Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
But Finn shook his head. “At least one of the juveniles has completed the first aid course and thinks it might just be heavy bruising, but he isn’t comfortable making that call.” He changed direction toward the infirmary, no doubt to grab his medical kit, his chest reverberating with his leopard’s grumble. “How our young survive to adulthood, I have no idea.”
Remi grabbed the back of the healer’s neck without aggression, squeezed. “A combination of dumb luck and strong changeling bones.”
Finn’s cat continued to grumble, but he didn’t shake off Remi’s touch. Which Remi had initiated on purpose—because Finn was getting grumpier with each day that passed and contact with his alpha would calm his cat.
Touch was the cornerstone of the relationships in a pack.
Remi knew the reason behind Finn’s behavior. Healers loved family, loved children, and while being the healer of a small and close pack like RainFire helped feed some of that need, what Finn really needed was a long-term lover or mate.
That was simply how healers worked.
They liked to pair bond and often did so earlier than other changelings. Finn’s closest healer friend, Tamsyn, had mated at only nineteen years of age, and while she was an outlier in terms of how early she’d found her mate, all of Finn’s healer friends of a similar age were happily settled.
Unfortunately, Finn had never found anyone with whom he wanted to tangle on a more than friendly basis. A worried Remi had even tried to play matchmaker by sending Finn off to conferences for changeling healers, in the hope that he’d find love among his peers, but all Finn had found were interesting new medical techniques.
While he did have friends in RainFire and other packs with which he exchanged skin privileges, that was getting rare enough to concern Remi. Changelings needed contact, affection, touch, to be at their best. Dominants got aggressive without it, but healers? Healers got sad and…broken.
“You need skin-to-skin contact,” he said now, after another squeeze. “None of the single women in the pack would turn you down.” Finn wasn’t just liked, he was loved. A heart piece, without which the pack would never quite function right.
The other man’s eyes shone wet when they met Remi’s. “It’s not enough anymore.” A raw confession. “I keep thinking what’s wrong with me that I can’t make that bond? I’m a healer. We bond as easily as we breathe.”
This was one of the things no one could teach you about being alpha. Protection was one thing, care quite another. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Finn,” he said, holding those leaf green eyes to drill that home. “You just haven’t found your forever yet. She’s probably pissed off about it, too.”
A snort of laughter from Finn before he looked away for a second. Only healers could do that in a pack—just break an alpha’s gaze. But he turned back, and didn’t avoid the embrace Remi gave him.
Just because Finn was strong and intelligent and held it together no matter what the emergency didn’t mean he didn’t also need his alpha. “I know it’s not enough,” Remi murmured, “but take the gift of skin privileges your friends want to give you. It’ll help you maintain until you find the one who’s meant to be yours.”
Finn’s arms clenched around Remi for a moment before he pulled back and gave a small nod. “You’d tell me if I was falling down on the job, wouldn’t you?”
“Finn, that’s the one thing about which I never worry—you’d be dying but still trying to help people.” He tapped one palm against the other man’s cheek. “But if it makes you feel better, yes, I would kick your skinny ass if you weren’t living up to your promise to the pack. Message me once you’ve seen the juveniles.”
Finn’s lips curved before he turned and jogged the rest of the way to the infirmary. Right before he pulled open the door, he yelled, “My ass is prime, I’ll have you know! Had an entire hunting party of bridesmaids tell me so last time I visited San Francisco!”
Chuckling as the healer vanished inside the infirmary cube, Remi turned on his heel to check up on the current biggest pain in his neck. The juveniles’ antics, at least, he could predict. Auden Scott? Fucking nightmare of a problem that technically had nothing to do with him—and that would gnaw at him every second she was in his vicinity.
So of course he reached their border to discover her holding a deadly little gun all wrong while facing a homemade target—a piece of card stuck to a big stick that she’d poked into the ground. On the card was a wonky hand-drawn bull’s-eye.
Then she shot and it went so wide of the mark that it wasn’t even in the same galaxy.
His leopard hung its head in reflected shame.