“They saved my life.”

Marissa let out a big sigh. “You’re gonna keep throwing that in my face, aren’t you?”

Brendon grinned. “Yup.”

“Stop! Oh God! Please stop!”

Ronnie grabbed the ringing hotel phone beside her bed, ripped it out of the wall, and threw it across the room. Moaning in absolute agony, she carefully laid back on the mattress.

No sound. No light. No nothing. She would allow nothing into her “safe space.”

She remembered last night clearly. No lovely blackouts for her. No. Ronnie Lee must remember every humiliating second. Like telling her Pack she wanted Brendon Shaw to run his mane all over her body.

Even worse…she couldn’t stay here knowing Shaw may show up at any time.

Of course, her rational mind kept telling her it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if she found Brendon Shaw standing outside her room doing the mambo again. The reality remained he wouldn’t remember much after such a bad fever. He probably woke up in bed thinking it had all been a weird dream. Nothing more. Nothing less. So worrying about an impromptu meeting in the hotel lobby…kind of dumb. Even for her.

Very, very slowly, Ronnie Lee turned onto her side and forced her vicious bout of nausea down. She was a Reed, dammit. She wouldn’t let some cat get under her skin and have her running scared like a big girl.

Then, as she slipped into a deep sleep, she promised herself for the thousandth time—No more tequila.

Brendon ignored his daughter climbing up his back and getting comfortable on top of his head while his son gripped his leg and tried to bite his knees with his less-than-deadly human baby teeth. The little guy wouldn’t come into his fangs until puberty hit, and his mother would probably drop him off at Brendon’s house and not come back for him until he turned twenty-one.

“There you are.” Allie Llewellyn closed the door to the solarium behind her, blocking out all that yelling. “I figured you’d have to escape as soon as the fighting started.”

“I should have never brought Marissa when Missy’s here.” He realized his mistake in the first ten minutes of their arrival. As soon as Missy, head of the Llewellyn Pride, walked into the enormous Llewellyn compound living room, Marissa was in her face demanding to know why none of the Llewellyn Pride had stayed with Brendon at the hospital and why none of them had bothered to call her. When Missy snarled that she was not an answering service it went straight downhill from there.

Three hours later and the two females were still going at it.

Allie stretched out in a lounger and stared at him. “You seem unusually cheerful, considering all the yelling and drama.”

“It must be the holidays.”

Laughing, she said, “Okay. What’s hername?”

“That’s on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know.”

Brendon actually liked Allie. Not when she was around Missy but one on one. Allie and Erik’s mom, Serita, were relatively nice and they’d made breeding with them quite entertaining.

“You do understand that Missy’s not going to like you getting involved with someone from another Pride. At least not without a trade contract.”

“Our contract involves the kids and the kids only.”

“I’m not arguing. Just letting you know. And there’s some slight whining in there because I’ll have to hear about it. Constantly.”

Blocking his daughter’s tiny fist from making contact with his eye, he asked, “It sounds like she’s still raging over Mace and his Bronx m’lady.”

Allie laughed at his use of “m’lady” in a sentence. “Oh yeah. She’s still raging all right. Besides, we’re down to two males now. Petrov’s gone. You’re gone. And Mace won’t let her trade him out for more. Her life is in shambles.” Allie rolled her eyes. “Personally I could care less. Little Miss Evil Kitty over there”—she pointed at her daughter—“is more than enough trouble at the moment. I certainly don’t need to add to it with another cub until she’s a tad older.”

“Makes sense.” Brendon picked up his son and placed him on his knee, ignoring the teeth he sank into his forearm. “But Missy needs to understand, I won’t let her use my kids as leverage against me.”

Allie shook her head. “I won’t let that happen, Brendon. I’m not saying she won’t try, but I won’t let her get away with it.” She smiled at him. “I like you. You irritate me much less than most males. Besides, our darling little brat will rip my long silky locks out if I ever try to get between her and her daddy.”

“And Serita?”

“Missy will be lucky if Serita doesn’t start her own Pride. They’ve been fighting like two cats in a bag lately. Besides, we both know she can’t use the kids. We all read that contract we signed. It’s quite airtight.”

“Damn right it is.” Three high-priced lawyers who specialized in shifter law and his sister made sure of that.

“I don’t blame you at all,” she said with a sigh, leaning back into the lounger and staring up at the ceiling. “Nothing is sadder than an old Pride lion who hasn’t seen his cubs for decades.” Like his dad hadn’t seen Mitch.

Allie yawned, her eyes fluttering closed. “You coming out to dinner with us, Brendon? We have reservations at that new sushi place uptown. The chef is supposed to be a god.”