“Put Mercy in charge,” Indigo said, to Judd’s surprise.
It wasn’t because Indigo had nominated a leopard—the two women were close friends. No, it was because planning parties wasn’t exactly in the dominant-predatory-changeling-female job description. The maternals and submissives were far more experienced at wrangling everyone who needed to be wrangled to pull off an event.
Then Indigo added, “She’s going stir-crazy, and this is something she can work on with Riley’s input for the wolf side of things. For the physical stuff, she can haul in helpers from either pack.”
“Luc suggested the same.” Hawke’s eyes gleamed with wolfish humor. “I think the cat is afraid Mercy will rip off someone’s head if she doesn’t have something to do now that she can’t run patrol and the healers have asked her not to go in to work at CTX.”
Judd knew Mercy worked in communications when she wasn’t carrying out her duties as a DarkRiver sentinel. It was a job she could’ve kept doing, but it would’ve required daily and likely tiring round-trips to San Francisco, which would also mean she wasn’t in close proximity to the DarkRiver healer for much of the day.
No one wanted to take that risk, least of all Mercy or Riley.
“It’s a good idea,” Judd found himself saying after he’d processed Indigo’s points. “Mercy’s sociable and she has experience with communications. Plus, with her already off the rotation, it won’t mean a change in DarkRiver’s duty roster.”
“And we don’t have to worry that she won’t take the wolf perspective into account,” Drew said in a voice that held open love for his brother and Riley’s leopard mate. “She and Riley want the pupcubs to grow up at home in DarkRiver and SnowDancer both.”
Hawke grinned. “My bet is four wolf pups.”
Golden eyes going wolf, Riaz snorted. “We’re talking about Mercy here. She’ll probably smugly produce all cubs. Five of them.”
The others booed his prediction, calling out their own bets as they spoke. Judd had placed a two-and-two bet. Word was the pupcubs’ changeling animal would be linked to the dominance of each respective parent, and Judd wasn’t about to bet against either Mercy or Riley. They were the most evenly matched dominant changeling pairing he’d ever seen. And he didn’t think Mercy was big enough to be carrying quintuplets. Triplets or quads were far more likely.
A sudden rise in the noise level broke into the group’s friendly argument.
Chapter 6
CHILDREN POURED INTO the White Zone seconds later, having clearly been given permission to escape whatever it was they’d been corralled into the den for. Judd wasn’t the least surprised when they made a beeline for the adults—big playmates to climb over were always welcome.
“Hawke! Hawke!” Brown-eyed, silky-haired Ben tugged on his alpha’s hand as the lieutenants who’d attended the meeting remotely signed off with good-byes that held smiles. “Are we really gonna have a party with Julian and Roman and Keenan and everyone?”
That explained the excitement in the air, Judd thought as he reached down to pick up a little girl who was too small to push through the pack of pups. Putting her on his shoulders, he held her gently in place with one hand rather than with telekinesis. Children this young sometimes got scared when they couldn’t feel his hand.
She laughed and kicked feet clad in sparkling blue sandals. Before living in the pack, Judd would’ve never understood why changeling parents spent time and money on dressing their children when those children could shift without warning at any minute, destroying the items. Now no one had to explain it to him. Judd had given Ben the superhero T-shirt he currently wore.
The six-going-on-six-and-a-half-year-old was jumping up and down at Hawke’s positive reply. “Will we get to play games? And climb trees?”
Ben was one of the few wolves who could really climb, even in his wolf form. All thanks to his leopard playmates—Julian and Roman might be a year younger, but they were as prone to getting into mischief as Ben. The last time the three had been together, when Tamsyn came up to consult with Lara, they’d somehow managed to get into a supplies cupboard and gorge on the fancy chocolate the maternal females had been saving for dessert after a planned working dinner.
The chocolate-smeared miscreants had been found snoring away in the cupboard.
“I don’t think it would be a party without play,” Hawke answered with a grin before he hitched Ben onto his back, where the little boy clung like a monkey. “I don’t know about climbing though. I like the earth under my paws.”
“It’s fun!” Ben insisted, the chorus repeated by other children nearby.
“Have you been contaminating your packmates with leopard ways?” Indigo asked darkly, though her eyes were dancing.
“No,” Ben said, then frowned. “What does contami-ating mean?”
Laughing, Indigo clapped her hands. “Who wants to play tag? Hawke is it.”
“Yay!” The sound wave of agreement shook the trees before the kids scattered, Ben scrambling down to run away as fast as his little legs would carry him.
A slightly older group of kids, meanwhile, was huddled in another corner of the White Zone. As a grinning Riaz jogged past them to the den to safely stow the mobile comm, Judd managed to see between the children’s bodies, realized they were filling colorful water balloons from large bottles of water they’d smuggled out.