“We’ll leave right away!” I started to look around the room for what to bring.
“Hold up.” Rab put his hands out. “Our peoplejustsettled here. They will want to see you first, to have faith in this new home you’ve brought them to.”
I growled, not excited to play politics right now. But he was right. I’d need to make a small appearance before I left. “Fine. Sage, you get two horses ready. Pack them up with enough food for a week and I’ll go make one round outside through the village. We leave in an hour for Troll Village.”
I wasn’t letting Sawyer die because I had to uphold some image.
Sage nodded and stepped toward me, pulling something from her pocket. “In all the drama, I forgot to give this back. Your mom held on to it for me when I went looking for you.” She reached out her hand and my breath caught in my throat.
My ring.
I plucked it from her palm and slipped it on my ring finger. It felt so foreign to wear jewelry after a year in the wild, and yet this ring felt like home. It made me miss Sawyer so much more. “Thank you,” I croaked.
Rab stepped outside, ushering me to do the same, and I nodded. Sage then handed me a cup of coffee and a breakfast burrito, which I took gratefully. My hair was still damp, but I stepped out into the chilly morning air and took in the sights of my people, of our new home.
The first thing I noticed were the smiles. People were laughing, drinking from steaming hot mugs that had been heated over campfires, as they breathed in fresh air. After living off the land for a year, I couldn’t imagine hiding in a concrete bunker. Emotion clogged my throat when I noticed all of the fresh green grass, yellow and pink flowers, fern bushes. The land was still magically restoring itself, but it looked like it had become a garden wonderland overnight. Every tree was thick with leaves, every patch of ground covered in grass or moss, and each house still standing blanketed in creeping vines and flowers.
It was the physical manifestation of what I’d done in that cave by giving my magic to my people and this land, and it blew me away with pride and gratitude.
“The village has never looked more beautiful,” Rab said, startling me from my thoughts. “I checked on the fields a few hours ago. The corn, avocados, peaches, barley, peas, it’s all growing back at a rapid rate, with no sight of disease.”
A tear slipped down my cheek as my throat tightened. This right here made it all worth it. The year away, not being there for Sawyer, it was a hard choice, but I’d saved thousands of Paladins, and now thousands of city wolves, as this land would be their safe haven until we could take Wolf City back.
I inhaled through my nose. Mixed with the flowers was the smell of magic,my magic, Paladin magic. This land was special, and I think even the city wolves sensed that. Trying to push Sawyer from my mind and the sense of urgency I felt to get to him and to Marmal to find this troll, I forced myself to calm down and take a breath, to enjoy this moment of what I had accomplished for our people.
“A lot of people want to thank you,” Rab said. “Come on.”
I followed him into the little campsites where people were waking up and sitting in front of fires as they made breakfast.
“Thank you, Alpha!” a Paladin woman with one kid on each hip called out to me as I passed. I gave her a small smile and nodded my head. People were out and about, stretching and looking up at the rising sun. Imagine a year underground and then coming back to this Garden of Eden.
“She healed our land!” another said, and I suddenly felt awkward with the public attention, but continued to walk and be seen like Rab said. I didn’t want to be known as an absent leader, especially if I was going away for a while. I sipped my coffee and nibbled my burrito as I waved and nodded at people who we passed by.
We came upon an open field where a bunch of city wolves seemed to be surveying the land and pointing out different areas for building. I recognized one of them as the man who’d almost challenged me in the bunker. As if sensing me behind him, he turned. There was regret in his eyes, even shame. He gave me a small nod of his head and I nodded back. That was as much of an apology as I was going to get.
“Hey, I heard you’re leaving soon,” Willow called to me from behind. I turned to see her holding her daughter. The baby looked so much like her mother, all except for the beautiful brown eyes she had compared to her mother’s Paladin blue. She would forever be known in our community as one of the few Paladin children born without wolf shifter magic in the time that we had no alpha … and I would hold guilt over that for the rest of my life.
Still, she was perfect.
I’d been worried Creek would be born without a wolf since he too was born before I’d claimed the land, but I could smell his wolf just under his skin, something he got from his father and my city wolf lineage no doubt. In that case, his wolf wouldn’t emerge until around his first birthday, as was normal in city wolf genetics.
“Yeah, I’m just making the rounds,” I told Willow, “and then I’m going to get Sawyer and bring him back.”
She nodded as if she understood, and then booped her daughter’s nose. “I’m taking Daisy for a playdate with Creek, and then I’m going to make mashed corn soup!” She said the last few words in an excited voice to the baby, who blew a raspberry in her face.
I smiled. Willow was such a natural mother, and I loved the name Daisy. In all the drama I’d totally forgotten to ask what they’d named her. I had a dark thought then. What if Sage, Sawyer, Walsh and I all died and none of us made it back? Who would take care of Creek? My mom was great but she wasn’t a warrior. What if the Ithaki attacked and she died too and there was no one to take care of my son? Panic seized me.
“Hey, Willow, Rab…” I looked at them both awkwardly, deciding something in the spur of the moment. They stared at me with concern, probably because I sounded on the verge of tears. “I, uh, my mom’s going to be looking after Creek while I’m gone, but if something were to happen to her, and my dad … and I didn’t come home…” I blew air through my lips nervously. “If anything happens to me, will you make sure Creek is taken care of?” My throat tightened with emotion at that thought, but it was a very real thing to have to think about right now. Sage and I were going on a dangerous mission and Ineededto know my son would be okay.
Willow grabbed her heart, clutching Daisy closer to her as tears lined her eyes. As a new mother, I hoped she understood my panic.
“I hope thatneverhappens, but if it does, that baby boy will have a long and happy life,” Willow promised. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“Me too,” Rab said. “We will provide for him and protect him with our lives, as if he were our own.”
A huge weight lifted off of me then. That was what I needed to hear. Now I was ready to go fight for my man.
The horsesthat the Paladins kept on the back side of the land had grazed the wild grasses and drank from the stream over the past year, so they were in pretty good shape. Sage was able to convince two of them to wear a saddle, so we were in luck. It had been a year since either had been ridden, but they seemed okay with it, other than some twitchy tails. I couldn’t go into Wolf City and get a car and just drive on over to Troll Village, so this was the next best thing. Saying goodbye to the Paladin Village this morning had been hard. Our two wolf packs were trying to start fresh, and I was supposed to be their leader and I was leaving. But Ihadto do this.
