Getting to his feet only after he was sure both the wounded boy and healer were in a deep natural sleep, he headed to the doorway. “I need to get back to the clan.”
Sergey swallowed at his curt tone, stepped back, his mate Enja doing the same. The space behind them was filled with a large number of the adults who’d left. But it was shy Enja who spoke, her voice tremulous. “Are Jovan and my son . . . ?”
“They’ll both be fine,” Valentin reassured her.
When he spoke to the man who’d precipitated the breaking of StoneWater, however, it was in a much harsher tone; as of today, the time for private talks was over. “Don’t allow Artem to get to that state again.” His bear was in his eyes, in the claws that erupted from his skin. “He’s your son, but he is also a gift to the clan. Look after him, or I’ll send someone here who’ll make sure of it.”
The older man looked as if he’d been struck.
Valentin didn’t take any pleasure from the reaction—but it was one thing to be stupid and angry and full of hate toward Valentin, quite another to let a young trainee healer get to Artem’s current state. “I’ll be back tomorrow to check on him.” Jovan would be fine, but Artem would keep giving and giving until he snapped.
Not trusting himself to speak any further, he began to stride out.
A young woman sobbed and stumbled into his arms. He crushed her to him, ran his hand over her hair. A gentle submissive, she was here out of loyalty to her mate, rather than because she’d wanted to leave. Valentin felt only love for her, well aware the competing needs inside her had to be tearing her apart.
However, when he spoke, it was to all of them. “Small bears, you have ten seconds to leave the area and go to the nursery.”
Only after that order had been followed, the little ones out of earshot, did he continue. “Denhome is open to you anytime you decide to come back.” Then he made the most painful decision of his life as alpha—because what tonight had shown him was that this situation wasn’t just deeply hurtful to him and his clan; it was dangerous.
It was time.
“But,” he said, “I can’t have you camped here anymore. You need to acknowledge an alpha so your young will thrive rather than turning on one another.” Bears were predators, big and powerful.
They could do a hell of a lot of damage to each other.
“You also need an alpha so your healer is safe.” Several of the adults dropped their heads in shame. “Most dangerous is that you can’t hold this territory, which means I have to assign extra clan resources to secure the border. The instant I withdraw the patrols, the wolves will see it as a weak point to claw more territory for themselves.”
Selenka was holding to their negotiated truce, but wolves were predators just like bears. Sooner or later, one of her border sentries would figure out that this wasn’t simply a satellite part of the clan, but a broken shard of it. At that point, he’d have to rely on BlackEdge’s better nature—and despite what bears liked to mutter, the wolves could be civilized. It would, however, last only so long.
Wolves were wolves as bears were bears, and changelings could only claim what they could hold. That law existed for a reason.
“You have a month to get off this land or to find yourself an alpha who will help you defend it against the wolves and against StoneWater.” Because the instant they brought in another alpha, they became an unknown force in his territory.
Total silence around him.
It was an older woman who finally broke the shocked silence. “Valya, you wouldn’t . . .”
He knew her. She’d been a friend of his mother’s. He’d played in her cave as a child. “I have a clan to protect,” he said, still holding the yet-trembling clanmate who’d come to him. “You can choose to be part of that clan, or you can choose to leave. There is no middle ground.” He’d given them eight months longer than anyone else would’ve done. “One month.”
Releasing his clanmate, who was now sobbing in huge gulps, Valentin walked out. His heart hurt, but it had to be done. He wouldn’t endanger those who chose to be clan for the sake of those who couldn’t—wouldn’t—forgive the past.
Chapter 36
I will guide this clan. I will cherish my clanmates.
I will dispense justice. I will offer love.
And I will hold StoneWater’s secrets as my own.
I take this oath on my honor.
SILVER WAS OVERWHELMED by a sense of peace when she walked into Denhome. It was noisy here, her head full of countless voices, but it was home in a sense her apartment had never been. That had been a place to sleep and to keep her things.
This was a place where the Barnacle barreled straight for her and clamped himself around her leg, a cheeky grin on his face. “Siva!”
She touched her hand to the tight curls of his hair, the texture soft against her palm. “I’m wearing heels, Dima. If I try to take a step with you attached to me, I’ll fall flat on my face.”
His smile full of mischief, Nova and Chaos’s son tightened his embrace for a moment before releasing her and running off to attack another victim. Stepping forward—and only then realizing she’d handled herself on the uneven surface just fine—she found herself accepting more than one teasing congratulations on her mating with Valentin.
After going to her room—their room now—to put away her bag, she returned to the Cavern and to her clanmates. It wasn’t difficult to converse with bears; they weren’t quick to take offense, and found her direct nature perfectly normal. Possibly because they thought questions such as, Did Valya tie you up to get you to agree to the mating? were also normal.
Valentin’s arrival was a brush of fur against her senses, her psychic awareness of him a bone-deep pulse. But despite her need to gorge on him, to store away a thousand memories, she didn’t rush toward him. She turned, waited. In seconds, he was swamped by children as he always was when he returned to the den after time away.
His eyes met hers over their heads, their chatter music in the air.
She spoke to him with her own eyes, let him know she was content to wait. He was hers, but he was also StoneWater’s, an alpha to the core. “Until I met him,” she said to Nova, to whom she’d been speaking, “I didn’t know one person could love so many people, truly love them.”
Nova slipped her arm through Silver’s. “That’s what defines a really great alpha—yes, it takes intelligence and skill and strength, but most of all, it takes a heart huge enough to hold an entire clan. Mishka has always had that. From the day he was born, he made our family better.”
Silver closed her hand over Nova’s where it lay on her forearm, having caught the bleakness in those final words. “No family is perfect.”
“He told you?” A pause too short for Silver to speak. “Of course he did. He’s your mate.”
Nova leaned her head against Silver’s arm. “Our father was a wonderful papa until he began to change. Mishka had it the worst in many ways—he got that wonderful father for the shortest time, and he felt the loss most keenly. He and Papa used to stick together, two men outnumbered by four women.” Memories in her voice of a time of innocent happiness. “Mishka was our father’s shadow and our pet. Now he’s bigger than all of us, with far too much weight on his shoulders.”