Leap of the Lion (The Wild Hunt Legacy #4)(26)

Spotting bacon piled on a plate, Darcy stared. “Bacon? For me?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look at bacon as if it were Christmas and Easter rolled into one.” Breanne offered the plate. “You must really love it.”

Darcy bit into a piece and purred as the flavors filled her mouth. “When I was young, it was our weekend treat.” At twelve, Darcy and the boys had reached the age where they devoured everything in sight, and they could go through a pound in one breakfast. Poor Mum had been looking forward to when they could hunt some of their meals. “I haven’t had any since…since we were captured.”

When Breanne took the plate of bacon away, Darcy sighed and wished she’d stuffed another piece in her mouth.

“Why don’t you sit at the table in here?” Breanne scooped the scrambled eggs onto the plate and added buttered toast before giving the plate back. “I’ll have another cup of coffee and keep you company.”

The plate of food was heavy. “This is all for me?”

“Sure. Donal told Shay you needed to eat.” Breanne eyed her. “I can see you’re not up to fighting weight, so eat it all, if you can.”

“Thank you.” So much bacon for her? Darcy sank into the chair and tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

“What’s wrong?” After handing over a glass of orange juice, Bree poured herself coffee and sat across the table. Her big blue eyes were worried. “Darcy?”

“My friends back at the prìosan, the other females, they’ll all be eating oatmeal. Since the Scythe won’t waste money on filthy animals, our meals were always the same. Oatmeal for breakfast. Vegetable soup for lunch. Hamburger stew for supper.”

Bree set her cup down with such a violent thump that coffee sloshed over the sides. “For half your life? I-I don’t know how to say how furious that makes me.” Her face had gone red.

Darcy stared for a second and then smiled. “I know it sounds strange, but seeing someone else angry is nice.”

“Be nicer if I could shred some humans.” Grumbling, Bree picked up her cup and wiped the sides with a napkin.

After two more bacon pieces, Darcy started on the eggs. Best eggs ever. “When Donal healed me, he said birth control pills kept you from trawsfurring.”

“True. Apparently birth control pills and shifter chemistries don’t go well together,” Bree said.

“You lived in Seattle?”

Bree smiled. “I did. Being an orphan, I came here, hoping to find information about my parents. Getting out of the city—and off the pills—let me trawsfur. But I’d never heard of the Daonain, so when I shifted into a wolf, it was a shock to everyone…me most of all.”

“I can’t even imagine how scared you must have been.” At least Darcy had known who she was. What she was. “Did you move here and never go back to Seattle?”

“Actually, I did return once, but it was awfully close to being a disaster.” Bree frowned. “Before I left, a hellhound had attacked me, and afterward, it preyed on my apartment complex. A boy lived there who I’d once babysat. It was stupid, but I went back to try to save him and kill the hellhound.”

Darcy frowned. Weren’t hellhounds horrifically dangerous? Yet how could anyone sit by if she knew a child would die? “Did you save him?”

“Not the way I’d planned, although the hellhound did die.” Bree’s mouth twisted in a rueful smile. “Zeb almost died, too. He and Shay came after me, even though Calum had ordered us to stay out of the city. I hated the Cosantir so much right then.”

Darcy stiffened. “But…why would the Cosantir forbid you to go to Seattle?”

“Because the Daonain survive only because humans don’t realize we exist.” Bree shook her head. “I understood, mostly, but I’d never imagined an entire town of shifters could be attacked. Or how horrible it must have been. I’m so sorry, Darcy.”

Houses burning. Bodies in the streets. Caged in a basement. Her mum dragged into the laboratory. Dying there. “My village was called Dogwood.” Named after a grove of the white flowering trees. She’d only lived there long enough to see them bloom once. Now even the name of the village was dead.

Her breakfast had lost its appeal, and the eggs tasted like ash. Darcy set her fork down. “Calum thought humans might discover the Daonain just because you went to Seattle?”

“He had reasons, I’m afraid. Cities are full of people and cameras, and a person turning into a wolf—or bear or cougar—would be impossible to cover up. I was a new shifter with untested control.”

Darcy scowled. She was a very new shifter and probably had atrocious control. “Why didn’t he send Zeb and Shay? They look incredibly strong.”

“Humans aren’t a Daonain concern, especially ones who don’t live in a territory.” Bree sighed. “And cities make shifters weak. Herne’s power doesn’t extend outside his territories, so the cahirs don’t have their added strength.”

“Oh.” Darcy forced herself to finish the eggs, swallowing past the tightness in her throat. Her dreams of an army storming the prìosan and the shifter-soldier compound were sputtering to a stop like an electric motor in the rain.

“Our territories are filled with females and vulnerable cubs. Calum couldn’t risk our people to save a few humans, especially humans who weren’t in his guardianship.”