There was no mercy in the wild country, and no safety in the dark.

As letters traveled slowly across the continent, humans learned, piece by piece, what the Humans First and Last movement had cost the people of Thaisia.

To: Douglas Burke

For all intents and purposes, the Cel-Romano Alliance of Nations is gone.

—Shady

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 54

Moonsday, Sumor 9

Tolya Sanguinati waited at the Bennett train station for the town’s new arrivals.

He had argued for days that phone lines connecting Bennett and Prairie Gold to Sweetwater were necessary, that the sweet blood living with Jackson Wolfgard should not be cut off completely from the beings who would help her stay alive.

At first, the Elders had ignored his arguments as well as Jackson’s pleas because Prairie Gold and Bennett were Midwest towns and Sweetwater was located in the Northwest, and all the wires humans used for their talking had been torn down along every regional border—and no one who tried to repair the lines survived the wrath of Namid’s teeth and claws.

Then came a question: this sweet blood was a howling not-Wolf?

After careful consideration of what that might mean, Tolya told the Elders that the Hope pup was a friend of Meg Corbyn, who was friend to Simon Wolfgard, leader of the Lakeside Courtyard.

The next day, work crews were permitted to repair the phone lines that crossed the regional borders and connected Bennett and Prairie Gold with Sweetwater. And although they were watched every moment, the men on those crews survived.

Tolya wasn’t sure who was on the train. Some Intuits, upon arriving, had taken one look at the town and said they would stay a week to help clean up and clear out the houses, but they had a feeling this wasn’t the place for them to settle and asked for an assignment in another town. Some didn’t even leave the train station before asking for a return ticket home.

It wasn’t an easy place for any kind of human. One of the Intuits said the town felt like it was filled with ghosts. Tolya didn’t tell the young man that it wasn’t human spirits that were spooking him; it was the more primal earth natives who continued to prowl around and through the town—and the most terrifying among them were the ones who shifted to a clawed, furred form that walked on two legs.

The train pulled in. A few passengers got out.

Tolya was a mature, adult Sanguinati in his prime. He certainly wasn’t old. But he looked at the fresh-faced humans getting off the train and felt like a pack’s nanny. It made sense that adults who hadn’t found a mate yet would be the most likely to travel to a new place like Bennett, but did they all have to be so young?