That evening, as Ryan drove with Makenna through the gates of his territory, he asked, “What are the stories of the loners we’re hiding?” He gave Gabe, who was in the security shack, a curt nod as they passed him. “We can’t adequately protect them if we don’t know what or who might come for them.”
Makenna agreed, but she couldn’t break their confidence. “Riley shared her story with me, trusting I wouldn’t repeat it. I can’t violate her trust like that. But I can tell you about Savannah and Dexter. As you might have sensed, Savannah is a snake shifter. A viper. She was abandoned as a baby, left outside a church. Social Services mistook her for a human. When she started displaying strange behavior—hissing, biting, and climbing just about everything—her human adoptive parents took her to be tested. When it transpired that she was a shifter, they didn’t want her anymore. Social Services passed her on to Dawn.”
His wolf snarled at the idea of a child being deserted not just once but twice. “Why do you think she needs to be hidden?”
“I did some research on viper nests, trying to track her origins. Vipers are rare, so it wasn’t hard. Did you hear about the nest from Arizona that was wiped out by a cougar pride that swore it would see every last viper within the nest dead?”
“Yes. The Alpha wanted revenge when his son died after being poisoned by a female viper.”
“We think Savannah was part of that nest. The ruling pair reportedly had a baby daughter that was nowhere to be found when the nest and pride went to war. The cougars searched for her. Our best guess is that her parents abandoned her to protect her.”
“The Alpha wanted to kill their daughter as a tit for tat,” Ryan concluded.
She nodded, a grim twist to her mouth. “Hopefully Remy doesn’t make the connection between Savannah and the war. She may not be from that nest, but the cougars would still come to find out for themselves. I wasn’t going to take any chances.”
“What about Dexter?”
“He was also brought to Dawn by Social Services. We have no idea what pride he’s from. He’d been living wild on the streets. He was found by human kids who tormented and prodded him with sticks. A passing stranger recorded the incident with his cell phone . . . so I watched as Dexter’s claws sliced out and he attacked the kids to defend himself.”
“He was able to partially shift?” It was rare that their inner animals surfaced to any degree before puberty.
“Yep. The footage was uploaded to YouTube. The anti-shifter extremists pounced on the whole thing, claiming Dexter is a freak that even his pride doesn’t want. They said Dexter needed to be ‘put down’ like a rabid dog. We’ve been hiding him from them.”
His wolf flexed his claws, wanting to lash out. “The kids have had a tough time.”
“They have.”
Entering the parking lot, Ryan whipped into his usual parking space. “I want to ask you something.” He just hadn’t been sure how to bring it up. Makenna looked at him, expectant. “Do you want to contact your uncle?” Okay, he probably should have eased her into the subject a little better.
Caught off guard by the question, Makenna sucked in a breath. “I haven’t given it any thought. There’s a lot going on right now. I need to concentrate on the shelter. I’ll worry about my uncle at a later point.” For some reason, that made Ryan scowl. “What?”
“You don’t always have to put others before yourself.” It was pissing him off more and more.
That put her on the defensive. “I don’t always do it.”
He grunted.
“No, I don’t.”
He grunted again.
“I don’t. Look, my uncle isn’t exactly going anywhere. There’s no rush to deal with that. But the shelter . . . that’s a ‘here and now’ problem.” She sighed, admitting, “And maybe I don’t want to deal with my past just yet. Maybe I want some time to let it all sink in. Maybe.”
Ryan cupped her nape and drew her close. “That doesn’t make you weak.”
“I never said it did.”
“You were thinking it.”
Yes, she was. “You wouldn’t put something aside temporarily. You’d deal with it straightaway and then move on.”
“Because I don’t feel even half of the emotions that you do. I’m numb to a lot of things.”
She gave him a pointed look. “There’s nothing at all wrong with you. Being reserved and logical doesn’t make you—”
“Emotionally detached? That’s exactly what I am.” He’d accepted that.