Chapter 26

He found Terah in the kitchen of his house, sitting on top of the island counter, not one of the chairs surrounding it. She was sitting crossed-legged and leaning over a tablet in her lap. Grasped tight in one hand was a stylus.

“If you’re planning on stabbing the tablet, I’m afraid that won’t do much damage.”

Her head popped up and she looked over at him. Lifting her hand, she looked down at the stylus. “I was trying to remember what Lucus told me.”

Curiosity made him decide against mentioning what chairs were for. “Maybe I can help.” He went over and stood beside the island. With her sitting on top of it, they were the same height.

“This.” She pointed to the screen with the object held in her hand. “I am supposed to drag it to move the pieces.” She lifted just her gaze to look at him. “But I don’t know if I’m doing it right. It looked easy when Lucus did it.”

Leaning his elbow on the counter, he tilted his head so he could see the screen. It was a picture-word game. It reminded him that she had a lot of catching up to do, in life, education included.

“See.” She put the tip of the stylus on the screen and moved it. “It does not work.”

“May I?” He held his hand out for it, nodding, she handed it to him. Shifting so he was leaning over the counter more, he studied the screen, it seemed simple enough to do, match the pictures with words spoken. He tapped the screen with the tip so it would say the next word, but nothing happened. “Maybe it needs to be restarted?” He tried hitting the exit button and nothing happened again. Frowning, he set the pen on the counter and used his fingertip. “I think it might be frozen.”

“It is not cold in my hands.” She held his look, confusion in her eyes.

“Not temperature, uh...” He inhaled, trying to figure out how to explain it. “With programs and computers sometimes they lock up, stop working.” He looked from the screen back to see she was listening to every syllable he spoke. “It freezes on one screen and won’t do anything else.”

“I see.” She still looked bewildered, “How do I thaw it?”

Konner couldn’t help the smirk on his face. “You restart it, not thaw it.”

With a serious look on her face, she nodded. “Restart. Okay.” She glanced at the tablet. “How do I do that?”

Reaching, he pointed to the button at the top. “Hold that down for a few seconds.”

He watched her do it. “Now let it go.”

“Oh.” The screen went dark.

“Now push and hold it again and it will restart.”

She focused as she did it, a smile on her face when it started rebooting. “Thank you.” Lifting her lashes, she glanced at him. “Nolyn said this is better than using too much paper.” Her eyes widened. “Trees die to make paper, did you know that?”

Konner nodded. “I did.” He decided not to tell her he preferred paper to electronics because it was more secure.

“I don’t want to be the reason trees die.”

To anyone else, he would have laughed, but she meant every word she was saying. It was an odd thing, that she’d kill an otter because it was stealing the fish, but she didn’t want to be the cause of some trees being cut down.

“I think it was a good idea to use stone for your house,” she said, watching his face as she spoke. “Rocks are not alive.”

“Stone holds the moisture, so it made sense to use it.”

“Yes. You are smart. I feel good here in the stone, not like the houses with carpet and wood everywhere.” She searched his face, several thoughts moving through her eyes, “Lucus was explaining numbers to me. I know how old I am now.”

Konner could only smile in return.

“He says you are old.” Her brows creased. “You don’t look old.”

He was distracted watching her eyes shift as she looked over his face.

“Just a few lines, not like the old ones I’ve known.”

He raised an eyebrow. “A few lines?”

She nodded, a soft look in her eyes, she knew he was teasing her. “Yes, tiny, tiny ones.” She touched beside his eye, “Here.” She lowered her lashes, blocking his view of her eyes. “And here.” She trailed her fingertip down to beside his mouth. “Face hair is prickly.”

Konner remembered he hadn’t shaved for a few days. “Whiskers, yeah, I need to shave.”

She moved her hand along his jaw, “I like them, your whiskers.” Terah looked from her hand to his eyes. “They look good on your face.” She smiled. “Even with your serious eyes. When you are looking at something you get these lines here.” She moved her fingertip along his forehead, just above his eyebrows. “And your eyes darken and go very serious.” She gave him a hard look as if she was trying to mimic it.

“I have a lot to think about most days.” He knew he should straighten away from her; he couldn’t afford to form any personal attachments to her, but being close to her, even just like this settled something inside him he wasn’t ready to address.

“I know. You look after so many.” She trailed her finger down his face again and then took it off. “You free those trapped.” The look in her eyes lightened. “You are very special, Konner.”

He wasn’t sure if special was the word she wanted to use, but he didn’t want to correct her. “Thank you.” He allowed his gaze to wander over her face for a second, her skin was perfection, and the only hint of the lack of care she’d had was in the haunted look deep in her eyes. He would do anything to take that look away and replace it with the one she had when she sang the songs of their people. “You are quite special as well.”

She kept looking at his mouth, and it took all the restraint he had to not kiss her.

“What you did for Raelyn...” He took a quick breath and held it. “Thank you,” he whispered as he released it.

“I didn’t do anything.” Her gaze met his again. “I sang to her babies, that is all.”

“You calmed them, and their mother.” The panic in Rae’s voice still resonated through him. “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have known there were two.”

She smiled, excitement in her eyes. “I can’t wait to see two babies.”

He nodded his head slowly, “I’m sure Rae will welcome the help.” He couldn’t bring himself to say he hoped they both survived. Terah had a fragile grip on things in her new world, and he didn’t want to crush that glow inside her.

Without warning, she leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for bringing me here, Konner.” When she leaned back, she put her hand over her lips. “Your whiskers tickled my mouth.”

Konner sucked in a breath and slowly released it. He needed to get away from her. Looking back at the tablet she held, he saw it had rebooted several minutes ago. “Your program should work now.”

“Oh.” She lifted it and looked. With great focus, she tapped the icon on the screen to open it. “Yes, it does.” She smiled and glanced at him. “Thank you for fixing it.”

With regret, he stood up straight. “I’ll be in the office if you have problems. The door by your room will take you there.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

He stepped back, forcing his feet to move. When she has focused on the tablet again, he turned and walked with long strides to the door. Blowing out a breath, he scowled at the floor, he needed to get his head together, there was a lot to do. Lifting his hand, he ran it lightly along his cheek he could still feel her touch on his skin.

Closing the door, he walked to the window in the hall and stared out at the lake. He couldn’t do this again. Get attached to another female, only to watch her walk away because she was mated to someone else. Grinding his teeth, he crossed his arms over his chest. It had been like that with Olanna.

She had been living on her own for so long it took him time to gain her trust to bring her back to the Sanctuary. Of course, at that time, he got a little too close to her and they had both enjoyed their time together. Somewhere deep inside he’d known she could be mated to one of the males at home, but the years of loneliness had superseded any reasonable thinking.

It had been bittersweet when they found out one of the men he’d known his whole life was her mate. Auburn was a good man, and Konner couldn’t begrudge him his happiness for a summer romance. It had taken a few years for him to look at her and not see her in that way.

“Everything all right?”

Konner looked over his shoulder to see Calum standing there. “Yeah, just lost in thought.” He turned away from the window.

“Looked like some deep thoughts.”

Konner sighed. “Yeah, lack of sleep probably.”

Calum pointed to the office door. "Do you want to do this tomorrow then?”

Shaking his head, Konner started walking. “No, we’ll sketch out some ideas tonight then sleep on them.”

“Sounds good to me.” Calum smirked. “I decided to let Deacon get a good night’s sleep before I tell him his clan is expanding.” Calum turned toward the office, glancing back at him. “I think he only agreed to the Alpha position because he didn’t think any more like him were out there.”

Konner followed as he went into the room. "There’s always a chance of more of ours out there.”

Calum set his cup on the table and looked over at the map behind the desk. “I was part of the Alliance before I knew what it was all about. As one of the prince’s seconds, I didn’t have a choice.”

“That explains how it was you that set up the evacuation plan.”

He nodded his head crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the floor. “Devin and I grew up together, along with Gage, his other choice for a second.” He shook his head. “A wolf, a tiger, and a jaguar. It was quite eventful, but our clans were all working together to get the Alliance heading in a different direction.” He looked over at him and Konner watched something change in his eyes. “Then the Tomas organization happened, or became apparent that they were out there.” He ran his hand down over his jaw. “Every one of our clans has lost members because of them, yours probably the most.”

“Is that why you do it?” Konner leaned back against the desk. “Because you’ve lost too?”

Calum looked at him without seeing him for a moment. “My mother. I don’t hold any fantasies that she’s still out there,” He smirked. “She was a fighter, so I doubt they kept her alive this long, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do everything in my power to find as many as I can and make Tomas’ vast empire crumble.”

Konner put his hand over his mouth and stood that way looking at him for a moment. Dropping his hand, he gave him a quick shrug. “Regardless of reasons, I’m glad you’re with us and not against us.”

Calum smirked. “So, where do you want to begin this long night of plans, backup plans, and contingency plans?”

Konner chuckled. “I thought we’d start by opening my email from Fallan and seeing where the locations are.”

“Think we’ll be lucky enough they’re four states all lined up in a row?”

Konner leaned over his desk and opened the email, he scanned it quickly, just looking for names, and then lifted his gaze to look at him. “No such luck.”

“Good side to that is a delay in sharing information. If they were neighboring, news travels fast.” Calum went over to the map crossed his arms and looked at it. “Personally, I don’t care where they are, we’ll find them all eventually.”

Konner turned to the map and nodded, “I still have six thousand, four hundred and six lakes, small bodies of water, and deep rivers to check in North America, so the more I travel the better.”

“That many?”

Konner didn’t look at him, just nodded,.“Considering there are over thirty thousand, I’d say I’m doing good.”

“You said North America. Did your clans split worldwide?”

Konner put his hands on top of his head and held them there while he blew out a breath. “I don’t know. Nothing for sure at least.”

“Okay, well, that puts our current task into perspective and now it doesn’t seem so daunting.”

Konner dropped his hand and looked at him. “Glad I could be of help.”

“I feel like I should be out there helping you by swimming in lakes.” Calum went around and picked up the cup.

“Unfortunately, unless you use high-tech sonar, you can’t just jump in a lake and find one of my kind.”

“I didn’t think it was that easy.” He paused before taking a sip. “But I’m still willing to help.”

“I might take you up on that sometime, just the traveling constantly wears on me.” He turned the laptop around so Calum could read the locations. “Having someone to talk to while I do it would be great.”

Calum, grinned. “I travel all the time too, Now that I have Shae, it’s not as bad.”

Konner nodded, turning his back to the desk so he could look at the distance between the locations. Even if he found a mate someday, he doubted he’d risk letting her ever leave the Sanctuary. The only two of his clan that had left it since the fence was complete were Auburn and himself. Auburn only if he had to go to a building site, otherwise he did most things remotely.

Konner was the one that took all the risks so his clan could be safe, and he didn’t see that changing in the future.