Rite of Passage

Tala has been a spectator of the Mating Ceremony for the last 40 years. Now that she’s 135 she can participate in it. Tala wants no part of the ceremony where the Alpha and Betas get to choose a mate from the women who feel privileged to be chosen. Tala doesn’t feel privileged. Not even when the Alpha, Slade, chooses her to be the next Queen of her people. She wants to run away, but the best she can do is leave for a few days with the hunting party. Out on a hunt, an encounter with a bear leaves Tala unconscious floating down the river until she’s fished out by Dakota, a Navajo apprentice shaman. Now she’s living amongst his people trying to remember who she is and not realizing what she is. Will she discover her identity? Will the Navajo’s discover what is slaughtering their livestock at night? Will Slade and her clan find her before the Mating Ceremony? Does she want to be found?