“All right, all right.” She let out a breath. “I may have found a new job.”

“Is that right? A new job that has you huntin’ our kind?” And he couldn’t keep the snide tone out of his voice, which was something he should have thought about a little more so he didn’t get that fist to his face.

Smitty briefly closed his eyes and let out a breath as pain tore through his jaw and bells rang in his head.

He’d almost forgotten the kind of strength his cousin had.

“Ow,” he snarled.

“Watch what you say to me, Robert Ray Smith. I don’t take shit from your daddy and ain’t gonna take none from you. I protect my kind. Always have, always will. Just like my daddy before me. But sometimes our kind needs to be protected from within as well as without. Sometimes, there are a few who don’t know what loyalty is.”

Realizing that Dee was the last being on the planet—full-human or wolf—who would ever betray their own, Smitty dropped his head and nodded. “You’re right. And I’m real sorry for what I said.”

That’s when Dee smiled a little and he wondered if she was going to kill him now. “You may look like your daddy, but you sure don’t act like him. Never known that man to apologize ’bout a damn thing, no matter how wrong he is.”

She patted Smitty’s arm, sending him stumbling into the table. He had to remember to brace himself better when dealing with Dee.

He turned and watched her head toward the door. “Where you goin’?”

“To find what I came for before your mate’s little party goes to shit.” She glanced back at him and shrugged nonchalantly. “Although…it may already be too late to bother.”

Mitch was trying his best to untangle the wild dog females and one wolfdog who’d wrapped themselves around him like boa constrictors—trying to prevent him from marching right outside and telling his sister that the whole thing with the bear had been a plot hatched by Blayne “I have no boundaries or sense” Thorpe—

when his phone rang.

Snatching it off his sword belt, Mitch snapped, “What?”

He stood up straight, blinking, the words his cousin Trish were hurriedly telling him not quite making sense. Something about his mother and McNelly and revenge and Asiatic lions and…and…a hair salon?

“Mitch?” Sissy asked, the headlock she had Brendon in while Ronnie held on to the cat’s waist, loosening as she watched him. “Darlin’, what’s wrong?”

With her chin resting on Lock’s shoulder, she watched the wolf pup desperately searching for something.

He kept trying to cast for a scent, but he was too young to even understand how to separate the hundreds of scents that were surrounding him. When he stopped near her, going onhis toes to look over the crowd’s collective head, she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Johnny.” She said his name low so she didn’t get anyone else’s attention. He blinked, startled by her, and tried to slip away. “Get over here,” she snapped.

Letting out a sigh, the kid walked over to her and Gwen sat up straight, Lock looking over his shoulder at Jess’s adopted son.

“Hey, Johnny.”

“Hi, Lock.”

“What’s going on?” Gwen asked, although she already kind of knew.

He shrugged and said, “I’m looking for Kristan.”

Of course he was.

“You two have a fight?”

“Sort of.”

Gwen couldn’t help but smile. “Let me guess…you scared off the full-human she was supposed to meet outside.”

Growling, the kid arrogantly put his hands on narrow hips. “I don’t know what she was thinking!” She’s thinking how can she torture you, but Gwen wouldn’t say that out loud. “I know that kid,” he went on. “He’s a complete scumbag.”

“So she ran off mad.”

“Not quite. She started talking to some wolf. I didn’t know the guy and I told her that and—”

“She completely ignored you. Right. Go on.”

Lock looked away but she could feel his chest move as he quietly chuckled.

“Then they were gone. And we all know the Pack’s going to blame me. It’ll be my fault if something happens to her.” Gwen knew Johnny was more worried about what little Kristan may be up to with another wolf than he was about his mom’s Pack, but why argue that with him now? In another few years, he’d learn that all on his own.

“I’ll help you find her.” Gwen patted Lock’s chest. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Why don’t you just get her mother?”

Shocked he’d even suggested it, Gwen said, “I’m not rattin’ the girl out to her mother. I’ll take care of it.”

Lock caught her arm before she could walk off. “Because she’s your responsibility? I thought you had the night off with your mother still in Philly?”

Gwen leaned in and said, “You have your wild dog loyalties, and I have mine.” And Gwen wasn’t about to let Kristan do something she’d regret in the morning just to get even with Johnny. If she could stop even one girl going down that road, she would. “Now stay here and I better not find any more swarms of females around you when I get back.”

“I’m still not sure how that would be my fault.”

She snorted in reply, took Johnny’s hand, and went off into the crowd of partiers.