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  In the interest of returning their attention to what really mattered, I let them off the hook on that matter at least. “I’m not going to tell Gunner who hit me,” I informed my audience. “I’ll take a shower so he can’t smell you. And if you’re smart, you’ll all wrestle or go for a run or do whatever werewolves do to get scratched up.”

  “Yeah, go sniff each others’ butts,” Kira snarked, not as quietly as she should have. My sister was going to be the death of me...and I had no solution other than to mouth, “Go home.”

  Luckily, Allen had been the right pack mate to summon. Because he took in my sister’s orneriness and my precarious hold over the werewolves’ attention in one split second of eye-squinting assessment. Then, snagging a relatively clean piece of bacon and a plateful of pancakes, he lured Kira away...while leaving Becky behind.

  Okay, so Allen wasn’t a perfect mind reader. Or maybe he knew that Kira was enough to keep his hands entirely full. So the older female would have to be part of my object lesson. But, first, I had to reel these werewolves the rest of the way in.

  “Each of you needs to get over your snits,” I continued, watching the rotted pack bonds with half my attention even as I met each shifter’s eyes in turn. “For example—Edward, whatever you have against that pup beside you, you need to let it go.”

  Because the older shifter’s bond to the nearby teenager looked like it had been shredded and gnawed on. Sure enough, both males’ faces reddened as I called them on their relationship, then a young woman slapped Edward on the arm.

  “Daddy, are you still mad at Chester from years ago?”

  “He broke your heart. He doesn’t deserve to be your mate.”

  “Sir—” the male in question started. But Edward’s daughter spoke over him, standing up on her tiptoes so she could stare her father directly in the eyes.

  “He had a small lapse when we were children,” the young woman countered, and I had to admire her spirit even though I was pretty sure by my standards she hadn’t grown out of being a child quite yet. “But it’s over and done with, Daddy. You need to let the past stay in the past.”

  Old grudges don’t heal in an instant. But I was relieved to note new tendrils of connection forming before I turned my gaze the other way. “Which brings me to another matter,” I continued. I knew I was on a roll from the way each werewolf focused intently upon me—or maybe they were staring at the bacon behind my back.

  No, they were buying what I was selling. “She can see the pack bonds clearly,” one male murmured. “She is the alpha’s mate,” someone else quietly agreed.

  “Yes, I am the alpha’s mate,” I continued. “And as such, I want to know what in the world you have against Becky and her son Curly?”

  And, immediately, the virtual sunlight that had illuminated the gathering squelched into gathering storm. Brows lowered, shifters growled, and someone in the back shouted out a reply.

  “That so-called son was born a bloodling with fur and wolf claws. If the old chief was still around to do something about it, that particular abomination would already be dead.”

  Chapter 9

  So that was why I hadn’t seen any other tiny pups scampering through clan central. I took another look at Curly and realized that the youngster was probably less than a year old, his life apparently saved by the change of leadership that had occurred after Gunner’s father died.

  “Don’t you think...?” I started, not sure how I was going to sway someone so mired in the past that he failed to realize a shifter in wolf form was still very much human. But before I could get my thoughts together, a woman around Becky’s age darted out of the crowd and began screaming at the male who’d recently spoken.

  “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? To return to the Dark Ages? Not that we aren’t there already. Who says I have to find a mate before I can enjoy bacon? Who do you think cooked all of the bacon in the first place? The women, that’s who! And if we want to serve ourselves from the left line, we’ll do that...”

  “Mind your place, woman.” It wasn’t just the bloodling hater who was against this particular female, I realized. Watching the pack bonds with half my attention while trying not to sneeze against the rising tide of sulfur, I noted that fully a third of the males—including the current speaker—had withdrawn emotional support from the outspoken female the instant she began her harangue.

  And there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing I could do but watch all of my good intentions crash and burn around me.

  Because the magic that had gotten the pack’s attention earlier was already slipping. My ability to yank on immaterial connections was dissipating even as the illuminated threads faded out of sight.

  Unless I took another sip of werewolf blood, I had no way to stop this shouting match. And if I didn’t calm agitated tempers, someone—like Curly—was bound to get hurt.

  I turned around, searching the crowd for the young bloodling. And in the process I nearly ran into Becky, whose hand slipped into mine in order to urge me away.

  “Let’s go.” She had Curly tucked under her other arm, a piece of bacon clenched in the pup’s needle-sharp incisors. At least someone had profited from my misguided attempt to shake up the Atwood status quo.

  Still—“I can’t just leave them like this,” I countered, struggling to come up with a solution that wouldn’t make things worse in the long term. Gunner wasn’t going to be pleased that I’d riled up the masses and left them to duke it out amongst themselves...just as he wasn’t going to be pleased when he took a look at the bruises welling up all over my torso, legs, and arms.

  Welling up...and aching the way they hadn’t when they’d first been inflicted. I only realized the protective adrenaline was fading out of my bloodstream when I stumbled, leaning against Becky’s shoulder in order to keep myself upright.

  “You’re in no position to stop them,” Becky said, stating the obvious. “And...maybe it’ll help to air all of our dirty laundry in public. It’s worth a shot.”

  It was worth a shot only because we had no alternative. But a smart warrior knows when to retreat so she can later rise up and return to the fight.

  So—hating to give in without a resolution, but unable to think of a better alternative—I pulled Becky forward this time, leaving the werewolves behind us to do their worst.

  “YOU LOOK AWFUL.”

  I’d accepted Becky’s offer to shower at her house, not really intending her to see the wounds her pack mates had inflicted upon me. But apparently she was as soft-footed as a fox. So she’d managed to sneak up on me as I stood in the bathroom, trying to decide whether my ripped and ruined clothing was worth putting anywhere other than in the trash.

  “Here.” She handed over an armful of clothing, apparently having thought of everything I hadn’t. And even though I gladly slipped into the gifted underwear, I hesitated before pulling on the rest of her offerings.

  Because my enemies hadn’t just peppered me with bruises. In several places, my skin had split open, blood still oozing out and promising to ruin Becky’s shirt and pants. Gunner wasn’t just going to be disappointed. He was going to be furious. And what he did as a result would make my precarious position in the pack much, much worse.

  I sank down onto the toilet lid, my knees suddenly refusing to hold me. In my mind’s eye, I imagined the alpha waiting for me amid his bath salts and candles. He was trying so hard to make me welcome...and his efforts were tearing an already broken clan apart.

  Kira and I should leave. The reality bit into my gut more painfully than any physical bruise or laceration. I needed to take myself away from this pack, but I didn’t want to. Didn’t want to lose not only my growing bond with Gunner but also the possibility of being part of something greater than I’d ever dreamed of involving myself in.

  If I stayed, I’d no longer be a woman alone with her sister. I’d be a member of a pack.

  But was it worth becoming part of a pack if that pack didn’t want me? What if the pack in
question was painfully misogynistic and actively dangerous to those I loved?

  I knew the answer, much as I didn’t want to. No wonder I barely registered Becky crouching down beside me and beginning to smear something green and gooey across my wounded skin.

  “You know, Ransom’s weaknesses and their father’s ancient notions aren’t the entirety of our pack’s problem,” she said tentatively, perhaps reading my mind or perhaps speaking from her own experience. “A werewolf leader needs to be mated. It sounds old-fashioned, but the female energy of an alpha’s mate brings peacefulness to a clan.”

  “Yeah.” I laughed despite myself. “I’m doing a really great job promoting peacefulness.”

  “You might be. In the long run. I at least appreciate what you’ve done for me.” Her fingers were so skillful I didn’t even realize I’d been plastered with bandaids until I looked down and saw a dozen pink stripes dotting my skin and hiding cuts and bruises. Tiny, rainbow-colored wolves danced and frolicked atop the plastic, and despite myself I barked out a curt but honest laugh.

  I was cleaned up and bandaged...and somehow I’d decided not to flee into the night in the process. Or at least not into this night. I’d stick it out for one more day and see if there was a way to help rather than harm this pack.

  But I couldn’t deepen my bond to Gunner until I knew how long I was staying. So after hugging Becky in gratitude, I turned right instead of left out of my new friend’s driveway.

  After all, Kira needed someone to watch over her. Plus, I was exhausted and, apparently, cowardly. So rather than hunting down the alpha who had claimed me, I headed back to the cottage I had tentatively begun calling my own.

  Chapter 10

  Allen must have traded off with Tank sometime after dropping off my sister, because the latter nodded at me from his post beneath Kira’s window as I headed back up the steps to the shadowed front door. So Kira would have been fine if I’d kept my word and gone to Gunner’s as promised. Still...I wouldn’t sleep until I was sure that both my charges hadn’t been harmed while I was away.

  So I padded through the living room and kitchen before giving in to the beckoning bedrooms. “Oyo?” I murmured into the darkness, rising on tiptoes to swipe a hand across the empty top of the refrigerator where the kitsune had first been found. The space was bare, unsurprisingly. After all, our guest was too smart to hole up anywhere so obvious. Still, various other nooks and crannies were equally unoccupied. So perhaps the missing female had gotten smart and snuggled up with Kira on her bed?

  Retracing my footsteps through the living room, I turned right this time into the hallway that led to the two bedrooms beyond. And there I stopped as I caught sight of a lump on the floor in front of Kira’s door. A body swaddled in blankets as if Oyo had been afraid to choose a bedroom and had instead made herself a pallet. It clenched my stomach to think of her sleeping on the floor.

  “Oyo?” I whispered, not wanting to wake my sister but aware that a kitsune can be dangerous to startle in the darkness.

  And the sleeper woke instantly, rising upwards while shedding blankets right and left. Only this wasn’t Oyo. This was Gunner, shirtless and so handsome the vision stole my breath. “Our guest is hiding in the laundry room,” he offered, making me frown for one split second as I considered the fact that I hadn’t even realized my new home possessed a washer and dryer let alone a room to keep them in.

  “Laundry nook,” he corrected himself as he stood and took three long strides forward to meet me halfway down the hall. “Behind the folding doors off the kitchen.”

  Oh, right. I’d assumed that was a pantry and hadn’t bothered to look inside it. Not a very comfortable spot to spend the night...but whatever made Oyo feel safe.

  We were eye to eye now, and Gunner’s proximity was sending messages to my battered body that I was hard-pressed to fight against. Leaning forward, I murmured, “Sorry I didn’t show up for the bubble bath.”

  “I saw you had your hands full when you contacted me through the pack bond,” Gunner answered, his own hands rising to rub firm circles of pleasure across shoulders that ached then soothed. “I figured I’d finish cleaning up your cottage since you were cleaning up my pack for me.”

  So he wasn’t angry about the mob scene? I was glad...and also subtly disappointed. Maybe I’d gotten a little too used to an alpha werewolf’s overprotective streak.

  Perhaps that’s why I didn’t fill him in about the as-yet-unanswered text from his brother. Or perhaps it was the warm comfort of Gunner’s fingers on my skin sidetracking me from that line of thinking. His hand slid beneath my shirt’s collar, skimming lines of fire sideways across my upper chest while giving other parts of my body intriguing notions I was suddenly ready to act upon.

  “Perhaps...” Gunner started.

  Then his nail caught on a bandaid and his wolf emerged behind his eyes with a growl. “What exactly,” the alpha demanded, forgetting to be quiet for the sake of my sleeping sister, “happened to you?”

  “CALM DOWN.”

  Okay, so even I knew that was no way to start a conversation with an angry werewolf. Still, I was desperate to finish what we’d started. Desperate enough to tug Gunner back toward the pallet of blankets and muffle my own admonition by pressing lips against bare skin.

  I kissed my way up his fingers, his arm, and onto his neck, the whole time trying to make myself believe that Gunner was still riding the same libidinous train I was. But his muscles were not only hard, they were unyielding. The discovery of my bandaids had thoroughly derailed us from the pleasure-seeking track.

  Eventually, I settled back on my heels, accepting that Gunner’s interest wasn’t going to flick back on until we’d dealt with his outrage. And when he spoke, his voice was quieter but no less intense as he demanded the same information in a slightly different way.

  “Who injured you?”

  The hand I’d been kissing was still relaxed and open against my body. But his left fist, I noted, was so tightly clenched it was obvious that identifying my assailants would send Gunner rushing off to pound them into a pulp.

  “You know it’s inevitable that I’ll get a little injured on occasion if I’m denning with werewolves,” I started, forcing his fist back into the shape of a hand even as I let my dreams for the evening fade into the dark. My goal now was to keep Gunner from slaughtering his pack mates. Getting lucky would have to wait for another night.

  “I’ll kill them.”

  I was very glad now that I’d taken advantage of Becky’s shower before running into Gunner. And also glad that, while hunting through the cottage for Oyo, I’d come up with a potential cure both for my contusions and for Gunner’s over-protective rage.

  So I reached over to tip his head down until our eyes met, then I offered a partial solution. “If you’re willing, I think I can heal most of these wounds with a little turbocharge.”

  “Blood, you mean?” Gunner hesitated, his urge to annihilate my opponents battling with his ever-present need to keep me safe.

  “If you’re willing,” I repeated. And I could see the moment his softer side won out over his bloodlust.

  “We’re not done talking about this,” he told me. But then he used his mouth for something more useful, ripping a small cut at the crook of his elbow and offering up the wound so I could take a sip.

  We hadn’t shared blood in months, and the rightness of the experience was oddly arousing. My nipples tightened, my skin prickled, and I found myself smearing Gunner’s fluids over his face as I moved my head upward to steal a kiss.

  I thought he was right there with me, too, until a sting on my shoulder alerted me to the removal of one of my bandaids. Then Gunner drew away from my lips and pulled the collar of my shirt sideways so we could both peer underneath.

  There was nothing to see but clear skin, unblemished and smooth as if I’d never been hit in the first place. Meanwhile, aching muscles soothed as if I was enjoying that promised bubble bath after all.

  And eve
n though I hadn’t really done anything to make the healing happen, I could feel exhaustion cascading back over me. Which meant I was the one who shut down further shenanigans. I was the one who murmured a thank you even as I subsided back onto the blankets spread across the floor beneath us.

  Still, I was awake enough to hear Gunner’s answer. “Thank you for sacrificing yourself for the pack’s problems,” he rumbled. Then, intertwined in each other’s arms, we fell deeply asleep.

  Chapter 11

  I woke to cold air, a solitary pallet, and my sister shrieking. “I’ve been stabbed!”

  So Gunner had gone to deal with my assailants after all. And one of them must have snuck through our defenses to return the favor....

  Those thoughts tumbled through my head as I wrenched the door open, only to find Kira standing on her bed in a tank top and undies, blood running down the insides of her thighs. She hadn’t been stabbed. If I didn’t miss my guess, she’d merely become a woman, starting her menstrual cycle for the very first time.

  Which should have been my cue to commence mothering. But instead...I froze.

  Froze and flashed back to my own first period. To hiding in the bathroom and clutching my belly while my father struggled to take care of an infant without letting us know he’d succumbed to grief at the death of his wife.

  We’d been lost without my mother just as I was now lost calming Kira. Up until this point, I’d just mimicked Mama’s parenting. But by the time I started my period, our own mother had been dead.

  So I stood and Kira shrieked....and the window shattered behind her to disgorge a human-form werewolf. Tank had slivers of glass embedded in his skin from tumbling through the opening. But he did no more than brush free his hands before scooping my sister up off the bed.