But Gwen didn’t want to go home…wait. She briefly closed her eyes. She didn’t want to go back to Philly. She was already home. True, she didn’t have an apartment of her own yet, but she would. The business was doing well, their client list was healthy, and the wild dogs had cut her and Blayne an unbelievable deal on their office space.

And the family is testing you.

Yeah. She knew that. Although not as purely evil as a cult, Prides had their pull on a lioness. There was no denying that, and Gwen would be no different. But she wasn’t ready yet, and her mother knew it.

“I accepted another invitation for tonight. Sorry.”

Mitch crossed his arm over his chest. “Uh-huh. An invitation with…?”

“What do you care?”

He chuckled. “Look, the rest of the Philly cops may believe your line of bullshit, but I’m your brother. I know better. So stop fooling around, get your shit, and let’s go.”

He turned to walk out, completely dismissing her and pissing her off so badly that she lied like she hadn’t lied since Philly P.D. found her ex-boyfriend’s gun on her in the tenth grade.

“I’ve been invited to Jersey to spend time with Lock MacRyrie’s family. They’re expecting me for dinner and no way I’m not going.”

Mitch slowly faced her. “The bear? You’ve made dinner plans with a family of bears? You sure you’re not just dinner, Goldilocks?”

“That’s very funny,” she replied flatly. “Hilarious. But yeah. Plans to spend time with the family. They like me.” She hoped. She liked them and they seemed to like her, but who the hell knew and she was having such a bad day already. “Tell Ma I’ll see her at Thanksgiving, when I plan to be back in Philly. Not before.”

She was expecting her brother to throw one of his lion-male hissy fits, but it seemed Mitch was in as much of a game-playing mood as Gwen. Smiling, he said, “Even better…why don’t we drop you off in Jersey on our way home?”

“That’s not necessary. It’s out of your way.”

“Not by much, I’m sure,” he said easily. “And it’s no big deal. We’ll drop you off, I can meet the family, and even apologize to your bear. I think Bren and I might have startled him last night…after seeing you two making out in front of the hotel.”

Don’t you dare cringe, Gwendolyn O’Neill!

And drop her off? Meet the family? Oh, he was good. Gotten better in fact. She’d bet money he’d picked up tips from that damn ho-billy girlfriend of his! Manipulative canines!

Yet the one thing Gwen knew, she couldn’t back down now. “Sounds good.”

“Excellent.”

He turned away from her and Gwen reached for her phone to call Lock, but Mitch spun back around so fast, she immediately moved her hand away, trying to appear as if she hadn’t moved at all.

“And, to make itreally interesting—” he walked over to her bedside table and picked up her cell phone

“—why don’t I keep your phone, so you’re not tempted to let your bear know I’m coming? It’ll be a surprise!

Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

Bastard! “Surprising a bear? That sounds like fun to you?”

“Oh, come on. He knows me now. I’m sure it’ll be great. I can’t wait!” He grabbed the in-room phone and yanked it off the table, ripping the cord from the wall.

This had quickly gotten out of hand. And Gwen knew why. Because Mitch expected Gwen to do what she always did when it came to her family. Take the path of least resistance. If it kept them quiet, Gwen usually did it simply to keep the peace and to avoid the whining, complaining, and roaring.

But not this time. This time she was going to play this out. Even if it blew up in her face—and she kind of knew it would—she had no intention of backing down. None!

“You better get ready,” Mitch said cheerily. “We’ll be leaving soon.”

“Fine,” she said, also with a cheeriness that could kill a twenty-foot boa constrictor. “Sounds good.”

She kept smiling until he walked out of the room, then she went to her closet and grabbed the high school football jersey Mitch had kept at their mother’s house. Gwen had taken it, because she liked to wear it even though she knew her brother would lose his mind if he found out. She dropped it to the floor, unleashed her front and back claws, and proceeded to rip the living shit out of it!

When she was done, she put the shreds in a paper bag and stuck it in the back of her closet. When the time was right, she’d hand it right back to him. Maybe with a bow on it.

Lock had his nephew on his lap and one of his nieces hanging from around his neck. His mother was in the kitchen arguing with his sister, and his oldest niece, the seven-year-old, was learning how to flirt on Ric.

Ric had an open invitation to the monthly MacRyrie meal, even attending when Lock was in the Marines and didn’t come home for over a year. And Lock didn’t begrudge Ric a moment of that time, either. Because he knew it was one of the few times Ric truly felt like he was part of a family as opposed to just part of a Pack.

Tragically, however, Iona had also brought a friend. For the first time in ages, she’d dragged that unhealthy looking carcass over, Judy Bennington. A one-time supermodel and now an agent, Judy was a sun bear who needed to eat more. No bear, boar or sow, should be that thin. Even worse…she apparently still had a thing for Lock, and she’d had that thing since he was a senior in high school. Yet unlike most predator males, Lock’s libido was actually attached to his brain and nothing about this woman had ever gotten him hard or even made him smile. She was a shifter who’d walked into his parents’ house wearing real mink, for Christ sakes!