“Sascha’s coming up?” Indigo asked, one hand on the boy’s shoulder.
Toby nodded. “She’s gonna help me with some stuff.” He tapped the side of his head to indicate that “stuff” was mental, probably an aspect of his psychic abilities.
“Go on,” Riley said. “You don’t want to be late.”
Toby smiled again. “Okay.” But before he left, he reached into his pocket and pulled out something wrapped in brown paper. “This is for you.” He put it in Riley’s surprised hand and ran off before Riley could ask him what it was.
“Hey,” Indigo said, voice amused, “I don’t rate a present.”
“I’m his uncle.” The relationship was through Brenna’s mate, Judd, but Riley didn’t stand on such restrictions much. “I wonder what it is.”
“Open it.” Indigo made no move to leave.
“Ever heard of privacy?”
“No.”
A smile tugged at his lips. “You’ve been hanging out with Mercy.”
“We talk some,” she admitted. “It’s . . . not hard, but different, being a powerful female among this many men.”
He looked up in surprise. “But you’re not alone. We’ve got Jem—”
“Yeah, she’s a lieutenant but posted out way over in the L.A. region,” Indigo said. “Mercy’s the only one nearby who understands these things.”
“What things?”
“Well, if you could understand them,” she said with exaggerated patience, “I wouldn’t be talking to a cat, would I?”
He didn’t back down. They didn’t call him the Wall for nothing. “Do you think the pack’s leadership structure is unbalanced?” Changelings weren’t human or Psy. Female dominants were an expected part of the pack. But now that Indigo had pointed it out, he realized that of the ten SnowDancer lieutenants, only two were female.
“Nah.” She waved her hand. “It just turned out that way this generation. Remember—when your mom was lieutenant, it was six-four in favor of the females.”
It was the second time in less than twenty-four hours that someone had mentioned his mother. If he’d been the superstitious type, it might’ve concerned him. But he wasn’t. And it didn’t. “True,” he said, and unwrapped the package.
“Oooh.” Indigo picked up the tiny, interlocking wooden puzzle and ran her fingers over it. “This work is too smooth for a child.”
“Walker probably helped him.” Judd’s brother was very good with his hands, something that seemed to surprise him as much as anyone. “It’s a wolf.”
Indigo gave it back to him. “Yeah, stylized but discernible.”
Riley played with the pieces, thinking Mercy would probably enjoy this. He’d jumble it up and give it to her, just to see the look of feline concentration on her face.
A hand waved in front of his eyes. “Earth to Riley.”
“What?”
“I asked how come you got a present.” She looked suspicious of his lapse in focus.
He thought about it. “I’ve been spending a bit of time with him, teaching him tracking, things like that.”
“You’re good at that.”
“What?”
“Being a big brother.” A smile. “And uncle now. Brenna and Drew are lucky to have you.”
As she walked away, he wondered if his siblings thought that. Raising them, with the pack’s help of course, wasn’t anything he’d ever resented—he was who he was. Solid. Rooted in earth. But now he wondered—was he too solid, too practical, to continue to captivate a woman as wild and as bright as Mercy?