Tynan sighed. “I caused a death, Cosantir, however it happened. Forgiveness wouldn’t be right. Truly, I was surprised when I saw my reflection in a lake and realized the black scars were gone.” All the scars had been gone, in fact, as if they’d never been.
Yet he’d remained in the wilderness for months after that. He’d killed someone.
The Cosantir’s eyes met his in understanding. “The Mother forgave you, but you couldn’t forgive yourself.”
“I felt as if I owed more.” Tynan rubbed his jaw where the scars had been. “I underwent the ritual to speak to the God. To Herne.”
The God was not to be called upon lightly. In wolf form, he’d run for days, no food, no water, no rest, leaving everything behind him except the need in his soul. Finally, legs shaking, he’d scrambled up to an overlook and had stood there, wavering with every gust of wind. Too stubborn, too stupid to leave.
Herne had heard him.
Alec’s eyes narrowed. “Herne sent you to Seattle?”
Tynan nodded. The God didn’t exactly speak words, at least not to anyone who wasn’t a Cosantir. “The Hunter gave me the knowledge there was a wrongness in the city. Something to do with the Daonain. I was to wait there until he needed me to act.”
For a fecking decade he’d waited.
“You were there a long time,” Calum murmured as if he’d heard the thought, “but to the immortals, time is an ocean, not an hourglass where each grain of sand is a moment of life.”
Tynan sighed. “So I came to realize.”
“No matter how long, you were there as needed when needed.” The Cosantir’s gray eyes darkened. “Without you, the Dogwood females would still be imprisoned—and dying—and the male shifters would be weapons in the hands of the humans.”
Payment for a death couldn’t be measured out like so much flour, yet Tynan’s presence in Seattle had helped save dozens of young Daonain. The knowledge had released him. “I wish I could have found them sooner.”
“Hard to do when you didn’t have any information to act upon.” Alec’s voice held a snap. A cahir and a sheriff would know all about not clinging to guilt.
Tynan nodded an acknowledgement.
“I’m surprised you managed to survive in the city as long as you did,” Calum said. “A wolf without a pack tends to have problems.”
“Human police form a kind of pack. It’s not the same, but…it helped.” The longing to run with other wolves had grown greater with every year that passed. For security, he’d kept his visits to Cold Creek few and far between.
“Shay’s pleased to have you in the pack,” Alec said.
Shay was the alpha of the local pack—a damn fine alpha—and his littermate Zeb was as tough a beta as anyone could hope to find. “It’s a solid pack.” Despite a few problems remaining from the previous alpha’s mismanagement.
He had to admit, he still didn’t feel completely part of the pack. Unlike when he’d been a young male, he stayed on the outskirts. Maybe he’d lived with humans too long.
The air in the tavern stirred slightly—someone had opened the portal to the underground caves in the back—and Tynan caught a whiff of minerals, then saw three stout dwarves walk into the room. “Dwarves. In a bar?”
Calum’s quick grin was white in his tanned face. “They’ve learned they like beer fresh from the tap. I keep a table reserved in the back corner.”
Welcoming OtherFolk? This was a quite different Cosantir from the ones he’d known growing up.
“Excuse me.” Calum rose, paused, and looked back at Alec. “I approve.” He headed for the dwarves, moving with the prowling gait of a mountain lion.
Assuming the Cosantir meant he could stay, Tynan started to rise. “Right then. Can I assume we’re done here?”
Leaning back, Alec stretched out his legs. “That would be a nope.” The sheriff’s dark green eyes were sharper than his slow drawl and easy manner suggested. “Would you happen to be getting bored with your day-to-day life here?”
Sharp, indeed. “Aye. As it happens, I am.”
“Good.” Alec smiled. “Azure is an exceedingly small county, and during the winter, the demand on law enforcement isn’t strenuous. Trouble is, as the weather warms, the human traffic increases. We have more shifters traveling through the territory and more hellhounds.”
“Makes sense.” Where is he going with this?
“I have two deputies. A still inexperienced male and my mate. Our cubs were born last fall, so neither Vicki nor I want to work full-time.” Alec paused and met Tynan’s gaze. “I could use another deputy, if you’re interested.”
Law enforcement suited Tynan from snout to tail.
And Cold Creek was Donal’s choice for a home. “I’m interested.” He glanced toward the back where the Cosantir was serving the dwarves. “That was what he approved? For you to offer me a job?”
“Very good. Yes.” Alec smiled. “I checked you out with the Seattle PD; your captain and fellow officers think very highly of you. But Calum wanted to know what drove a wolf to the city.”
Tynan blew out a breath.
Alec’s eyebrows rose.
“Sorry. To you, he’s just your littermate. For the rest of us Daonain, being summoned by the Cosantir has a shifter wondering what he fucked up. Then you offer me a job. It’s like falling off a steep cliff, expecting to be splattered on the rocks, and landing in a lake instead.”
“Well, hell, sorry about that.” Alec grinned and rose. “If you’re not too badly drenched, let’s go start on the paperwork to make you official.”
Tynan grinned back, even the thought of paperwork not a deterrent. “Let’s do that.”
Oh, gopher-guts. Angie hadn’t lied, had she? Unable to move from the doorway, Margery stared into the house that she was supposed to live in. And clean.
Angie had planned to be here, too, but her daughter, who lived in a nearby town, had called for her help.
Hoping not to wait until she returned, Margery had asked for the key. She could manage.
Or so she’d thought.
The small house on Cumberland Street was filthy. An offense to her sensitive wolf nose.
Still…
Margery gave a happy hip-wiggle—the human equivalent of a tail-wag—and walked into the house. Mine, all mine. No one would yell her name with demands that she clean up their messes or their pups. No pushy males. No one expecting her to tend their injuries even as they called her gimpy and ugly.
She rubbed her face and dragged herself out of the paw-sucking swamp of pity. Part of her unhappiness there had been her own fault. Her cubling memories had turned Dogwood into a glowing haven of peace and belonging. The other captives had done the same.
The reality was that all villages had good and bad people, whether shifter or human.
Nonetheless, Cold Creek would be better for her than Ailill Ridge. Here, she’d be a waitress, not a banfasa. Here, she had her own house.
In her heart, she lifted a paean of gratitude to the Mother for the chance to start again. For being alive. For spring.
Smiling, she looked around the open living room. Brown carpet, off-white walls, dark blue couch, two comfortable-looking armchairs, and lamps on the end tables. A bookcase covering one wall indicated the previous owner had been a reader.