Chapter 58

Not that we had another chance to be quiet for a good long while. “Clothes,” Hunter said curtly, waking me from a half-doze by flinging a pair of panties atop my face.

I would have taken him to task for rudeness if I hadn’t heard the exact same thing that had spurred my mate’s abrupt absconsion from our shared bed—a stampede of human and lupine feet racing up the stairs toward us. My clan members had seen me naked multiple times before, but somehow I didn’t want to be caught unclothed beside Hunter this morning...not with my mother in the house and liable to walk in at any moment.

I’d barely tugged on the last item of apparel when the door flung itself open, Ginger’s smug face and the bobby pin in her hand explaining the failure of the lock’s promised solitude. Immediately, a sea of shifters surged inside, led by Cinnamon’s red-tinted wolf and then flanked by his two-legged sister. They all leapt directly onto the bed I’d so recently abandoned, the whole mass of beings proceeding to hassle and jostle for space.

“Hey!” Ginger complained as she was squeezed out, ending up in a heap on the floor. The young woman stood and grabbed her brother’s ruff, shaking him half-seriously. “No more taking my spot.”

“You should be thanking him,” Glen interrupted, striding into the room with a tray of breakfast goodies in one hand. My stomach called out an exuberant welcome at the sight, but I made myself respond to my second’s words instead.

“Ginger should be thanking Cinnamon for pushing her out of the bed?”

“Well, we should all be thanking him,” Glen clarified. “I gather that’s why Ginger was awake and able to lug Lia out of the burning building yesterday—because her brother rolled over and nudged her onto the floor.” My second’s words were light, but his dark eyes acknowledged the seriousness of the occasion at the same time that they sent a silent thank-you to me and Hunter for our part in the rescue operation.

So that means the second breakfast is mine? Cinnamon’s words slid down the pack bond and I found my lips quirking upward into a smile. Trust the male twin to be more interested in his belly than in being a hero...or in worrying about our recent brush with death.

“I’m pretty sure you already ate an entire horse,” Lia countered, slipping in the open doorway behind her pack mate with a second laden tray in her arms. She handed the offering to Hunter, who immediately began to shovel the contents into his mouth.

I figured that meant the first tray was for me, but I had a hard time directing my attention away from the other shifters in the room long enough to lift a fork. The entire clan appeared bright-eyed and bushy-tailed despite last night’s adventures...many literally so. And when I counted heads, I was pretty sure that even the final bloodling Hunter had abandoned when I drifted into unconsciousness was present and accounted for.

He escaped before the walls came down, my mate confirmed, surveyed the tangle of lupine limbs with pride. I couldn’t blame him for the hint of hubris that filtered through, either. The uber-alpha had adeptly transformed twenty-plus potential detonation threats into viable shifters, and he must have talked the rogues into accepting my original pack mates as members of their clan this morning as well.

Because, yes, Ginger had found a spot for herself on the bed and was rubbing one bloodlings’s belly even as another settled across her lap. No growls or territorial disputes were evident now that everyone had found a spot to stretch out.

My own ward wasn’t nearly as well socialized, but at least she hadn’t taken to her heels again either. Lupe sidled through the doorway as if the inanimate object might bite her in the butt, looking less than pleased at being stuck in a small room with way too many werewolves.

I attempted to send a surge of sympathy in her direction, but the young woman’s brain was resolutely locked down and her upper lip remained raised in what was likely a combination of both annoyance and challenge. Before I could either take her to task or soothe her ruffled fur, though, my mother’s entrance turned my mind away from the resistant rogue.

“You have a visitor,” Celia announced. She spoke to the room at large, but her gaze locked down on me like a self-guided missile that was just itching to explode.

She had every reason to explode, too. Yes, we’d managed to pull her out of the burning building before it collapsed last night...but I was pretty sure there never would have been any flames in the first place if werewolves hadn’t shown up on her doorstep.

I opened my mouth to beg forgiveness but found I couldn’t quite make myself speak a single word. Instead, my hands shook and my weakened legs forced me to lean back against the wall for support. My stomach clenched into a knot so intense that the tray of food Glen had offered me no longer looked appealing...which was saying something since my intestines appeared to have given up on my mouth and instead settled for gnawing their way directly to the bacon and eggs via a straight line through my belly button.

Hunger aside, my current agony was ten times worse than the childish angst I’d experienced when Hunter had first pushed me toward creating a relationship with this small but steely woman the previous week. Then, I’d thought Celia was a greedy one-body with no sense of pack or family. Yes, I’d been afraid she’d hurt my feelings by tossing me aside just like she’d done a dozen years earlier. But my own sense of superiority had promised to protect me from the full brunt of that seemingly inevitable event.

Now, on the other hand, I understood Celia a little better...and was far more afraid of being ejected from her life as a result. I’d since learned that my mother’s absence from my childhood had been, if not entirely selfless and commendable, then at least justifiable. And the more I saw myself in her actions and glimpsed true affection in her eyes, the more I knew I’d begun to forge a relationship more valuable than any other save the bond I now shared with the uber-alpha who had become my mate.

In short, I was willing to do what it took—up to and including groveling—to keep this petite but powerful one-body in my life. But I still couldn’t force my clenched teeth to open long enough to get the words out.

Which was just as well because another human stepped into the room behind my mother and immediately stole center stage.

***

Robert’s broad shoulders filled the frame of the doorway, his close-cropped hair brushing the lintel. But it was his eyes more than his bearing that announced “cop.” His gaze flicked across the jumble of furry and furless limbs atop the bed, assessing, analyzing, determining the level of threat.

The agent’s right arm reached across his belly and under the lapel of his suit jacket and I tensed, expecting the bulging gun beneath his armpit to make an appearance. But, instead, he merely pulled paper out of an inside pocket and held the sheet out into the open air.

“Sorry I wasn’t there early enough to be much help last night,” he said simply. “But maybe this will make up for my lapse.” Then he waited like a good Samaritan holding out a crust of bread for a starving dog, letting the animal make the first advance toward a potential future partnership.

I bit. Well, not literally since I was neither dog nor wolf at the present moment. But I did step forward, leaving my pack behind and accepting the slip of paper that fluttered in the breeze of the ceiling fan.

A few lines of text, a modicum of fancy scrollwork at the top, an indented notary’s seal at the bottom. My brain took a couple of seconds to kick in and identify the offering as a birth certificate for Lupe. Then I did some quick mental calculations and found that Robert had fudged on the teenager’s date of birth, making the rogue eighteen—the age of human autonomy.

“I figured it was the simplest way to close the missing person’s case,” Robert said in answer to my questioning look. “Since Lupe is obviously no longer missing.”

The rogue glanced back and forth between us. Then she strode forward jerkily, snatching the paper out of my hand without bothering with human niceties like “please” and “thank you.”

She read the words with an effort, her lack of traditional schooling slowing down her own epiphany. Eventually, though, understanding illuminated the girl’s eyes and virtual rose petals fell from the ceiling like confetti as Lupe basked in her newfound independence.

That gratitude lasted for only a split second, though, before she glared at me. “Don’t think this means I’m turning into your lackey like those losers,” she muttered, glancing behind her at the rogues happily ensconced atop the bed.

“We can figure out the specifics later,” I acknowledged, not wanting to press the point. I’d called the hospital before collapsing the previous evening and found that Nina was stable and likely to be released within twenty-four hours. Lupe might choose to move in with her favorite teacher after that, helping the single parent through her late pregnancy and early motherhood while Nina continued to introduce the rogue to her human world.

Or perhaps the young woman would stay here after all, finding camaraderie with the other bloodlings who had spent their childhood on four paws. Either way, I’d insist that the rogue submit to regular lessons in shifter-hood. That, plus her well-developed spine, would ensure Lupe landed on her feet despite the upset caused by recent changes in her life.

Future efforts aside, no longer having to hide Lupe from her state-mandated guardians was a huge weight off my shoulders. Still, I remained edgily aware of the FBI agent’s continued presence. Robert appeared to be handling the array of predators sprawled across the room as well as could be expected, his posture now relaxed and his stance open. Yet the very fact that he’d come bearing gifts kept me on high alert. I couldn’t help thinking the one-body wanted something in exchange.

“What about the incriminating evidence you have on tape?” I asked, cutting straight to the punch.

“I showed the videos to my boss this morning,” Robert began, only to be drowned out by a cacophony of lupine growls and snarls.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the true danger in the room long enough to make sure the wolves were under control, but Hunter must have done something behind my back because the room abruptly went silent. Despite the lack of complaints, though, the air nearly vibrated with tension.

“You showed your boss?” I tried not to sound as scandalized as I felt. After all, I’d thought the one-body and I were on the same page. Clearly I’d been deluding myself.

“I showed my boss,” Robert confirmed. “And he suggested that I offer you a job. Well, not a full-time, butt-in-cubicle job like mine.” His face opened into a grin as his eyes sparkled. “But a consulting gig. To help us figure out what’s going on if we suspect a case might have supernatural elements. To tell us who we can call if we find a shifter gone bad. Because apparently werewolves police their own...and we’re good with that.”

Now I did turn away, my gaze meeting Hunter’s on the other side of the room. Yes, for better or for worse, werewolves did police their own. Whether my mate and I remained on the kosher side of that shifter law remained to be seen.

“Well?” Robert said after my silence had stretched out a little too long. “Are you interested?”

Expectant eyes bored into mine from the bed, from armchairs, from people leaning against the walls. Shifters whose wolves were ten times stronger waited patiently for me to speak. A one-body woman who had no reason to trust me smiled encouragingly in my direction. And a mate who was used to taking control ceded the floor, allowing me to make the decision that would change the course of all of our lives.

Looks like it’s time to put on my big-girl panties and act like an alpha after all. I took a deep breath and turned back around to face the FBI agent.

In the end, it wasn’t such a tough choice to make. Robert wasn’t a pack mate, but he was solid and his heart seemed to be in the right place. My pack could hardly ask for a better ally in the struggle that lay ahead.

“Okay,” I offered at least. “If that’s what it takes to keep werewolves safe, then I’ll do it.”