CHAPTER 54After dinner, Kira and Alaric took a walk through downtown Denver. The air was warm with a light breeze. No clouds hovered in the sky. Kira looked up at the gibbous moon that had been full only a few days earlier. The city lights obscured most of the stars, but Kira could pick out a few as they walked together toward Cherry Creek.
“It’s a beautiful evening,” Kira said, taking in the drowsy scent of the cottonwoods and Russian olives that grew along the banks.
Alaric smiled; his teeth gleamed in the dusk. “Yes, it is,” he said. “I should take you to the mountains where you can feel the alpine breeze against your fur and smell the sage and tundra flowers. I know a place where the columbine, Indian paintbrushes, anemones, and buttercups fill countless meadows above the pine and as
