Page 38 of Storm Echo

Another tug on Soleil’s changeling heart, another bite of hunger to join in, be part of a group, part of a pack.

Tamsyn left with one more encouraging smile.

Soleil waited only until the healer had closed the door behind herself before walking over to the window to check it out. It was one of those ones that slid up halfway, allowing her to look out into open air. Given her size in cat form, sliding out would bejustdoable.

The problem was that the window looked out into what appeared to be a side garden that belonged to DarkRiver. If she was right, this alley garden sat between two buildings owned by the pack.

While she couldn’t see anyone watching her, she had no doubt that either the garden was under surveillance or there were guards posted at either end of the alleyway.

So she looked up.

Ocelots weren’t arboreal by nature—but that didn’t mean they couldn’t climb with feline fluidity. From her vantage point, she saw that she was on the second floor, only one other floor above her. Easy enough to scale to get to the roof. Which was also no doubt under surveillance. Because DarkRiver was made up of cats, and they’d never forget that people could climb. But, she thought, what about the building to the back? That wasn’t a DarkRiver property.

According to her research, that property was a private home. It didn’t back directly onto the HQ, of course, a small buffer of land between, but it was close enough for a cat who didn’t mind jumps. Soleil’s cat had always liked those leaps, liked the sense of flying.

The jump was doable. But would DarkRiver have left that flank unprotected? Was that private home trulyprivate? Or was it just held under a corporate identity that meant it didn’t show up as pack property at first glance?

Since she no longer had her phone, she couldn’t even look it up. The phone had been in a zippered pocket of her daypack. Gone. And with it, the last connection to her life.

The aeries had been stripped of personal items and closed up by the time she made it home, but she’d found a broken bracelet of Yariela’s that had fallen into a gap in between empty drawers, as well as two painted stones the cubs had given her and she’d placed in her garden.

Mere fragments to remember an entire life.Preciousfragments now lost.

Her lower lip trembled.

A flicker in her mind, the delicate spiderweb glittering to haunting life … this time in shades of silver shot with a striking pale blue. As she watched, the colors altered to a fiery orange edged with a red as dark as rage.

Wonder caught Soleil’s breath all over again, the beauty of the construct no less beautiful for being edged in a tone so harsh. She clung to it as she considered her options.

“You know there’s only one choice,” Farah said from beside her, her chin propped up in her hands as she perched her elbows on the windowsill. “You need to find out the meaning of the scent on Tamsyn, confirm if it was real or … like me.”

Eyes burning, Soleil didn’t look directly at her friend; she never looked directly at Farah, not ready to face the awful forever truth. “How am I going to get to that other roof, though?”

This building hadn’t been built as a prison, but ithadbeen built with security in mind. There was no trellis that she could climb, no trees close enough for a cat to jump onto. Things a changeling mind had considered during the build.

Farah went as silent as the grave.

Agony tearing at her, Soleil slammed her hands against the window ledge.

That was when her eye fell on something she’d previously discarded: the fine decorative ledge that ran just below the window and seemed to go all the way around the building. It was a ledge far too slender for a leopard—or a human. Even a small human adult wouldn’t be able to maintain their balance with nothing above them but air.

But she wasn’t a leopard. Her changeling form was far smaller and more agile than theirs, her tail half the length of her body and built for balance. She might be too thin right now, in either form, but she wasn’t weak, had made sure of that, her muscles in good working order.

She looked again at the ledge, narrowed her eyes.

Yes, her claws, sharp and curved, could grip it.

Crawling along the narrow space would take time. But it could be done. Especially under cover of darkness, when she could become a dappled shadow against the wall, a shadow that moved so very slowly that it caught no attention at all.

She visualized the climb in her mind, and as she did so, wondered if she’d be able to shift when the time came. Her cat hadn’t emerged since the day everyone died. It had curled up into a ball deep inside her, and there it had stayed … until it saw Ivan.

It stretched luxuriantly inside her at the thought of him, and she felt its fur brush the inside of her skin, its claws prick the insides of her fingers. Oh yes, it was ready to come out again. And though it might be obsessed with Ivan, on one thing both parts of her were united: discovering the truth of what had happened to Yariela and the other survivors.

Chapter 20

Okay, y’all, we’ve discussed the whole wolf/bear food “situation.” If one of those two changelings is your sweetie—or a possible sweetie—and they offer you food, consider it an engagement ring and start booking the mating ceremony venue.

Or, you know, run far, far away as fast as possible.

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