Changeling Dawn by Dani Harper Page A

reasonable . The quality of camp food had certainly improved over the years but it was never going to smell good to her. Wasn’t going to taste good either, but that was the price of convenience. The foil bag was too darn hot to hold in her hands, however, so she poured it into a bowl. Just as she turned to find a spoon, she spotted movement at the far edge of her camp. The solar lights were strictly for ambience, not illumination, but it didn’t matter. As a Changeling, Kenzie’s night vision was acute. She watched as a small black nose eased out from under a bush. The nose was followed by a dark blunt muzzle, a pair of eyes, and two pointed ears that looked a little too big.
    I’ll be damned. It’s a wolf cub. “Hey,” she said aloud. “Have you been following me?” The creature’s face disappeared among the leaves, but not for long. It reemerged a few minutes later, watching her intently. Eventually the face was followed by a thin body. The cub was somewhere between the fuzzy baby stage and the gangly teen phase. Its fur was dark brown tipped with black, but one front foot was oddly white almost to the elbow. Kenzie lifted a spoon to her mouth and the cub’s eyes seemed to follow the movement. She frowned. “Are you hungry? Where’s your mother?”
    It didn’t respond of course. Nor did it come any closer. Why was this cub alone? Wolves took very good care of their young, and if something happened to the alpha pair, the rest of the Pack often stepped in to care for the cubs. She ate her dinner slowly, trying not to feel guilty for eating in front of the little creature and reminding herself that people food would only upset its system anyway.
    Eventually, Kenzie reached out her fingers and made a soft call, but the cub didn’t move. She persisted only to see the cub retreat into the bushes. She wasn’t as gifted with animals as her brother Connor, but most creatures came to her. She waited until the moon was high yet the young wolf didn’t reappear. Hoping that the cub’s family had collected it, Kenzie finally turned in. Dawn came early here and she wanted to be at the site when daylight arrived.
    She slept fitfully. The nightmare recurred, but this time, it was Nate who chased her.

    The orange-striped canopy looked like it belonged on a beach, not in a forest clearing. Kenzie had been forced to replace her old canopy before the trip, and was dismayed not only by the color of this one, but its newness. It seemed almost vulgar, clashing with the familiar items it shaded; her battered screening box on an old blue tarp, her trowels and brushes, her camp shovel and other nicked and worn tools. Even the electronic equipment—her handheld GPS was a prime example—looked like tired and dusty flea market finds.
    “Tools are meant to be used,” she told herself, a saying she had picked up from her father, Ronan. Come to think of it, her oldest brother, James, said the same thing. It was tempting to throw a little dirt on the brilliant canopy just so it would fit in with the rest of her gear. Maybe she’d be lucky and the garish thing would fade in the sun.
    She picked up a trowel and headed for the grid. Today she would break ground in square three and inte threethe anticipation made her tingle. Not too many people got goosebumps from digging in the dirt, but Kenzie lived for this. She loved the entire process, from the moment of beginning, of possibility, to the patient brushing away of layers, the chipping of stone, the bagging of samples, to the rare and beautiful discovery of pure history. Before the trowel touched the ground, however, a movement from the forest edge caught her attention.
    The wolf cub was back.
     
    The great hooked beak snapped shut an inch from his face, and Josh Talarkoteen’s gloved hand snaked out to grab it. Throwing his other arm around the large feathered body, he pinned the bird’s powerful wings to its sides, praying he wasn’t causing it more pain. “There we are, shhh,