Badger and Charlie were slated to take a different ship in six months. They still had good-byes to say to others, a few things to do, and Badger wanted one more trip back to Tahlia’s grave to say good-bye to her. Once Duncan and Louisa arrived in America, they would secure temporary housing, meet up with one of Badger’s cousins, and send word back to Charlie and Badger where to find them. Meanwhile, Duncan planned to acquire whatever they’d need to make the next leg of their journey.
Which now looked like it’d take them farther west than he’d originally planned.
The things Duncan had seen inside the woman while trying to help ease her pain, he didn’t know what to make of them.
Hell, he still didn’t know what to make ofher.
He remembered his mother telling him and his siblings stories of the fae. Maybe Chelsea was one of them. Perhaps a witch?
It didn’t matter.
What mattered was how her words struck deep inside his soul, because she believed them in a way she only believed things that had come to pass as she’d seen them.
And now he felt more determined than ever to build his new pack in America.
Shaking himself from his memories in the shower, Duncan scrubbed his hands over his face, wiping the water from his eyes as he finally reached for the soap.
I need to spend time re-evaluating everything I believed.
Because, obviously, he’d been wrong.
And, as the old woman had unerringly proven time and again, she wasnot.
CHAPTERNINE
DUNCAN
After a nap Duncanchecked out of the hotel, stopped for lunch, and then headed for the Thompson home.
Their large, self-sufficient and off-the-grid cabin was built on pack land, in the middle of two thousand heavily wooded and mountainous acres bordering the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that weren’t open to hunting or public use.
When Duncan arrived he found Amstel and Aaron there, with most of the pot plants already destroyed. They were using a small woodchipper and directing it into a hole they’d dug that was about five feet deep.
“Not checking up on you,” Duncan said. “I decided I wanted to go for a run myself while I’m up here to clear my head.” He pointed at the hole. “Can I ask a stupid question?”
“No smoke,” Amstel said, smiling. “We’ll dump a couple of gallons of weedkiller in with it. I didn’t want to attract any attention from Forestry, just in case. And this is far enough away from our garden and greenhouse and well that it shouldn’t seep into anything to cause us issues.”
“Ah. Smart plan. Anything I need to know about the property?”
“There’s an old barbed-wire fence along most of the boundary between us and the national park,” Amstel said, “but you’ll also start seeing posted signs, as well as double orange paint rings around trees, with purple vertical stripes. That’s a little overkill but we wanted to make sure people could see them. From that boundary, if you continue, then you’re in the national park and there’s no hunting allowed in there. We’ve run patrols before in there and rarely do humans make it all the way to the boundary. Now, as you go, when you start seeing trees on the border with a single orange paint ring and purple stripe, those are borders against other properties but not the national park. There shouldn’t be any hunting right now, but you never know. There are a few private preserves here and there in this region, so be careful. Gillian said it’s on their list to buy more surrounding properties in the next couple of years.”
“Noted. I’ll probably be gone until nightfall. I’ll leave my rental unlocked. Aaron, If I don’t return by tomorrow morning notify Ken, and then you and Amstel and Lowri come look for me.”
Aaron scowled. “Notify Ken?”
“I don’t want Dewi bothered unless it is something serious. If it’s something as simple as I pulled a muscle, no need to worry her.”
He returned to his rental and started stripping, wanting—needingto run. He’d run a few times in Florida, and back in Idaho, with packmates after his return, but today…
Today he needed to be alone for a while.
He needed to think about Chelsea’s prophecy.
And he wanted to mourn Tully in his own way.
They’d had a lot of happy years in Idaho after arriving and beginning to buy, build.
Mine.
