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Cookie cru their mouths, they nodded and waved

"Bedtime in an hour"

"Dad!"

"Uncle Walker!"

"Forty-fiveto see Lara biting back a ser at her "Early bedtime for you, too" - he dropped his voice - "so I don’t feel guilty waking you when I return" He hadn’t been a physical er until it was simply a part of him, but noanted to explore each and every sensation with her, then he wanted to do it all over again

"That’s one thing," she whispered, rising to press her uilty about I’ll wait for my wake-up"

The taste of her - lush, addictive, exquisitely faered on his lips as he went to take his position on the perimeter While he didn’t often do a security rotation, his assigneneral development of the ten-to-thirteen-year-olds in the pack, he was on the backup roster And with a significant percentage of his charges still in the safe zones where they’d been evacuated, it had made sense for him to step up

However, Walker had also hout, addressing their worries and questions They were good kids, belonged to him as much as they did their parents That was a truth it had taken hi time to understand -

that everyone parented the children in SnowDancer

An integral aspect of Walker’s job was to ressive -

slipped through the cracks He often had pups seated along the bench in his workshop, doing their ho afternoon snacks And he’d tucked a few into bed, too, when needed

Perhaps he wasn’t as affectionate as a changeling parent, but the children seemed to feel safe with him, and that hat mattered

"Part dean, part teacher, part trainer, part mother, part father" That was hoke had explained the position to Walker when the alpha had first extended the offer

"You’ll be responsible for rowth in a way that leaves hie of their developood at what you do, the pups will come to see you as another parent"

"Don’t you occupy that role as alpha?"

"Yes, but there’s only one of e of all the separate age groups - so a child or juvenile never feels lost or isolated, even if their parents have to be away from the den

"You’ll work closely with the maternals and the teachers, and while they’re responsible for different aspects of the children’s health and education, you’re the one who coordinates everything and ets what he or she needs to feel safe, happy, and challenged"

Drawing in the crisp night air as he considered possible issues that ht an acrid scent, identified it as ash He was, he realized, about to pass the area that Sienna’s power had denuded, the earth barrenthough he saw that someone had been out here since the last ti grid

Good

The sooner this land began to heal, the sooner Sienna would be able to come to terms hat she’d done

Because while his niece put on a good face, he knew it haunted her, the lives she’d taken That they had been of the enemy made no difference - and that hy Sienna would retain her soul in the face of a power that could well have corrupted her fronant as that of the Councilor who’d taken her as a child and attempted to form her into a weapon

When, tenon the se point over Walker’s section of the outer border, he thought again of power and corruption and of the strength it took to fight the insidious rot Arrow training was cold and inhuned to create killers

It had succeeded in Judd

"The blood on my hands will always be there"