He didn’t want to lick the pup either. <As soon as it’s safe, we’ll get you and Meg cleaned up.> And they would need to wash any of the other pups who were splattered with puke. For now, there was nothing any of the Wolves could do.

Resisting the temptation to lick her neck clean of dried blood and ignoring the bad scent of vomit, Simon rested his head on Meg’s shoulder, offering silent comfort—and trying not to think too much about what was happening to the Wolfgard in other parts of Thaisia.

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 34

Firesday, Juin 22

Jackson trotted back to the Wolfgard cabin. While troubling, the meeting with the Panthergard had gone well. Only one of the Cats now living in the Sweetwater area had gone through the first level of a human-centric education—enough to read, write, and do sums, as well as speak with humans and make a purchase at a trading post.

Enough education to distinguish between normal human activity like farming and tending animals and activity that felt... wrong.

Nothing suspicious around Sweetwater’s Intuit village, but that wasn’t true about Endurance, the closest human village. Something wasn’t right there. Something had changed. But it was like trying to hook your claws into air, hoping to catch hold of the problem and deal with it.

<Jackson! Jackson!> one of the Ravens called. <Your pup is strange sick.>

He ran toward the cabin, momentarily relieved when he spotted Grace. Then Hope burst into view looking as terrified as a fawn being run down by a Grizzly.

“We have to hide!” Hope screamed. She ran past Grace, grabbing at the pups who had run to greet her. “We have to hide!”

“Hope?” Grace said, her white hair gleaming in the sun.

Jolting to a stop, Hope looked at Grace. “Fire. Death. We have to hide!” She ran toward the creek and the pups ran after her.

<Go with her,> Jackson told Grace. <I’ll check the cabin.>

Grace pulled off her clothes, shifted to Wolf, and ran after the girl with the pack’s nanny and the juvenile Wolves following.

Jackson rushed into Hope’s room in the Wolfgard cabin. Where had the girl been? She wasn’t supposed to go out of sight of the cabin without telling an adult Wolf.

He stopped at the smell. Wasn’t Hope a little old to be piddling on the floor?

Spotting the scatter of pencils and crayons, he moved cautiously around the bed—and smelled a hint of blood that was almost overwhelmed by the scent of urine.

He came farther into the room, moving his feet with care to avoid stepping on Hope’s drawing supplies. When he lowered his head to sniff the floor for the blood smell, he spotted the drawings under her bed. He pulled out the intact drawing and then the pieces—and snarled.