Authors note: hope you all are enjoying. Let me know. :)

Two years later...

She took a moment to lean back against the side of the old farm truck. She looked at the climb to come not at all eager for it. The heat of the day made her lazy and her animal side was in agreement. She grabbed the back pack full of supplies and started toward the almost invisible dirt path.

Many of her family members had made this track before. Long before in the unknown generations past. She was one of the few. She walked on until the dirt path cut off from hugging the hillside and wandered off to an old abandoned cabin. She ignored it and kept walking up the hill beside the bank.

She found herself grasping trees and hoisting herself up almost vertical inclined sways in the mountainous hill. In more than a few moments she found herself longing to take to the trees in her leopard form. Unfortunately she as had all the shifter been taught to refrain unless it was nightfall or an emergency.

Forty five min into her hike she found what she was looking for. The little spring bubbling up out of an exposed rock face. It stood like a mighty pillar or obelisk where just beyond the edge she knew her destination lay. She skirted around it up the little path almost invisible and she saw the little stone and wood cottage.

There on the porch was an old shifter many thought was dead now. Coralee Sinclair the Dame of the leopard clan. She had see three clan leaders rise and fall, countless interlopers come and go, and she had witnessed civil war amongst the shifter clans. She had through all of it survived and her clan still carried on.

She smiled wryly at the old woman who pounded the churn handle like it was her worst enemies head. Her quicksilver grey eyes took her in and she stood still. This was the biggest protocol to her clan. Leopards were solitary. In their youths and prime they were apart of a clan but with old age they sought solitude.

She was waiting for the signal. It was dangerous to approach a leopard on their own turf even when they were family. It was a hard wired response to cautiously go about greeting each other. Especially since the times between meetings were few and far between. The soft coughing animal sound came and she responded before slowly making her way toward the porch.

"You here for that big'un I've been keeping for ya?" She drawled as she moved to stand before her arms lax at her sides.

"Just another supply run for both of you granny. Silas isn't that bad" she admonished giving he woman a hug.

"I always knew you were a strange but precious cub" she said cupping her sweetest grandchilds cheek. "But I never thought I would see the day when a child of the leopard clan was friends with a lion." She gave the cheek a little pinch chuckling at Charlotte's wince and pout. "Be friends with him if you like but try not to bring over any more strange friends to shack up with me. " she tsk her tongue.

"He helps out granny. He's big and strong and he even plows your garden and chops your wood." She threw over her shoulder.

"I'm too old to play nice with such a annoyingly cocky male youth!" She spat back

Charlie chuckled quietly as she made her way through the central hall past the living room and the kitchen and through the back door. There she saw Silas sitting in only a pair of white slacks atop a large grey bolder at the end of her grandmothers garden.

He was a changed lion. His once short styled brown hair was now long and marbled with blond from the sun. His once clean shaven face sported a very nice beard. He had always been lean and muscled but now those muscles were defined by hard labour.

He had changed but not just the way he looked. Where once his dark pink lips held an easy smile they were now more prone to frown. He had at one time been so bright and outgoing,a prince at ease in his kingdom. Now he was just an exile, hiding until he could reclaim what was his.

"The garden is looking good" she said seeing his simple nod.

"Granny is still fond of you I see" she tried once more.

"Yeah as fond as a cat is of water" his deep voice rumbled.

"There's going to be a meeting tonight. It's the full moon. Cora has asked me to attend with her."

"Be careful he still suspects you." He said standing to pick up his hoe again.

"Your sisters are well. " she called after him

"As well as they can be " he returned.

She bit back the need to curse at his carefree behavior. She could understand. The man was broken. He had lost everything and could even now lose his life. It had been two years though! Get over it and do something! She went back the way she had came.

The trip down was harder. Silas needed to get his ass in gear and figure out how the hell to get Alistair out of the community. If a member of another clan did so the lionesses would attack and kill them. It was inborn instinct. It couldn't be helped. The turning would be instant the killing would follow.

She settled herself into the truck seat and made to turn he key but was stopped by the vibration of her phone she opened the text.

'Careful kit there have been strange makes about. At least two that I can't track clearly the other two are harder. It's only a scent here or there. Watch your back. ' Silas's messaged made her shiver.

'What kind of males? Lions?! Is he amassing more males?' Her brow furrowed in concentration.

'No too cunning. Too hard to track. These males...' The text broke off she growled in frustration

'Leopards' she felt the breath leave her lungs.

This couldn't be happening. No male leopard had been in the area since her father died months before her birth. Lone shifters stayed in groups at times. And if this was a leopard feral group that meant they were here for one single reason.

Territory and females.

She gazed up from her phone when she felt the thud on top of the hood. There staring straight at her was a leopard. Nothing odd about it except he wasn't a leopard that she knew. And it was obviously a he. A medium sized black coated male.

He seemed almost smug until she turned on the engine and gunned it. Forcing him to jump off into the roadside brush. She didn't look back to see the other spotted male move to see to his companion. All she was worried about was getting home.

'Now Alistair wasn't the only one i have to worry about.'