Valentin didn’t resist the temptation to go to her.

She had on a headset, was having a rapid-fire conversation that seemed to be about the movement of food across borders. A flood, he figured out. There’d been a flood somewhere and people urgently needed clean water. They’d get it because it was Silver Mercant doing the work. He shouldn’t interrupt her, but he couldn’t leave without letting her know, didn’t want her to think she wasn’t important to him.

She looked over her shoulder at that moment, a silent question in the crystalline clarity of her eyes. After walking across the rough stone of the floor, he ran the knuckles of one hand over her cheek, then picked up her unlocked organizer and typed in a note.

Heading out for a few hours. Be back in time for the party. Don’t dance with anyone else.

Silver responded to whomever she was speaking with, even as her eyes scanned the note. Her fingers flew over the touchscreen.

I’ve never danced with anyone. I’ll wait for you.

His heart, it threatened to burst in his chest.

Dropping a kiss to the curve of her neck with a possessiveness that would claw him bloody if she didn’t become his soon, he left her to her work—and went out to confront the heavy cloud of pain that lingered over every single member of his clan, no matter how happy they appeared on the surface.

His bear’s fur brushed against the inside of his skin.

No one stopped him when he strode through the Cavern; the cubs who might’ve rushed him were turned in other directions by parents who accurately read the sense of purpose in Valentin’s stride. The crisp chill of the air outside was a welcome kiss, but it did nothing to ease the scalding pain deep inside him.

Valentin had grown up knowing he would one day hold his clan safe.

He’d never expected the horror that had divided them.

Pounding over the earth with the solid, relentless stride of a changeling whose animal was a bear, strong and built to endure, he passed endless groves of trees, the dark green and brown whipping past him in a blur that would become a blanket of white with the oncoming winter. He scented clanmates at times, made sure to avoid them.

Valentin didn’t like speaking to anyone when he was on this particular task.

Their pain gouged his own to bleeding.

Erupting out of the trees about fifty feet from the cave system where the members of his clan who’d forsaken him made their home, he caught his breath, shoved back his hair. The sentries spotted him, but they could no more stop him than they could a hurricane—and it hadn’t gotten that bad yet. These bears, they weren’t disloyal.

They were just lost . . . and heartbroken.

“Fariad, Ilya,” he said in greeting. “Any threats I need to be aware of?” He and his strongest dominants made sure to cover this area during their patrols, but the local sentries had responsibility for those who lived inside the cave system.

Both men shook their heads, deep grooves on either side of their mouths. One parted his lips, closed it without making a sound.

Valentin answered the question the blond male couldn’t bring himself to ask. “Oksana won’t wait forever,” he said bluntly. “She’s a strong, beautiful woman. If you’re not there to be her lover and partner in life, she’ll move on.” A harsh thing to say, but true; Ilya and Oksana could’ve been something special—but by leaving her in favor of this group, Ilya had made a choice she might never forgive.

The other man flinched.

His fellow sentry squared his shoulders. “If she truly loved him, she’d wait.”

“Govno, Fariad.” The other man had to know he was talking shit. “No bear female wants to know she comes low on her man’s list of priorities.”

Both men paled this time. Because Fariad, too, had a woman he adored, but whom he’d left behind. Irina was even prouder than Oksana.

Valentin hardened his heart against the instinctive urge to reassure clanmates in distress. “Are the cubs inside?”

A jerky nod from Ilya.

Leaving them, Valentin entered the cave system and—ignoring the adults who looked at him with wan, drawn faces, or with a deep confused anger that blamed him for this division yet expected him to fix it—went straight to the center. It was nothing like the heart of Denhome, a small dark room in contrast to the sprawling light of the Cavern.

No water, no moss, no vines, a bare glimmer of natural sunlight.

“Mishka!” The shout went up from two tiny mouths, was immediately echoed by a chorus of others. All five cubs who lived here tumbled into him. Laughing, he allowed the small pack to take him to the floor, not chiding them when some shifted in their excitement and clawed him a little. These were his cubs, his babies to love.

“What’re you eating out here?” he said, pretending to be flattened by their weight. “You’re all getting so big.”

They butted against him in pride. Being big was a compliment from and to a bear. He continued to hug them, continued to praise them, until at last, they exhausted themselves into happily limp balls against him. Staying seated on the floor, he looked at the others who’d come to linger in the general area. The teenagers and older children, caught between their primal need for their alpha’s approval and their love and loyalty toward their parents.

Valentin wasn’t about to make them choose: They were children. This war was not theirs. Rather, he smiled to show them their alpha’s love for them was as powerful as ever, his bear in his eyes and his voice as he spoke. “You kissed a girl yet, Marik?”

The teenager went red as, around him, his friends clapped and stamped their feet. But the smile that dawned on his face was real and a far better thing than the stricken look he’d worn before Valentin’s teasing comment. “Bears don’t kiss and tell,” the boy replied. “My alpha taught me that.”

Valentin laughed deep in his chest, causing the cubs to chortle and the teens to look a touch less ragged.

Slowly, one by one, the older kids and teens ended up seated around him, telling him their news. Of studies and play and the myriad small pieces of everyday life. Most asked about their friends in Denhome. He shared the news he had, including that of Nika’s mating, but kept the biggest piece till last.

“You have a new clanmate,” he announced. “Moira gave birth to her and Leo’s cub this morning.”

Gasps—and not just from the children. The adults who’d whispered quietly into the space were also straining to hear. Valentin caught their shining eyes, their hunger, and the alpha in him couldn’t deny them this knowledge of clan. He spoke to the children, but his words were for all of them. “He was more impatient than even you,” he said, tickling a bear cub who was trying to crawl up his chest.

The little girl broke out into bearish giggles, her friends jumping in on the fun by tickling her with their little hands and paws—which Valentin made sure weren’t clawed. “He wasn’t supposed to come for at least three more weeks. It was a good thing Nova was with Moira, as was another friend.” He didn’t name Silver, because he couldn’t trust these clanmates with that precious piece of his heart.

It was a vicious blow to an alpha to even think that about members of his clan, but he had to start getting hard-eyed about this. The time for a final decision was nearly here. But not today, not on a day of celebration.

“Nova’s the best!” a tiny boy cried. “I like her shoes!”