Skinwalkers

Chapter Seventeen

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am now *TENTATIVELY* accepting story commissions. Send me a message and we'll see what we can work out!

Chapter Seventeen

Fey had to remind herself to breathe as Norrin led her toward her old pack's nest. Part of that was the same fear she'd been harboring ever since she'd set out on this journey, now cranked up to eleven with the knowledge that whatever was going to happen was happening right now. But behind that fear, less demanding but still just as noticeable, was something else...

Why won't he look at me? she thought, staring at the bear-walker's broad, muscled back. He didn't even say anything when he saw me. I know he never spoke much anyway, but still...nothing?

She focused her attention on Clueless, who was hanging limply from his shoulder. She was bleeding, but considering what Fey knew Norrin was capable of, she had gotten off remarkably lightly. Those gashes looked bad, but she doubted they would prove to be life threatening as long as they were tended to soon.

Assuming the pack let her tend to them, and didn't just kill them both.

And if they didn't kill them, what would happen next? Fey knew she couldn't stay here. She would be lucky if they even let her sleep on their territory overnight. That was fine, though. Fey knew how to fend for herself in the Wild, pack or no pack. More importantly, how would they react to Clueless? Wildborn skinwalkers weren't rare, but Clueless was a special case. She still hadn't come to grips with her own sentience, much less her new place in the world. Would they make her feel welcome in their pack? Could Clueless learn to be happy here? Or would she spend the rest of her life pining for her hateful owner?

Fey's heart began to beat faster when she recognized the part of the forest they were in. Even after spending half her life here, she couldn't claim to know every inch of these woods. She doubted anyone could. But this place in particular was as familiar to her as her childhood neighborhood—because that's exactly what it was.

Norrin stepped into the pack's nest, a small clearing that sat beneath a short cliff, and unceremoniously dumped Clueless on the ground. In the center was a fire pit, and on the far end the cliffside opened up to form a cave big enough to comfortably house the entire pack.

The whole pack was there, she realized with a lurch, blood turning to ice. Skylar, in her half-hawk form, was perched on an outcropping above the cave, acting as lookout. An orange-and-black furred fox-walker stood up in alert, her emerald eyes widening the moment she saw Fey. A pair of young rabbit-walkers, who couldn't have been older than five, chased each other around the fire pit. And then there was—

"Fey's back! Fey's back!"

A light brown blur shot across the nest, colliding with Fey almost hard enough to knock her down. The young deer-walker hugged her as tightly as if she were his long lost sister.

"Derrick?" Fey exclaimed in surprise.

The deer boy let her go and stepped back, grinning at her. "I can't believe you came back! I've missed you!"

Despite herself, Fey couldn't help but smile back at him. "Look at you! You've grown so much! How old are you now?"

"I'm ten!" he announced proudly.

"All your fawn spots are gone," she said.

"Almost all of them." He turned to show a single white spot in the otherwise brown fur on his back. "But look at these!"

He bent over and pointed at his head, from which two small, velvety bumps were protruding.

"Your antlers!" Fey said. "Already? That's in—"