“DNA tests confirmed my client is who he says: Nika Marisek, youngest son and the sole surviving heir of their Imperial Majesties Eton and Olina Marisek.” Flashes strobed from dozens of cameras as the crisply suited attorney spoke at a podium on the television screen. “As such, the executors of the Wallach treasury transferred stewardship of the Marisek trust to my client this morning.” The flurry of clicks and whirrs from the cameras threatened to drown out the audio. “His Highness’s first act was to order allowance payments to cousins and other relatives who escaped the war to continue exactly as Wallachia prescribed throughout their exile.”
“Does the emperor plan to return to the tribes?” a reporter shouted above the din off-camera.
“When will he appear in public?”
“Has Nika spoken to his aunt?”
Hunched over a stool at the kitchen bar, Arit glared at the ridiculous television his dad insisted upon and drank his coffee, grateful the heat of the human beverage seeped into his bones to warm him at least.
His father busily transferred fat sausages into a skillet. “The Stollans are comfortable at the lodge?”
Arit’s irritation escalated a notch higher at the mention of their latest guests. “I ensured they’d settled into their suites before I left.” He shrugged a stiff shoulder. “Capitol shifters are never comfortable outside their luxury condos.”
“If they want the best, they should have paid extra to reserve the imperial suite.” His father pointed his spatula at Arit. “They also prefer to be referred to as tribe, not as shifters.”
He struggled to mask his reflexive sneer, not successfully judging by his dad’s frown. “The name of the adventure tour business is Shifter Frontiers. Our slogan is ‘Run wild.’ We’re shifters, not some polite tribe.”
“I’m not arguing against the marketing.” His dad poked the sausages frying on the stove. “Just saying the customer is always right, and when the customers come from the capitol, they don’t like to be called shifters.”
Waving a hand at the empty kitchen, Arit growled his annoyance. “No customers are allowed in our private quarters, Dad.”
“You’ll forget.” His mouth pinched. “You always do after a long night hunting.”
Coffee scorched a path down Arit’s throat. “I tracked a herd of deer for them last night. We didn’t take one down. The Stollans are disorganized hunters and don’t know how to work as a pack yet, but we stumbled over the herd’s tracks when I gave the standard tour around the lodge’s grounds. Trust me, they are ecstatic to have me as their adventure guide. Happy enough to put up with any idiosyncrasies of mine, of which they might not approve.” Snooty city shifters might bristle at what they considered uncouth behavior, but in his experience, they’d tolerate a lot for a chance at the taste of hot blood on their tongues. “It’s fine.”
Dad sniffed his disdain. “You should work on developing tact with our paying customers.” He frowned at the television, where the press conference appeared to be winding down in a flurry of shouted questions. “Speaking of tact, your sire called.”
Arit groaned. Instead of responding, he shoveled eggs into his mouth.
“You can’t continue avoiding him.”
He swallowed his food. “Want to bet?”
Dad scowled. “He’s your father, too.”
“Despite all evidence to the contrary.” Arit tucked into his scrambled eggs while he waited for his dad to finish the sausage links. “He ignored us for years because our existence wasn’t politically convenient to him. Why should I care what he wants now that he’s decided I’m useful? He’s nobody to me. I don’t know him. I don’t even look like him.”
“No, you resemble me, always have, but you definitely act like him.” His dad smiled. “Brash. Stubborn. Unforgiving of those you believe let you down.”
Arit sneered into his breakfast. “I don’t believe he let us down. He abandoned us. His absence is demonstrable fact.”
Dad scooped sausage links onto a waiting platter. “Before the war and during it, we all did crazy things.” He pushed the platter down the counter toward Arit. “I don’t regret having you, could never regret our child, but if Benjic and I had invested time getting to know each other before rushing into a mating, we might have realized we were a bad match. I don’t blame your sire for leaving. If he hadn’t, I would’ve kicked him out of our den.”
Maybe.
Probably.
His dad couldn’t be more of a polar opposite from Arit’s power-hungry sire if he tried. As much as one of his fathers lusted for political position, the other craved hearth and family. His dad wouldn’t have tolerated anything risking his son, and if Arit’s sire had ever balked at a gamble to win higher status in the capitol, Arit wasn’t aware of it. The shifter had arranged mating alliances for the four children he’d produced in the capitol mating he’d pursued after leaving his first family in an outlying tribal territory, despite new laws forbidding the tradition after the war. His sire had focused on strengthening his seat on the council while his dad had fiercely protected Arit and their home. He could imagine Dad tossing Arit’s sire out on his ass if his schemes endangered their child.
“He still could have helped. Something. Anything.” Arit snarled his scathing contempt for the sire who had rejected him. “He didn’t admit I existed until a few summers ago.”
“But he did acknowledge you.” His dad grabbed a plate and sat on the stool next to Arit at the breakfast bar. “And he left you his ancestral land.” He spread his hands to indicate the house and waved at the mountains outside the kitchen window. “The same property holdings we used to build the lodge…and your career. The adventure tour business wouldn’t have made it through our first season if your sire hadn’t pushed capitol clients our way, either.”
“Most of whom didn’t want to reconnect with their beast or shifter heritage.” Many who had booked tours at first had never run on ground wilder than the parks the capitol cultivated for city shifters. Even today, the learning curve of first-time guests was shockingly steep. “They only meant to curry favor with Benjic.”