Page 66 of Another Damned Storm
It took some coaxing to get him down, but she managed it. It wasn’t until a little later, as I watched her giving orders to the others and coordinating how to handle the young mother’s remains, all while comforting the traumatized child who refused to leave her side, that I realized she was doing the job she’d been born to do.
Lilith Shere, daughter of Luther and princess of the Shere pack. She was meant to take over as alpha of that noble pack someday, but now that she’d created a pack of her own, it was unlikely she would ever return to her old life.
“What’s got that big brain of yours spinning, Atlas?” she asked quietly, stroking the boy’s unruly hair as he clung to her leg.
I offered her my most sincere smile. “Your father would be proud of the leader you’ve become.”
She just stared at me, a hint of tears shining before she blinked them away. “I’m doing what anyone else would have done. Nothing more.”
“And modest to boot.” It was one thing to take in your own kind as a shifter. Taking in strays regardless of breed, banding them together, protecting them, and fostering the kind of loyalty she’d so clearly earned amongst her people? That was unheard of.
She shook her head. “Tough times, Atlas. They have a way of bringing people together.”
“That they do.” They also had a way of turning people against each other. It all depended on who was leading the charge. “Can I ask you about Matt?”
Her expression hardened ever so slightly. “Simon, sweetie, I need to have a chat with my friend here. So, I’m going to have?—”
He clung tighter to her leg and shook his head furiously. The easy thing would have been to give in to the boy’s silent demand and have the conversation. At his age and with what he’d just witnessed, it was unlikely he would retain much of it in the long run.
Not Lily. She gently peeled his hands away and kneeled until she was eye-to-eye with him. “Simon,” she said softly. “It’s going to be okay.” She motioned to someone behind me, and another woman hustled over. “I want you to go with Carmella.”
“No,” he whined. “I want to stay with you.”
She took his chin between her index finger and thumb, so all his attention was on her. “Go with Carmella. I promise I will come find you when I’m done.”
Even from a few feet away, and even though that quiet exchange wasn’t meant for me, I could feel the gentle power in the command. Luther would most certainly be proud of his daughter.
The boy blinked at her before nodding. Then he looked up at the other woman, took her hand, and toddled off like a good boy. Lily watched him go until he was well out of earshot, then turned back toward the field and the section of fence the demons had smashed through. “Are you up for a walk?”
“Indeed.” I waited until we were in the shade of the trees to ask my first question. “How close are you and Matt?”
Lily seemed to consider that for a moment. “After you andNever disappeared back to the Nassa, I basically took over the big sister role. I helped him through high school and college. Helped him find his first job. Hell, I was even the best woman at his wedding,” she said, a note of sadness coloring the memory.
“And now?”
“Not so much.”
“Can I ask what happened to drive a wedge between the two of you?”
She motioned to the trees. “The storms. The demons. The hate and mistrust that tore through our community when people realized how much of their own world had been hidden from them.”
“Hidden? How?”
“Maybe that’s not the best way to put it. A lot of humans fantasize about magic and shifters and demons and gods, but when they’re faced with the reality that they already live in a world teeming with those things, it’s like their brains reject the idea.” She shook her head. “Only it’s more than just rejection. There's hostility there. A kind of entitlement, like this is their world alone and they shouldn’t have to share it.”
“That is remarkably short-sighted.” Especially considering shifters had wandered the realm long before humans existed.
She let out a huff. “It’s tough to see the long view when you only live eighty years.”
She had a point there.
“I take it you and Matt had a falling out then?”
Lily ran her hand along a stretch of chain-link fence. “There wasn’t one thing, if that’s what you mean. We just grew apart. We still work together and share intel when we have it, but it’s nothing like it was.”
“You miss him.”
She cast me a sidelong glance. “Of course, I do. And Angie.That girl is as smart as Never was at her age, with an attitude to match.”
