As soon as the phone powered on, I dialed the man, holding the phone to my ear. "Hey," I said as soon as he answered. "Can you talk?"
"Yes."
God, his voice. It was deep and raspy and made my insides curl.
That was bad.
I swallowed tightly and tried to gather my thoughts and figure out why I had called the man. There were things I couldn't tell him and that made this conversation a bad idea.
"Ajag?"
"Yeah?"
"Just tell me."
"I'm trying to figure out what to do," I finally said. "We can't stay on the road for the rest of our lives, but we can't stay in one place for too long. Eventually we're going to run out of money and—"
"Don't worry about the money," Rad stated. "I can send you more if you need it."
That made me frown. "I can't keep taking your money, Rad."
"You can if I offer it."
I sighed as I dropped my head back and stared up at the night sky. I didn't really want to think about why Rad was so willing to give me money. I didn't have the ability to spare thoughts for that right now. I needed to think about Sy right now. He'd been my sole focus for the last couple of years. That wasn't going to change because I'd found a shifter I couldn't stop thinking about.
"Sy will need to start school pretty soon," I started. "I mean, I've got a couple of years, but eventually he'll need to stay in one place long enough to go to school, but I'm not sure how to go about that. I attended a shifter school when I was a kid. I can't send Sy to a human school, but we can't be registered in a pack."
"I know you don't believe this, but you can go back to the ranch. Everyone there knows you and Sy and they know you are running from something. They are not going to report you if you don't want them to."
Rad was right. I didn't believe it.
"Someone would figure out I was there at some point and that would put all of us in danger, not just Sy and me."
"What are your other options?" Rad asked.
There weren't a lot of them.
"I know I can home school Sy for a few years, but eventually he'll need a formal education."
"Not necessarily," Rad stated. "Home schooling has come a long ways in the last few years. With the internet, you could actually home school all the way to college."
"Sy would still have to be registered."
"You can use the ID I gave you."
I gasped as I sat up straighter. I hadn't considered that. If I used the fake ID Rad had given me, I could register Sy and home school him. That way, he wouldn't need to be in a human school.
I still needed a place to settle down.
Chapter Nine
~ Radalf ~
I wanted to tell Ajag to head back to the ranch, but until I heard from Ze'ev, I couldn't, and I wasn't about to tell Ajag why he shouldn't go there. That would send the man into a tailspin.
"I can recommend a few smaller out of the way towns where you could settle for awhile." I didn't like the idea, but it was the best I had at the moment, Ajag was right. He couldn't keep traveling forever. Eventually, he needed to settle in one place.
"Another choice is an RV, one big enough for you and Sy to live in. You can get satellite internet so he can go to school and move from campground to campground. It would give you the living space you'd need, even if it's a small living space."
