possible sweetie—and they offer you food, consider it an engagement ring and start booking the mating ceremony venue.
Or, you know, run far, far away as fast as possible.
We jest, we jest! But while food is a powerful courtship ritual for many changelings, away from that context, it’s also an act of pack love and care. The recipes in this edition of your favorite magazine celebrate those acts of love and comfort between packmates.
—From the July 2083 “Culinary Special” issue of Wild Woman magazine: “Skin Privileges, Style & Primal Sophistication”
IT COULDN’T HAVE been more than two hours from the time she decided to make the attempt to the point where she felt she had to risk it. The summer sun hadn’t set yet, the world bathed in oranges and yellows.
Her preference would’ve been to wait till dark, but Tamsyn had mentioned staying around till half past seven and Soleil didn’t want to risk missing her departure. She had no idea where the healer lived, or where she planned to go after leaving the HQ. And the only way to solve the mystery of the phantom scent thread that threatened to break Soleil’s heart with hope was to track her, see where it led.
Another thing that had thrown a wrench in the works was that she hadn’t simply been left alone in her room. First, a short and curvy brunette with subtly uptilted eyes and an open smile had knocked a couple of times, to check that she was all right and didn’t need anything.
It had been strange and wonderful, her cat wanting to make friends with the other woman even though it knew it couldn’t.