“Yeah. I kind of suspected I might fall apart. Didn’t want an audience.” Nita released her at last, stepping back. She swiped the palm of her hand quickly across her eyes, and essayed a tremulous smile. “Some alpha I turned out to be. The first hint of trouble, and I’m howling for you like a lost cub.”
“There’s no shame in asking for help, honey. I should have been here in the first place.”
Despite her words, double guilt stabbed her heart. She shouldn’t have left home…but she shouldn’t have left Finn either. Especially not like that, all in a rush, half-mad with panic.
She felt hollow inside. She’d left her heart buried in Shifting Sands.
She set her shoulders. Her family needed her. That was all that mattered now.
“Tell me what’s happened since we last talked,” she said to Nita. “Anyone been able to pick up any scent of Roddie?”
Nita shook her head, taking her suitcase from her. “Not apart from that one trace I told you about, over on the far side of rattlesnake country. It’s been all I can do to hold Diego and Ethan back from launching a raid.”
“Those hell-raisers.” Martha clicked her tongue. “Well, your brothers had better listen to me, if they know what’s good for them. I remember the last war with the snakes. I’m not having another one. Have you tried talking to the rattlers?”
“Didn’t seem to be much point.”
“What makes you say that?”
Nita looked at her as if she’d started barking. “Because they’re snakes, Ma. Since when do we listen to snakes?”
Maybe since I started sleeping with a shark. Oh, Finn.
“Anyway,” Nita continued, “there was snake-stink all over Roddie’s trail,
enough to choke on. They had something to do with him disappearing, without a doubt.”
If that was true, then even she wouldn’t be able to stop her hot-headed pack from declaring vengeance. The bad blood between coyotes and rattlesnakes stretched back longer than anyone could remember. They were always just a spark away from a wildfire.
“I didn’t know what to do, Ma,” Nita said in a very small voice. “Thanks for coming back. I’m sorry you had to cut your vacation short.”
Martha hugged her again. “You did the right thing, honey. This is where I’m supposed to be.”
She buried her nose in Nita’s dark hair again. Desert and dry grass, fur and rock…
But no salt.
Home didn’t smell like home anymore. Not without the sea.
Her coyote howled, desolate and alone.
Chapter 18
“We will not tolerate these incursions into our territories!” The Lady of Seals slammed one fist down onto the shell-inlaid surface of the Sea Council table, her liquid brown eyes blazing with anger. “If you will not control your kin, honorable Lord Orca, then we shall control them for you!”
“I will not allow the wild whales to be starved.” The killer whale shifter’s bared teeth were white as his hair, a stark contrast to his jet-black skin. “What would you have me do, tell the non-shifter orcas to eat krill? Seals are their natural prey. You have no right to protect your kin at the expense of mine!”
“Lady Seal, Lord Orca, peace.” The Pearl Empress rubbed her forehead, looking weary. “We have been at this for hours, and you are still simply going in circles. Master Shark? What are your thoughts?”
Warm fur and laughing eyes. Sunlight and sand.
All his thoughts were only for her. But his Empress had called on him. With an effort, he forced himself to focus on the quarreling lords, though he had no heart for it.
He had no heart at all, anymore.
He rose. “My people shall claim the contested territory. And both your kinds are our natural prey.”
The Empress blinked across the table at him, as the council chamber erupted.