“I know you can’t detail the escape routes, Nova,” Silver said, having picked up the other woman’s discomfort. “It’s about protecting your vulnerable against an unknown.”

Nova’s smile returned, the healer’s gentleness an almost palpable force. It was the same sensation Silver felt near empaths. As if they had an internal candle that produced a glow strong enough to encompass everyone in their vicinity.

A quite different sensation from Valentin’s raw warmth.

“You’re unlikely to ever need those back routes,” Nova added. “No one would get this close to the heart of the clan without having bombed the hell out of everything around us.”

Since even the wolves had apparently never penetrated deep into StoneWater land, Silver tended to believe her. About to ask another question, she felt a whisper of dizziness. “I believe I better return to my room.”

Nova’s gaze grew sharp. “Let’s go.”

It took them longer to return to the room than it had to get this far, with Silver growing progressively weaker. By the time she lay down in bed, she was so exhausted she didn’t protest the fact Nova pulled off her boots and covered her with a blanket. “Spasibo,” she managed to say.

“Hush now.” Nova took several more readings. “I spoke to the physician who treated you—she said the waves of exhaustion will come and go for a day or two, depending on how much rest you get. But after that, you should be as healthy as a bear.”

Silver wanted to reply, but her brain had other ideas. She slept.

Chapter 11

Sneaky like a cat.

—Handwritten note pasted to the back of Valentin’s door

VALENTIN RETURNED TO the heart of the clan in the late afternoon and immediately caught the barest hint of a familiar scent: frigid ice with a hidden spark of fire. Silver had passed through the Cavern some time earlier. That meant she might be awake.

His bear rose to its feet inside him, its big heart thundering.

“Uncle Mishka!”

Rubbing his hand over the tight black curls of the little boy with skin of darkest brown who’d wrapped himself around Valentin’s lower leg, he continued to walk, the changeling barnacle clamped on tight. “It’s done,” he said to Pieter. “The wolves have agreed to the new perimeter.”

The other man’s hazel eyes glinted. “Seriously? It took only one meeting?”

“It was difficult for even Selenka to argue against a giant crack in the ground, which meant her sentries would have to grow wings and fly to complete their rounds.” Valentin rubbed the barnacle’s hair again, the texture soft and bouncy against his palm. “That section was already unstable, and the little jolt we got a month back just pushed it that final bit.”

“Flying wolves,” Pieter said, his eyes warming with a humor only those close to him ever saw. “Imagine the games Pasha and Yasha would come up with. Target practice with rotten tomatoes, perhaps?”

“Did I hear my name?” A rumpled Pavel, his hair sticking up as if he’d just rolled out of bed after a late shift, bit into a muffin.

“Border with BlackEdge,” Valentin explained shortly before glancing at Pieter again. “Selenka wouldn’t have been so cooperative if you hadn’t come up with the peace offering.” Valentin had voluntarily sliced off a comparable section of his territory that backed up against the wolves’ land.

The other man—and one of Valentin’s two best friends—shrugged. “Not like we used it anyway. Too rocky for us, but the wolves will enjoy it.”

“The best thing,” Pavel said after swallowing his wolf-large bite of muffin, “would be if we did what DarkRiver and SnowDancer have managed in San Francisco.” He thumped a palm against his chest, mimicked a heart pounding hard.

Pieter’s lip curled.

So did Valentin’s. “Can you see any bear being satisfied with a wolf?” He shuddered. “They like to wake up at dawn in winter and do insane things like run around in the snow when every sensible changeling who doesn’t need to be awake is curled up nice and warm in their bed.” It was one of his favorite places to be.

Since the barnacle wasn’t showing any signs of breaking off on his own, Valentin reached down and pulled him off in what would’ve appeared to be an unnecessarily rough action to anyone who wasn’t a bear. Bears were tough. Their cubs were tough.

Throwing this cub into the air, he caught the otherwise silent child’s laughing body in his arms, then bounced him to Pieter. “Get him back in the Cage.” Bear kids were notorious for escaping school—the clan literally had to lock them in and threaten them with outlandish punishments to get them to study.

Valentin’s mother had once promised to shave his fur like a poodle’s if he didn’t stop eating his math homework. Sometimes Valentin wondered how any of them—himself included—were even literate. “And find out how he got out in the first place.”

Pieter threw the wriggling escapee over his shoulder and sauntered off, while not-yet-awake Pavel headed to get himself a cup of coffee. Valentin went directly to Silver’s room. He pretended not to see all the grinning nosy parkers nonchalantly poking their noses around the corner.

Lifting his hand, he went to knock, then realized she might be resting.

He shouldn’t disturb her.

He should leave right now.

Chert voz’mi.

Bear and man both needed to see her.

Just to confirm that she was okay.

Deciding to try a quiet knock and go away if she didn’t respond, he lifted his hand, rapped. Damn, that hadn’t been so quiet. Yet there was no response. He grabbed hold of his impatience, went to walk away. He wasn’t a barbarian. He was a civilized bear.

Crash!!

Valentin slammed into the door, broke the bolt on the other side without trying . . . to find Silver sitting up in bed, her hair down around her shoulders in a cool golden halo, and her hand reaching down for the insulated metal bottle Nova must’ve given her. It was his sister’s favorite way of keeping drinks cold for her patients.

He was inside picking up the bottle, the door pushed firmly shut behind him to discourage his inquisitive clanmates, before he could process the shock of seeing Silver without her armor. “Here,” he said.

Accepting the bottle, she unscrewed the lid and took a drink before looking at the door. “Is this how you normally enter guest rooms?” Frost licked the air.

Starlight obviously didn’t need her armor to be fully in control. She was doing just fine flaying him alive with nothing but her voice and her eyes.

He grinned and took a seat on the bed.

When she looked very pointedly at him, he pretended not to catch her meaning, focusing instead on her face. Not on that glorious hair that wasn’t dead straight as he’d always thought but had a slight wave to it that made it appear deliciously soft. He’d stare at that later, when he’d charmed her into not throwing him out of her room. “You’re still pale.”

“I’m seventy-eight percent Caucasian. Being pale is part of the package.”

Sometimes, Valentin swore Silver was jerking his chain. “Paler than usual. And your eyes aren’t pure ice,” he teased. “There’s a little fog drifting in. I woke you, didn’t I?” Her face was all soft, her plush lips making him half-crazy.

“Is there a point to this conversation?”