Tangle of Need

It had been incredibly hard to walk away from “her” kids, but she’d been worried her emotional troubles would spill over into her teaching. So she’d trained up a replacement and made sure her novices were comfortable with the other soldier before she left. Things had changed in the interim, and she missed working with their young, but would not do so at the expense of another packmate, especially one she loved.

“Indigo’s brilliant at what she does.” Though she tried to keep her tone even, her wolf bristled.

“No argument,” Riley said at once. “I have something else in mind for you.” He waited, as if giving her the opportunity to interrupt. When she didn’t, he continued. “According to Matthias, you’re very good with the submissives. Which doesn’t surprise me, given the true status of your rank.”

Of course Riley would know. “A trainer working with submissives,” she said with a smile, “has to realize that while they’re never going to be soldiers, they have unique strengths of their own.” The most vulnerable in the hierarchy didn’t respond well to the necessarily ruthless teaching style utilized to train the dominants.

Riley gave a small nod. “I’d like you to take over the self-defense training of twenty-five submissive kids, ages fourteen to eighteen. They’ve had the normal course, but Hawke wants them to get as much advanced training as they’re able to handle.”

“The continuing hostilities,” Adria said, knowing the alpha had to be thinking about a situation where the dominants were killed in large numbers. A hard thing to contemplate, but it had to be done.

“You should talk to Walker.” Riley passed across a datapad loaded with a list of names and photos. “Your group’s skewed toward the younger age group. He gave most of those kids their basic training. The older ones, Eli handled.”

“I’ll touch base with them both.” Adria knew how important it was that the three of them work as a unit. “Who’s training the maternal kids?” A second later, she clicked her fingers, her wolf nudging at her. “I bet you it’s Drew.”

Riley laughed. “My brother knows how to walk that fine line between making sure they never forget he’s more dominant, and not pissing them off. He’s got forty in his group, been working with them for months.”

Adria whistled. “Those are big numbers.”

“Turns out we had more than the usual number of births fourteen to eighteen years ago. A statistically significant percentage of those pups are turning out to be dominants—soldier and maternal, but it’s affected every level of the hierarchy.”

Adria’s wolf lifted its muzzle in a silent, mournful howl as understanding whispered through her veins. Changelings were the least fertile of the three races, but it had been observed over and over that when a pack lost a brutal number of its own within a short time frame, birth rates spiked in the years following. And SnowDancer had suffered heartbreaking losses two decades ago.

Riley had the same solemn knowledge in his eyes when he said, “Questions?”

“Anything I need to know about the kids that might not be immediately apparent?”

“Walker’s probably the best person to answer that,” Riley said, picking up his phone. “I’ll see if he’s available.”

Walker wasn’t in the den, but they were able to catch him on his cell. “Call me at any stage,” he said after they’d finished going through the list, his insight into the pups she’d be taking on displaying a sensitivity to the needs of the young that resonated deeply with her. “They know they can come to me no matter what, and might do so until they begin to trust you—I’ll let you know if any issues crop up.”

“Thanks.”

Ending the call soon afterward, Riley said, “Half your group’s on a field trip, but they’ll be back by seven. Unless you have another commitment, we’ll meet at eight.”

“Eight works. See you then.” She headed out of the office, deciding to use her free time to further explore the territory as Hawke had requested.

She’d only been walking for a minute when she saw the most amazing sight.

Two small leopard cubs scrabbled around the corner, obviously racing each other … to come to a dead stop, claws scraping on stone, when they saw her. Two heads lifted. Two pairs of beautiful green-gold eyes held her own.

Glancing around, Adria saw the corridor was otherwise deserted. “I don’t think,” she whispered, crouching down to run her hand over the fur of the one closest to her, “you’re supposed to be here.” DarkRiver and SnowDancer were blood-allies, but leaving a child to roam the den alone was a huge step beyond that. So either these two adorable troublemakers—both of whom were now demanding to be petted—had escaped their frantic mother, or they’d somehow snuck in. Adria would’ve said they were too small to navigate the distance from DarkRiver land, but she’d known too many children.

The sound of more claws against stone, right before a tiny wolf pup attacked the cubs from behind. Stunned, she was about to pull them apart when she realized the growling and snarling and clawing was all for show. She rose to her feet, her wolf too amused to think about spoiling their fun.