Chapter 6

• “While you’re making the coffee, I just need to step outside and send a message to someone, so they know I made it and I’m okay and that you’re here.” He pulled his phone out of his pack.
• “Are there a lot of others? Like us?” Evanna leaned back against the counter and watched him, her head tilted to the side.
• Jesse nodded, “yeah, there is a lot like us, different clan types, but there’s a lot.” He motioned to the door, “I’ll be right back, I’m not getting a signal in here.”
• “That’s a phone?” She was across the room and right in front of him before he could reply. Leaning over, she looked down at his phone. “That’s,” she snorted softly, “a bit amazing.” Straightening, she held his look. “I guess we’ve missed a lot.” There was a brief hurt look in her eyes. “It was safer to stay here.” She nodded, then went back over to the other side of the table. “I’ll make the coffee while you do that.” Picking up the teacups, she went over to the counter.
• Jesse blinked, then shook his head and went outside. Thera was laying by the door. She lifted her head and looked at him as if to say ‘you’re still here?’ then dropped it back down. Giving her a wide berth, just in case, he went down the steps and checked his phone.
• He had to walk to the edge of the fence to find a signal. Opening his contacts, he stared at them, who was he messaging? Blowing out a breath, he brought up Calum, so far there had never been anything that he hadn’t been able to find the answers to. He started typing, then erased it and typed, Made it to the top. I think the only one here is a woman. And their pet. That made no sense, but he didn’t know how else to word it. He hit send, then looked around while he waited for Calum to reply. Sending a message like that ensured he would reply quickly if he wasn’t in cat form.
• Whoever had been left in this clan, they’d used wood and parts of the whole village to make this one small area to keep the remaining close and safe. The fence made sense now that he’d met Thera. He looked over at her, she looked like she was relaxed, but he could see her eyes were open and watching his every move.
• His phone rang, he couldn’t help but smile as he looked to see it was Calum. “Yeah?”
• “Do you need a nap or something?”
• Jesse rubbed his hand along his rough jaw. A shave soon would be good too. “No, well, probably, but I know what I sent you.”
• “Okay, and it means what exactly? You found the clan and there’s just one woman left?”
• “As far as I can tell.” He turned back to look at the house he’d come out of.
• “What does that mean?” Calum no longer sounded amused.
• “I’m not sure, exactly. She talks about others like they’re here, but I’ve only seen her,” he blew out a breath, “okay, I first met someone else, but then she wasn’t the same…”
• “Do I need to talk to Dev about you getting some downtime?”
• “No.” Not that he wouldn’t mind some time off, but they were finally getting closer to Tomas, so he wasn’t stopping now. Thera stirred on the porch, “oh and she has a leopard.”
• “A real leopard?”
• Jesse nodded and watched Thera stretch and then lay back down, still where she could see him. “Yes, Leah rescued her from somewhere.”
• “That’s—” he could hear muffled voices; Calum must be telling someone else. “Jesse, Shae wants to speak to you.”
• “Okay.”
• “Hi, Jesse, how are you doing?”
• Jesse shrugged, “I’m good. A little tired, but fine.”
• “Okay, Calum just wanted me to check on you.” She sounded amused.
• Jesse rolled his eyes, “Listen, while I have you on the phone, maybe you can help me make some sense out of this.”
• “I can try.” There was no sound of amusement in her tone.
• He didn’t want to move around the yard, in case he lost signal. Crossing his arm over his chest, he leaned back against the fence. How did he even go about explaining what was more of just a feeling than anything else? “Okay,” he nodded, “when I first introduced myself to her, she was scared and unsure, then,” he frowned and looked at the ground, “she’s completely different. Confident, kind of harder on the exterior—I don’t know if this is making sense. She talks about others, but I’ve only seen her.” He blew out a breath, “it’s almost like she keeps changing in front of my eyes.” He waited for her to laugh at him. “And she calls her cat Minn, at least I’m pretty sure it’s her cat, it could be another shifter, but I don’t scent them at all—I don’t know any other shifter that has named their animal side.”
• “I see. I don’t know a lot about things like this, but I can find out.”
• Jesse straightened from the fence, she believed him. “What…”
• “You need to find out more about her situation, her past. I’ll make a few calls and give you a call back in a few hours, is that okay?”
• Jesse nodded his head quickly, “yeah, so find out more about her or her clan?”
• “The more information you can get the easier it will be for me to help.”
• “I’ll do that.” He glanced over when Thera stood up, “I want to get her and her leopard down from here.”
• “We’ll talk more about that later, Jesse.” She was using her healer voice now.
• “Okay. The signal is sketchy here, so if you don’t get me right away leave a message and I’ll call back.”
• “All right.” There were voices in the background, “Calum says to be careful.”
• Jesse nodded, “always am. Thanks, Shaelan.”
• “I’ll talk to you soon.”
• Staring at the phone for a second, he tucked it back into his pack and did it up. Thera lifted her head and looked at him. She turned for a second and looked at the door. Shaking his head, he started back. Was he going to be having coffee with Evanna or tea with Leah when he went back in? As long as he didn’t walk in to see Minn, he would be good, at least until he knew who Minn was. If it was another shifter, there had to be a reason they didn’t let her out often.
• The only thing he knew for certain at this point was he wasn’t getting them off the mountain today. He looked at the other houses as he walked, something nagged at him and he knew it meant he probably wasn’t going to be able to get Leah or Evanna or whoever to walk down the mountain and leave all this as it was. His cat was alert again, making the hair on the back of Jesse’s neck stand on end. The next few days were going to be long ones.