Page 150 of Moon Chosen

“I can’t wait. If it was me in that deathbed, O’Bryan wouldn’t wait either,” Nik said.

“Your loyalty is impressive, son. It’s one of your best qualities. Would you like me to come with you?”

“That’s not necessary. Relax, finish the ale. I will take you up on your offer for me to stay here tonight, though. I don’t feel like being alone.”

“Actually, you being alive has breathed life back into me, and I have something to do, too.” Sol stood, wiping his hands on his pants. Nik saw shadows under his father’s eyes, and the lines on his face looked deeper than they had before he’d left, but Sol was smiling at him and it seemed he was newly energized. “I could walk partway to the infirmary with you.”

“Can I borrow some of your clothes? I’m going to cause enough lifted brows and ten thousand questions without appearing in the castoffs of a Scratcher,” Nik said.

“Absolutely!” Sol took the stairs to his bedroom two at a time, and was back in moments with pants and a woven tunic, thick enough to keep out the nighttime chill.

“Where are you off to, Father? Going to see Maeve?” Nik asked as he changed his clothes.

“No, yes, well—I imagine she’ll be there already.”

“There?”

“We have a member of the Mercenaries visiting us,” Sol said.

Nik’s brows shot up. “A cat man is here? Really?”

“Really. It has been interesting, though I admit I have not been a proper host. I was mourning the loss of my son.”

“Not anymore!” Nik grinned at Sol.

“Which is why I am going to join the gathering for him when earlier I excused myself,” Sol said.

“Well, tell him not to allow his Lynx to mark the visitors’ nest. Remember the last time one of the Mercenaries came through here and his cat marked the nest?”

Sol shuddered. “The stench was unbelievable, especially after our canines felt they needed to add their markings to try to cover what the cats did. Dreadful, just dreadful. But we don’t have to worry about that with Antreas’s Lynx—females don’t mark like males.”

“What? Are you saying a male Mercenary bonded with a female Lynx?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Sol said.

“I didn’t think that could happen,” Nik said. “Male Lynxes choose a male human to bond with, and females choose a female. Or have the childhood stories of the cat people completely misled me?”

“You haven’t been misled. This bonding is unusual—the first I’ve known. I don’t believe it’s a particularly polite subject to question a Mercenary about, though.”

“No doubt,” Nik smiled. “What’s the cat man doing here?”

“Looking for a mate.”

Nik laughed. “From among the Tribe? I can’t see many of our young women wanting to go from living in the sky surrounded by beauty and canines, to living in a den surrounded by cats.”

“You knowsurroundedby cats is an exaggeration. With how solitary they are, it can pretty much be guaranteed that the only cats that would surround them are kittens the female births, and then only until they bond with their humans.”

Nik shook his head. “They’re an odd people, aren’t they?”

“They reflect their Companion animal, as do we. Lynxes are different from canines, and so are their people. No matter how strange they seem to us, they are excellent guides and fighters.”

“You mean excellent guides andassassins,” Nik said.

“I think calling them assassins is as impolite as questioning them about the sex of their cats,” Sol said, smiling at his son. “But there is no doubt about their skill with blades.”

“And that those skills are for hire. That’s never sat well with me, Father. Where’s their loyalty?”

“To their Lynxes and themselves, I believe,” Sol said. “They do know the only paths through the mountain passes, which makes me glad their skills are for hire.”