“Willow called the ER,” Kenny said. “She told them who’s coming in and what’s wrong. She works that ER sometimes, so she knew the nurse she was talking to. They’ll be waiting for her when Carl gets her in the door.”
“Google says both Angie and the baby can die,” Carl’s sister said.
“Google is right,” Willow told her. “And that will often happen without hospital intervention, but she’ll have the best ER in the city working on her.”
There were questions about how she knew something was wrong. They were treading on shaky ethical ground, but she decided this was one of those cases where supernatural culture superseded human rules, so she told them what she overheard, how the light sensitivity and headache rang alarm bells, so she asked if she could check her out.
“You did a pelvic exam?” one of the teen girls asked.
“No. You can tell a lot about someone by pressing on their lower shin.”
“That’s enough questions for now,” Kenny said. “Silas is about to hold a fire-starting class. Parents, as always, we’ll trust your instincts about whether your kids are ready. June has anobstacle course for the kids who aren’t lighting wood on fire, and the winner gets to put the moon topper on the kitchen tree.”
Excitement rippled through the children, the tension around the fire breaking. Willow watched the younger ones creeping along shadows, darting through cardboard tunnels, balancing on logs while moving forward and backward, leaping mat to mat without touching the ground. Their determination was fierce, wolf-born. It was damned impressive, and she found herself wishing hawks did things like this.
And Silas organized the kids by experience, so the youngest carefully constructed little teepee fires, while the older ones copied an example log-cabin structure that could burn all night. The oldest teens, presumably the ones who already knew all this, helped the youngest with their teepees.
Shortly before they all went inside to start the tree, Carl’s sister got a call that Angie was being worked on, and that one of the doctors had told him it was a good thing he made it in with her when he did.
The chaos funneled into the kitchen, where the tree already stood in the corner, waiting to be adorned. They’d planned food for nearly eight hundred people in a mix of wolves, other shifters, and humans, but less than half had come inside. A lot less than half.
Is this invitation only?She telepathed Silas.
Top quarter of the hierarchy, their mates and kids. Space was designed so the whole pack fits in the kitchen and porch together. We have to overflow to the yard when mates and kids come too, but we make it work.
She figured they had at least two hundred people crammed into the space with standing room only, the tables and sofas filled before the crowd arrived. The energy was feral, the noise a happy roar of voices and laughter.
Three people walked up to Willow with an ornament in their hands, and all three blushed when they realized the other two had done the same as them.
They’d brought a hawk ornament for Willow to put on the tree.
Two more people stepped forward as well. One held an ornament with a sitting hawk, three were hawks in flight, one was diving.
And then a teen walked to her with a man she assumed was the young girl’s dad, and he said, “My Angelina is a budding artist, and she…”
He stopped talking when his daughter touched his arm. “Dad brought me to run one day. My wolf is still kind of new, and I’d had a bad day. Just needed, well, the important part is I saw you flying, and I took some pictures because I wanted to paint you.”
She held up a large, clear glass ornament, thick and heavy, with a gorgeous image of a hawk mid-dive, wings flaring, feathers tipped in white to match the streaks in her own. She touched it reverently, her throat tightening. Tears threatened to spill. All she could do was hug the teen and tell her how much this meant to her. She stood away from her a little and told them all how much this meant. How touched she was. She hugged every one of them, and finally let her tears fall.
She’d expected polite smiles at best after her blunder with the Alpha voice earlier. But they’d brought these before that. And now, they werestillpressing them into her hands, offering them for the tree. Accepting her even after she’d fucked up.
The weight of it undid her, and her eyes stung hot as she hung the painted hawk on a sturdy tree in a little protected cove of branches, but where the lights hit it just right. Safe and spotlit.
She hung the other five with as much care, hawks flying on the tree amongst all the crouching, running, resting, and sitting wolves.
With nearly thirty people working, the decorating didn’t take long. Fifteen minutes and the tree was alive with color, hundreds of wolves hanging from the branches.
And six hawks.
And then Kenny stepped forward with a hawk in his hand.
“I bought this, so we’d have a hawk on the tree. So Willow would feel represented, and ya’ll have blown me away by accepting her like this.”
He hung his hawk, wings spread in flight, high up, near the top, and turned to pull her into his arms.
Willow hugged him hard and then stepped back, biting her lip hard to keep from crying all over again in front of everyone, and Kenny said, “Okay, the tree is ready for the moon. Where’s little BillyBob?”
A small boy came running through the people, and Kenny handed him a moon. An actual moon. Craters and all.
