“Thank you.” He could’ve done it himself, but the help had been offered in good faith and should be acknowledged.
The man slapped the side of his neck in a nonthreatening manner, holding his hand there for a second before letting go. “Good spotting, Arrow.”
The three of them made their way directly to the infirmary once they reached the aerie trees. There were a number of changelings in the corridor outside, each with a strained face. Someone threw Aden, Zaira, and Angel towels and, taking off their jackets, they wiped their faces. Changing out of their waterlogged pants and socks would have to wait.
“How did he get out?” Jojo’s mother asked, her arms hugging her body. “We’re so careful.”
“He’s seven.” A packmate linked hands with the woman. “That’s what cubs do at that age. Sneak out, explore. The poor baby just got lost.”
Beside Aden, Zaira spoke in a muted tone. “He’s so small.”
“Yes.” Aden could still feel the boy’s fragile bones, the chill of his body. “I’m going to see if I can offer any assistance.” When he reached the infirmary door, it was to see Finn and Remi bent over the small feline body, faces grimly intent. Two more people, a man and a woman who had their arms tight around one another, stood not far from the bed.
Seeing no other patients who needed medical aid, Aden was about to step away when he saw Lark enter the corridor, a bloodied towel wrapped around her hand. “I’m fine,” she snapped at a packmate who made a sound of concern. “Just a stupid cut while I was fixing one of the generators. How’s Jasper?” Her wet hair and clothes said she must’ve headed directly to the generator after Jasper was located.
Aden had ducked inside the infirmary by then and returned with the tools he needed. “I’m a trained medic,” he said to her. “I can seal up your wound.”
Her lips curled up into a snarl. Before she could snap at him, a packmate nudged at her and spoke in a subvocal whisper—Aden could see the man’s mouth moving but could not make out the words.
Snarl turning into a deep smile almost at once, Lark held out her injured hand. “You found Jasper?”
“Stay still.”
“Definitely a medic,” Lark said dryly. “Clearly has the bedside manner down pat.”
A faint ripple of laughter that quickly faded.
Ignoring it all, Aden ran the sealer over the cut once he’d calibrated it to the right strength and after he’d used a scanner to make sure there was no nerve damage. “It’s done,” he said. “The skin will remain tender for a day or so, so be careful not to injure it again.”
“Got it, doc.”
When high-pitched and scared crying suddenly sounded from the other room, the relief was palpable. A minute later, Remi officially confirmed that Jasper would be all right and the crowd dispersed. Aden and Zaira, however, remained. Walking quietly to the infirmary door, the two of them looked in.
What they saw was the cub, now in his human form, curled up in his mother’s lap while his father stroked his hair, his face. One of the boy’s hands was in Remi’s, the other in Finn’s. He was sobbing, but Aden saw no despair on his face, none of the hopelessness that was so often on an Arrow child’s face.
Zaira was the one to articulate it. “He feels safe. He can cry because he feels safe.”
“Yes.” It was something neither he nor Zaira had ever known.
Unlike Zaira’s sadistic mother and father, Aden’s parents hadn’t beaten him, but they had left him alone in a squad of assassins after making sure he knew he was a sleeper for their rebellion. He’d never been able to lower his guard, never been able to forget that should he be discovered, he’d end up dead and buried.
Chapter 23
BO WAS HAVING a rare night off from his duties as the security chief of the Human Alliance, kicking back with close friends at a trattoria on a Venice sidewalk when his phone buzzed with an incoming call from Riaz. Even though it was after midnight in Venice, Bo didn’t hesitate to answer—the SnowDancer lieutenant never called simply to chew the fat.
He said, “Be a few minutes, guys,” to his friends and, grabbing his beer, answered the call while walking to a bridge that overlooked the sleepy canal next to the outdoor table where he’d been seated. “Riaz.”
“Bo, I got a question for you.”
“Shoot.” Up on the ornate bridge—which led to a half-submerged building that still had people living on the upper floors—he leaned his back against the railing and took a sip from the ice-cold bottle in his hand.
“What the fuck is the Alliance doing buying up isolated patches of land marked for expansion of changeling pack territories?”
Bo paused with the beer bottle halfway down. “Say again?” Frown getting deeper and deeper as Riaz explained, he said, “Look, I’m away from the office. Give me a couple of hours to figure out what the hell is going on and I’ll call you back.”
Once at the office, he brought in his senior people and they dug through the documents Riaz had e-mailed. The general reaction was, “What the fuck?”
“We own these parcels of land,” the lawyer in the group told him. “The titles are all in the Alliance’s official name, complete with our correct real estate identification codes. Those codes aren’t secret, so anyone could use them to make a purchase.” He scratched his head. “That’s never been an issue because the code equals ownership, so people make damn sure they enter their own.”