Page 116 of Shifters Reckoning

Six-Mile

The Cold Moon

Before Moonrise

My task was to hold the alliance together through the last hours so that whatever came out of that dome tonight, there would still be one people standing afterward.

Months of favors, leverage, grudging respect, and hard-won trust came together. I cashed in every chip I’d stacked since Emma’s crazy-assed integration plan turned my compound into a middle school before moonrise. Win or lose, by tomorrow, the board would be swept clean. Today was the last day the pieces were mine to move.

As the flightiest of shifters, the ravens were first in line, and I needed them nailed down for their task.

They’d bunked at the far edge of Six-Mile since the day they’d arrived, posted their own watch, and trusted nobody’s eyes but their own. Their speaker had spent the whole war looking for an exit from “The Great Unification,” as Dr. Wise had taken to calling it.

The raven alpha sat on the ridgeline of the mess hall roof, probably where the ravens went to feel superior.

I intended to offer him an olive branch. I raised my hand, gesturing for him to join me in the yard.

He cawed and flew down, shifting midair and landing on his feet.

“When this is over,” I said, “and the multimorph’s council writes the treaty that governs all of us, we’ll grant you autonomy in writing. Raven territory, raven watch, raven law inside your own borders, answerable to the council only and no other clan. You stop being somebody’s aerial reconnaissance and start being your own nation.” I let that sink in. “I can’t give it to you myself, but I can promise you Six-Mile’s vote for it, and Red Tail’s, and Bear Trees’s, and I can promise I’ll say so in front of everyone so I can’t take it back.”

He tilted his head, eyeing me in a twitchy, avian way. “And in exchange, what happens tonight?”

“Tonight, your birds fly a containment ring around the multimorph’s dome. You’ll know it when you see it.”

“Why us?”

“Because no shifter in Louisiana spots like your kind, and if anything comes over that boundary, I want it seen before it lands.” I held his black gaze. “You’ve spent this whole war being dubious of everything we’ve done and every choice we’ve made. Fine. Watch. Trust me as far as tomorrow. That’s all I’m asking.”

The raven alpha considered me for a long moment.

“The first council after the Cold Moon,” I said, “your territory-state will be one of the first items on the docket.” If we have a council after tonight…

He stuck out his hand, and we shook on it. “We’ll do as you say.”

Garrick was the prickly stick in the asshole I had to deal with next. The northern wolves were both easier and harder. Garrick had wanted to hit back at Acheron since the day he’d arrived in Six-Mile, had called my mate’s whole strategy a bus schedule, and had led the crowd that wanted Marcus in chains. He’d also sent his best into the Void and gotten some of them killed. Despite his shortcomings, he’d been loyal.

I found him sitting in the corner of the mess hall alone, sipping an Irish coffee, the scent of the whiskey on his breath the dead giveaway.

“How can I help you, Logan? I doubt this is a social call.”

“No reason to beat around the bush.”

He held up his coffee mug. “Care for a morning cap?”

“Morning cap?”

“Not a nightcap.”

“Ah. I want to go over our positions for the fight.”

He nodded. “Go on.”

“First honors,” I told him. “When the containment forms tonight, it’ll look like a dome. The northern packs hold the line closest to it. The point of the spear, so to speak. If the horde tries to break in to reach her, you’re the ones who meet it first.” I watched his broad shoulders shift, as though adjusting to the weight of the responsibility. “You wanted to matter in this war, Garrick. I’m handing you the most dangerous ground on the field. That’s not a punishment. That’s the honor your dead paid for.”

He was quiet a long moment, and then he put his fist to his chest in the old salute, the one that predated all our clans. “The north stands closest. On my honor and theirs.”

Under all the bluster and noise, he’d only ever wanted to be told his people counted and were remembered. If we survived, I planned to meet with Dr. Wise and make sure Garrick wound up in her histories.