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)
The ocelot within snarled, insulted beyond measure.
The human half of her scowled, but both parts of her were in agreement on one point: she had to figure out how to get out of this place without being caught. According to Tamsyn, she was still in Chinatown, so DarkRiver hadn’t taken her to the forested core of their territory.
Good.
The pack was incredibly security conscious when it came to the heart of their lands. The Chinatown HQ, by comparison, was relatively open. It had all the necessary security protocols, but as it was also set up to allow meetings with outside parties, it couldn’t, by definition, be airtight.
She began to get dressed. Whoever had chosen the clothing had done a good job. Too good. The jeans fit snugly against her legs, and the T-shirt skimmed the lines of her body. While the sweatshirt—a dark gray—was loose, it was only fashionably so; Soleil felt exposed, all her weaknesses out in the open.
“Clothing is the least of my problems,” she muttered, bringing herself back to harsh reality.
After finger-combing her hair, she walked out into the room—just as someone knocked on the door. Having caught Tamsyn’s scent, she didn’t hesitate to say, “Come in.”
The healer poked her head just inside. “I wanted to let you know that I’m going to be here for a while, so just holler if you’d like to talk.” A hesitation. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me why you’re in the city?”
Tamsyn’s gaze was patient, warm as she added, “Are you in trouble? Or scared of someone? We can help you if you are.” The healer sighed when Soleil stayed silent. “I don’t like leaving you closed up in this room, but we need to protect our vulnerable. Just … think about it, okay?”
A shift in the air currents as Tamsyn moved slightly and Soleil’s entire world shifted on its axis, her heart kicking so hard it bruised. Either she was going truly insane, or she’d just caught a painfully familiar scent coming off Tamsyn. It belonged to a packmate. A SkyElm ocelot cub.
She tried to inhale deeper, confirm. But the scent vanished as quickly as it had appeared, a faint thread gone too soon. “I’m sorry,” she said to the healer, her cat too confused to think straight. “I’m not ready to speak.”
Eyes dark with worry, Tamsyn inclined her head. “I’ll be here until about half past seven. My mate’s taken our cubs and two of their friends to dinner at their favorite Chinatown restaurant—spic and span and in their best clothes.” So much love in her voice. “I’m on tenterhooks to see the state of their clothing when they return.”
Another tug on Soleil’s changeling heart, another bite of hunger to join in, be part of a group, part of a pack.
Tamsyn left with one more encouraging smile.
Soleil waited only until the healer had closed the door behind herself before walking over to the window to check it out. It was one of those ones that slid up halfway, allowing her to look out into open air. Given her size in cat form, sliding out would be just doable.
The problem was that the window looked out into what appeared to be a side garden that belonged to DarkRiver. If she was right, this alley garden sat between two buildings owned by the pack.
While she couldn’t see anyone watching her, she had no doubt that either the garden was under surveillance or there were guards posted at either end of the alleyway.
So she looked up.
Ocelots weren’t arboreal by nature—but that didn’t mean they couldn’t climb with feline fluidity. From her vantage point, she saw that she was on the second floor, only one other floor above her. Easy enough to scale to get to the roof. Which was also no doubt under surveillance. Because DarkRiver was made up of cats, and they’d never forget that people could climb. But, she thought, what about the building to the back? That wasn’t a DarkRiver property.
According to her research, that property was a private home. It didn’t back directly onto the HQ, of course, a small buffer of land between, but it was close enough for a cat who didn’t mind jumps. Soleil’s cat had always liked those leaps, liked the sense of flying.
The jump was doable. But would DarkRiver have left that flank unprotected? Was that private home truly private? Or was it just held under a corporate identity that meant it didn’t show up as pack property at first glance?
Since she no longer had her phone, she couldn’t even look it up. The phone had been in a zippered pocket of her daypack. Gone. And with it, the last connection to her life.
The aeries had been stripped of personal items and closed up by the time she made it home, but she’d found a broken bracelet of Yariela’s that had fallen into a gap in between empty drawers, as well as two painted stones the cubs had given her and she’d placed in her garden.