The child of wings and ash flew among the treetops, her eyes glimmering in the sunlight. All at once a pink tie twanged out from her chest, shooting off in a different direction. She gasped in joy. A soulmate line! She nearly fell from the burnt trees with giddiness. Love, laughter, life, children! Chicka always disregarded her mother’s warnings about soulmates-Chicka’s father, Danya’s first soulmate, had died. And then she’d gotten stuck with Maverick. It was the typical way of children believing their parents wrong-although to her credit, Chickadee had foreseen that Maverick and her mother would not be good for each other. Maverick unsettled her. She was glad it was very possible she would never see him again.
Chicka landed in a dead tree, surveying the landscape. She couldn’t see her partner. Maybe he was in Dawnshire, or Sabertooth! Wouldn’t that be cool, to know a packmate and then-
But who would that be? She knew the bachelor males in the pack, excluding her uncle Remus, were Hermes, Aeolus, Marius and Apollo. Could it be one of them? Three of those were princes, sons of the king and queen. Or maybe it was a wolf she’d never met. From any of the other packs in Starfall! Chicka took off again. She was going to find her soulmate. But where to?

"Seize the time!"