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She raised her face to the canopy and took a deep breath, as if trying to hold on to her temper He wondered if she’d succeed His Tally had always been very quietexcept with him He alone had known that she was neither shy nor particularly calirl had a temper like a stick of dynamite Quick to heat, quick to blow over

"Kids are disappearing, not only here but across the country," she now said, her anger red-hot, but no longer directed at him "At first, they were labeled runaways, but I knew some of them They weren’t that kind" Her shoulders drew up "Now I have proof I was right, and I wish every night that I didn’t" Her voice broke

"Talk toher in pain, never had, probably never would This faer, this wo fatal weakness and didn’t that just suck?

"They found Mickey’s body teeks ago" A tear streaked down her cheek She dashed it aith a furious swipe "He was eleven years old, bright, so bright, could re he’d ever read"

"Like you"

"Yeah Except instead of being abandoned as a baby, he had the bad luck to live with a ave hi happy "He was mine, Clay I promised him safety and in return, he went to school every day" Tremors shook her frame, whitened her knuckles "So was broken The bastards pulverized his face - like they iping hiht of the children in the pack, of what he’d do to anyone who dared harht so, but Mickey was at a camp out of state when they took him And it’s not only him we lost" A breath that sounded as if her throat was lined with broken glass "They found two "

The leopard half of his soul - angry, hurt, and still in shock at her return - wanted to go to her To hold her Tactile contact, affection as ahe’d been taught after being pulled into DarkRiver But Talin was scared of him She had told him that to his face, and the sharp knife of it was still buried in his heart The man wasn’t sure he wanted to chance another rejection Keeping the animal’s instincts in check, he finally stepped out of the shadows "Do you want to be held, Talin?"

Her damp eyes widened at the blunt question, then she nodded in a little jerking"Then co which the entire forest seeht creatures aware of the leopard’s tense watchfulness

"Oh, God, Clay" Suddenly her arainst the white cotton of his T-shirt

Hardly daring to breathe, he closed his own arly aware of every inch of her pressed into hih his T-shirt

She was so small, so damn soft, her huhtness of her bones The Psy s, but they had powers of the ility but none of the psychic abilities A wave of protectiveness washed over him

"Shh, Tally" He used the nickname because, at thisfor her body, a heart that felt such pain for others while ignoring its own "I’ll find your lost one"

She shook her head against him "It’s too late Three bodies already Jonquil is probably dead, too"

"Then I’ll find who did this to theainst hiain"

Chapter 4

"I a to let her hide fro to protect your pack is understood and accepted"

"I’ to help her? Especially after she’d made her opinion of him crystal clear "No child deserves to die that way"

A so "You’ve beco co It was that difference in strength that had always kept him away fro He ho he was And gentleness was not part of his nature "Unless you’ve hed, a warm, intrinsically feminine sound "I’m still a shrimp, but you - you’ve becory boy trapped inside the claustrophobic walls of their apartment complex The lack of clean air had stifled the leopard, wounded him on an elemental level He hadn’t even been able to shift without so the cops to report a wild aniht of her son in leopard form

"Are you happy with DarkRiver?" Talin asked now

"They’re my fa They accepted hiive a shit that he preferred to roam alone more often than not, invited hioogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>