Verdant Basin ingiullik

Being held again was everything to her. She knew this story. It was the one she got her family back — and, oh, she would always love the one she'd found! They would always be father and mother and sisters and brothers to her. But this was different; this would be hers, and the welcome cling of claws in her fur told her that she would also be his.

"Nowhere," she confessed. And, "For a very long time."

Tears threatened painfully to overflow, but she swallowed down the emotional reaction so that she could turn and look at him instead. And she was shocked, for a moment, at how much older he suddenly seemed. She blushed, but still went on, asking, "And you, Winterbourne? Do you have somewhere else to be?"