Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“Looks like Mrs. Park has a new guest. She’ll be happy,” Malia commented. “She was complaining how guest numbers were low while I was at the diner the other day.”
“She was complaining guest numbers were low when I was your age,” Adam pointed out. “Yet here she is, still the main gossip distribution system in Raintree.”
His eyes kept being drawn to the inn even though there’d been nothing unusual about the guest—she’d looked like any other businessperson who’d stopped in for a day for a meeting. Could be at the WindHaven facility, or at one of the smaller operations in town that were in related industries.
Malia’s laughter was big and wide, just like Saoirse’s.
Just like her grandfather Cormac’s had been. Adam’s mother had once told Adam that she’d fallen in love with his father before she ever saw his face. “I heard that laugh over the booth wall and my heart went, wow, I want to be with a man who finds such joy in the world.”
“Come on,” Adam said, awash on a wave of love and memory. “I’ll drive you to school so you don’t have to hitchhike.” That “hitchhiking” involved walking down the sole road in or out of the Canyon and making pleading faces at adult clanmates going about their lives until someone took pity on the student in question and let them jump in.
Otherwise, WindHaven had a normal school run on a regular schedule, where assigned clanmates drove in students who didn’t feel like flying down that day. All the kids had a change of clothes in a private locker room near the school—WindHaven had built them that private area, because while changelings might shrug off nudity after a shift as a natural part of life, the majority of their schoolmates wouldn’t.
And teenagers were teenagers: they wanted to be cool.
“Eeee!” Malia threw her arms around him. “Thanks, Uncle Adam! You’re the best! Even if the girlies are going to flutter their eyelashes at you. So rude! I’m like, he’s my uncle, stop looking, and they’re like, but he’s mega hot and only twenty-eight so totally not ancient.”
Shoulders shaking at her shudder, he nudged her back from the opening in the rock that acted as an exit from the intricate maze inside the Canyon. It housed mostly meeting rooms or other communal areas like kitchens, as the majority of Adam’s people preferred to nest either up on the plateau or in aeries on the edges of the canyon wall, where they could fly in or out at will.
The internal area had, however, been built with winged creatures in mind—the tunnels were wide and high, both so falcons could fly in or out above the heads of clanmates in human form, and so no one felt claustrophobic if their work meant they had to spend more time in a room inside.
They’d also upgraded the lighting to artificial sunlight and moonlight as soon as the tech became available, turning their internal nest from basic and functional to warm and inviting. The carvings that lined the walls further created that warmth and sense of family, for each one memorialized a falcon beloved.
The carving of his parents was near where his grandparents had nested.
A young clanmate winged by at that point, being sure to swipe a talon at Malia’s curls as he headed for the exit. Instead of yelping, she swiped up with her nails, as if attempting to pluck the errant juvenile’s feathers.
Adam knew he should really discipline the two, but he’d been the annoying little brother once, and he understood their interaction. It made his falcon chuckle deep within. “Does Tahir have a free period, too?”
“No, he’s late. Even flying.” A smug smile. “Detention for him. Oh, soooo sad.”
He grinned. “Go grab your stuff for school. I’ll meet you at the garage.” The clan parked most vehicles in a cool space inside, protecting them from the dust and grit of the arid climate as much as they could.
Their lands were breathtaking, but not always friendly.
Adam couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
He turned left while Malia ran off to the right, and saw Amir walking toward him. The man with eyes of cool blue and smooth white skin that barely tanned, his hair a dark brown feathered with strands of ash, was dressed for the day in jeans and a short-sleeved black shirt and carried a mug of coffee in hand.
“Is that Tahir’s feather on your shoulder?” Adam’s brother-in-law—and senior wing commander—drawled with an amused smile. “I warned him he’d be late, but he told me to ‘stop hovering, Daaaad—it’s so kestrel.’ Guess who’ll be explaining himself to his extremely not-amused mother today. Though I suppose at least my youngest progeny’s insults are well-informed.”
Adam picked off the feather with a grin. “Wouldn’t want to be your boy.” Quite aside from being the lead engineer on WindHaven’s jet-shield projects, Saoirse was a senior maternal in the pack hierarchy and the terror of all misbehaving juveniles. “Chirp already at work?” Adam’s sister had a tendency to rise at four a.m. bright-eyed and chirpy—hence Chirp.