Awakened from Ice: 1 (Werewolf Sentinels) by Marisa Chenery

to meet his gaze. “You will not leave me. Yes, my mating urge is manageable, but that would change if I wasn’t with you for days on end. It would make it worse. Just the thought of it makes it dig its claws into me deeper. If we were to do that, I’d take your choice from you as soon as we were reunited. I don’t think I’d be able to help myself.”
    Brice cleared his throat. “I have to agree with Edensaw. Being separated from you isn’t what he needs right now.”
    Without taking her gaze from Edensaw, Cassidy said, “But you’ll feel stifled at my apartment after a while. I don’t have the wide open spaces for you to roam as you did before you slept. I can’t afford to buy a house on a big chunk of land. And the gold nuggets you all have won’t be enough either.”
    “Gold wasn’t the only thing the shaman gave us,” Durlach said as he took off the leather pouch that hung around his neck. He dumped the contents into his hand and held it out. Besides the gold nugget, there were five different types of stones.
    Brice stood and came over to Durlach. He picked up each rock, then studied the one shaped like a sugar cube, translucent with a touch of yellow to it. An expression of shock formed on his face.
    “Well, here’s another huge surprise,” Brice said. “The other four stones are pieces of jade, garnet, amethyst and rhodonite. But this,” he held up the almost clear stone higher, “this is a diamond. One that looks to be almost two carats.”
    “That really is a diamond?” Cassidy asked, probably feeling as shocked as Brice appeared to be. Finding diamonds in Alaska was a rare event. So few had been found over the years.
    “From your reactions, I assume a diamond is something good?” Durlach asked.
    Brice nodded. “Yes. They’re worth more than the gold. And more than the other stones.”
    “That is good,” Wachei said. “We all have the same stones in our pouches, even the diamond.”
    “Cassidy,” Brice said with a smile. “I don’t think you have to worry about not being able to afford to buy a new place. Once these precious and semi-precious stones, along with the gold nuggets, are converted to cash, you’ll have more than enough. If they agree to it.”
    “I can’t take it. It wouldn’t be right.”
    “Then don’t, but you can help us find a home where we can all live together,” Edensaw said.
    Cassidy slowly nodded. “All right, I can do that.”
    Edensaw turned her face toward his. “So that means you won’t be leaving us, correct?”
    She smiled. “Correct. It looks as if your shaman made sure you’d be well-prepared for this world. He gave you the means to survive in it. He must have had some strong magic.”
    “He did.”
    “In your story, Brice, does it say what happened to our shaman after he put us to sleep?” Kajakti asked.
    Brice gave the wolf brothers a solemn look. “Yes. Sadly, he died right after he finished his spell to put you into your long rest. It drained the remainder of his magic and his life force. His son took his place as tribe shaman, but he was nowhere near as powerful as his father.”
    “The shaman’s son was there when we went into our long sleep. Only the two of them were to keep the knowledge of where we rested,” Edensaw said.
    “And that knowledge became lost through the many years that past afterward. The shaman’s son must not have told anyone and took it to the grave with him. None of his descendants knew of it, which helped to make your story seem as if it wasn’t fact.”
    As the conversation turned to Brice asking questions about the wolf brothers’ lives during the ice age, Edensaw placed Cassidy on her feet in front of him before he stood. He took her hand and walked her over to the far corner of the room. He placed her in it and crowded her with his body, blocking her from the others’ view.
    He ducked his head and looked at her. “Are you still willing to give us a chance?”
    Cassidy saw the worry in Edensaw’s