Page 201 of Awakened

“I wonder if he knows Kane’s out there,” Soren muses. He reaches out, extending his fist toward Shade. Shade takes a few sniffs of Soren’s scent, then swings his head toward the forest, then back toward Soren.

Not for the first time, I truly wonder how much Shade understands. I have a feeling it’s more than any of us realize.

“That panther is not normal,” Soren mutters, throwing his hands up when Shade narrows his eyes. “Not in a bad way. You’re just far more intelligent than… well… literally any other animal in the world.”

I run my hand across the fur on Shade’s head, fingers dancing over the marking in the middle of his forehead that’s in the shape of a crown.

“I’ve got to go inside for the night,” I tell him. “But I’ll come back tomorrow, alright?”

Soren inhales sharply when Shade nods his head before bounding across the yard back toward the forest.

I push to my feet and dust my hands off on the front of my pants. Soren shakes his head with a look of shock on his face.

“It’s just wild. I’ve never seen anything like it. I wonder where he even came from.”

I shrug. “He was just there one day. I assumed he was just a feral tomcat, but he’s always been incredibly intelligent. When the Alphas took me, I thought I’d never see him again.”

“But he followed.”

A grin blooms across my face. “Yeah… he followed.”

Soren reaches out, offering me his hand. “Ready to go see if we found anything interesting?”

I place my hand in his and let out a deep breath. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Chapter 24

Vaelenor

I’m ten minutes early to the meeting Soren requested, and when I walk into our sitting room, I’m glad I made it a point to come early. No one else is here yet, which works perfectly for me because I’m not trying to do this with a running live track of smart-ass commentary.

Grinning to myself, I pull all the bags into the room and place them on the couch. I eye them critically, then change my mind and set them back down on the floor.

Then I pick them back up again.

The clock in the corner of the room keeps ticking, and I could swear it’s seriously mocking me.

It’s plain as day once I realize what I’m hearing. Instead of the usual tick-tock, it’s the same word over and over again: mor-on.

I send it my most impressive scowl, and reach into one of the bags to pull out a heavy cashmere blanket, laying it next to me on the couch. I do the same with the other two, adjusting the position of each blanket until there’s a neatly folded pile taking over the entire left side of the couch.

Mor-on. Mor-on. Dumb-ass. Dumb-ass.

Fates, has that fucking clock always been so Fatesdamned loud? Maybe I need to take out the batteries.

Yeah, that’ll work.

I hesitate, trying to remember if it even takes batteries. I mean, the damn thing’s been here for the better part of a century, so… no?

How do I turn it off, then?

“Why are you looking at that clock like you’re about to challenge it to a duel?” Daxen asks, sauntering into the room. He stops in front of the couch, taking in the five extra-large, extra-soft, extra-comfy blankets. He raises a single, imperious brow, and before he’s even opened his mouth, I know I’m already sick of his shit.

“And what, preytell, is all this?”

He doesn’t even wait for an answer before bending over and scooping the blankets into his arms, searching the room for an empty space on the floor to toss them out of the way.

With a snarl, I rip them out of his arms and replace them, shifting and tucking and adjusting until they’re exactly where I had them before. When I’m done, I lay a protective hand on top of the makeshift fucking Nest I’m just now realizing I’ve made for Idril and decide… fuck it.