Page 25 of Crew

The herd shared a moment of silence, determination settling over all of them.

“We’ve got this,” Grey said. “No matter what.”

They finished cleaning up the kitchen and then they joined the females in the family room, where they’d cued up a movie to watch.

He was more determined than ever to ensure that his sweetheart was safe, and the herd too. As alpha, it was his job to make sure they were safe, but as a mate, he had to keep Zara safe above all else.

Despite the challenges and uncertainties that lay ahead, he found a bit of peace in the mundane activity of watching a movie with the herd, his soulmate tucked against his side, and he was thankful for it.

He’d take moments of peace whenever he could.

The following afternoon, Zara met Nancy by the tea garden that was in the process of being created. The ground was staked and had been tilled, and they were waiting for Dexter to build the wooden box that would surround it to keep the animals from getting to the young plants.

Zara took out her new foraging book that Crew had given her and a pencil, and flipped to the back where she’d made a drawing of the territory so she could mark where they found things.

“I’m so glad you wanted to walk around with me,” Zara said. Since Crew said no one could go anywhere alone, even in their territory, Zara had needed someone with her in case there was trouble.

“I was going to do laundry today, so I’m really happy to be doing this instead,” Nancy said with a grin. She pulled her floppy hat a little lower on her head and said, “Where are we going to start?”

“Well, I know there are blackberries here”—she pointed to the barn with the equipment—“but when I was out with Crew, we found wild blueberries so I wanted to just do a slow search heading that direction, along the split-rail fence.”

“Sounds good to me, lead the way.”

“I got through a few chapters in my foraging book last night, so I’m curious what we might find.”

“I’m so impressed with your knowledge of foraging. How did you learn? Did you just pick it up as you went or were you taught?”

They started walking along the fence, Zara keeping track of their steps and the path they took with a GPS program on the new phone Crew had picked up for her that morning while they were out shopping. He’d been so gracious taking her to the mall so she could get clothes, encouraging her to buy whatever she needed. They’d hit up a farm supply store as well, where she bought some comfortable hiking boots and gardening gloves.

She was very glad for the hiking boots now since the ground was uneven and she knew her old tennis shoes wouldn’t be helping her much.

“Our herd was small and my mom was one of two foragers who scoured the territory for plants, harvesting wild crops. She searched for food, and plants to dry for medicines and teas. When I was little, I went everywhere with her and she taught me everything she knew about foraging, but she’d never had any formal training or even read much about the area and the plants. She’d been taught by her mom what was safe and what wasn’t, and she passed that on to me.” When her mom died, she’d been thrust into the job of herd forager, the assumption from the alpha was that she’d happily spend her days rooting around in nature for whatever was useful and helpful for the herd. And she was happy to do it, but it just made her miss her mom. The alpha had hardly given her time to grieve her parents before he called her to his home and told her it was time to get to work.

“What a jerk,” Nancy said.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “And his son is worse than he ever was.”

“I hope we never see him again. It was a terrible thing to go after the machinery and vehicles like he did, but I’m so thankful for the shifters at the park who were willing to help.”

“That was really amazing,” she said.

They stuck to the treeline so they could stay in the shade, and Nancy told her about meeting Dexter and falling for him, then learning about shifters.

“It must have been so weird to know that this whole world of shifters was in secret like that,” Zara said. “I can’t imagine.”

“It was!” Nancy said with a chuckle. “What was bad for me, though, was that I was forbidden to tell Dani. I hated to keep a secret from her, especially as she got older. I knew she could tell there was something going on, but she never guessed it was that. I mean, who would? Your whole life you think it’s just humans in the world and then you learn there are horses and gorillas and bears and wolves and who knows what else is out there!”

“My old herd only allowed stallions, so we never had to worry about keeping secrets like in your situation. I would imagine it would be really hard to keep something so huge from someone you love.”

“It was,” Nancy said. “I understood when she was a child, because kids make mistakes and might say something they shouldn’t. But once Dani was an adult, I pushed back with Dexter about it, but he’s a very by-the-books sort of fellow and he didn’t want to say it was okay to break a stallion law just because his step-daughter was human. And he wasn’t willing to change the law just for himself, and I understood that. If laws can be changed willy-nilly, then what’s the point?”

“True.” She paused and crouched down, peering through a dense patch of grass.

“What do you see?” Nancy asked, leaning over.

“I think it’s mint,” Zara said. She scooted forward and reached for a leaf, plucking it and bringing it to her nose. With a swift inhale, she smiled. “Yep. Here, give it a smell.”

Nancy sniffed and said, “It’s sweet and minty.”

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