Chapter 1 - Colette

The town of Briar's Run looks exactly like a place that would inherit me a problem.

I've been buying and selling property for eight years and I know what trouble looks like from a distance — the particular combination of beautiful land, complicated neighbours, and a legal situation that seemed straightforward until you arrived and discovered it wasn't. Briar's Run has all three before I've cleared the main road.

The mountains are extraordinary. I'll give it that. The kind of peaks that make you understand why people build towns in inconvenient places — jagged and snow-capped and catching the afternoon light in a way that would sell paintings. The valley below them is rich grazing land, green and wide, threaded through with the kind of clear mountain water that property investors dream about. The town itself sits at the valley's centre with the permanent settled quality of a place that has been here long enough to stop thinking about whether it should be.

I pull my travel pack higher on my shoulder and walk toward it.

The first person I speak to is the innkeeper, a broad woman named Dora who takes my coin with the efficiency of one who has been taking coin from travellers for thirty years and asks my business with the casual directness of a small town that considers this a reasonable question.

"Whitlock property," I say. "I've inherited it."

Dora's expression does something complicated. "Aunt Maeve's land."

"That's right."

She regards me with the particular quality of someone assembling information they already have into a new configuration. "You'll want to see it before you do anything else," she says. "And you'll want to know about Ansel Voss before you see it."

Three more people tell me about Ansel Voss before I reach the edge of town. The blacksmith mentions him while directing me toward the property road. A woman at the grain merchant's counter volunteers the information without being asked. An elderly man on a bench outside the tavern stops me specifically to contribute his version, which is the longest and most detailed and includes a description of Ansel's temper that makes the man sound less like a rancher and more like a weather event.

By the time I reach the Whitlock property I have a composite portrait. Ansel Voss: fourth generation rancher, enormous even by manticore standards, foul-tempered in the way that people who carry too much alone tend to be, and currently very interested in purchasing the land I'm standing on.

I stand on it and look at it properly.

The property is a long irregular stretch running along the valley's eastern edge, backing up against the first rise of the mountain foothills. Someone — Aunt Maeve, presumably — has kept the fences in reasonable repair and the access road clear, but the buildings need work and the fields haven't been cultivated in a season or two. None of that concerns me. Buildings and fields are solvable. What concerns me, in the way that good things concern me, is the land itself.

It's excellent.

The soil composition in the lower fields is the kind that produces reliable yield regardless of what you put in it. The elevation gives natural drainage without losing moisture. The mountain backdrop provides wind shelter for the upper sections. And the access to the valley grazing corridor — I can see it clearly from where I'm standing, the wide flat route that runs along the property's western boundary before opening into the main valley — is significant.

Significant enough that someone would want very much to buy this land.

Significant enough that I'm not selling it.

I'm making notes when I hear the sound — the particular heavy rhythm of something large moving fast and not particularly trying to be quiet about it. I look up.

He comes from the direction of the valley, moving along the grazing corridor with the directness of someone who considers this route theirs by right and has never had reason to think otherwise. Seven feet if he's an inch, with the broad leonine lower body that shifts into a powerful human torso, dark golden fur and large tawny wings folded back, thick dark hair tied at his nape. The amber eyes with their slit pupils find me from thirty feet out and don't look away.

He stops at the property boundary.

I don't move.

"You're the Whitlock heir," he says. Not a question. His voice is exactly what seven feet of foul-tempered manticore rancher sounds like, which is deep and carrying and accustomed to being the last word on most subjects.

"Colette Whitlock," I say. "And you're Ansel Voss, which means I've already heard about you from four different people this afternoon."

Something moves behind his eyes. Not quite surprise. "Then you know why I'm here."

"You want to buy the property."

"I want to buy the property," he agrees. "I'll pay fair market rate plus twenty percent. It's a generous offer and you'd be wise to take it."

I look around at the land. At the grazing corridor. At the mountain backdrop and the good soil and the particular configuration of a property that a man has just offered twenty percent over market rate for within an hour of my arrival.

"No," I say.

The slit pupils do something. "No."

"No thank you," I say. "If you want to be formal about it."

"You haven't even seen the full property yet."

"I've seen enough to know it's worth more than you're offering."

A pause. The wings shift slightly, which I'm going to guess is the manticore equivalent of someone cracking their knuckles. "This land sits on the primary grazing corridor for this entire valley. My herd beasts have used that route for three generations."

"Fascinating history," I say. "It's still my land."

"I'll go twenty-five percent over market."

"Still no."

"Thirty."

I put my notebook away and look at him directly. "Mr. Voss. I've spent eight years building a business out of buying land that other people undervalue and turning it into something worth having. This property is the first piece of land I've ever inherited and it's the best land I've stood on in eight years of standing on land for a living." I hold his gaze. "I'm not selling it. Not for thirty percent over market, not for fifty, not for whatever number you're going to offer next. I'm going to develop it, and I'm going to do that whether it inconveniences you or not."

The amber eyes look at me for a long moment.

"You don't know what you're getting into," he says.

"I never do," I say. "I always figure it out."

He studies me for another moment and then he turns and walks back the way he came with the controlled force of one who has decided that this conversation is over and the next one will go differently.

I watch him go and note three things. First: the grazing corridor is even more strategically valuable than I initially assessed. Second: Ansel Voss is not used to being told no and will need time to adjust to the experience. Third — and I'm writing this in the notebook because I like to be accurate about these things — his offer of thirty percent over market means the land is worth considerably more than thirty percent over market.

I go back to examining my property.

It's an excellent day's work so far.