The Thing About Weres

backpedal. The bitch is back.”

Trowbridge lowered our hands. But he didn’t release mine and kept it trapped, close to his hard thigh, forcing me to either shuffle closer or lean into him. I did a reluctant hokey-pokey to the left. “The NAW asked for everything they got. They sent a hit squad to my territory, and their representative tried to kill Hedi. That amounts to a direct attack on me. As a mate, and an Alpha, I met their challenge with equal force.”

I smiled faintly at the woman who’d elbowed my head.

“It’s a clear case of self-defense,” their Alpha emphasized for those too dim to grasp the miraculous loophole being presented to them. Babble erupted until the guy from the insurance office pursed his lips and let out sharp whistle. He held up his hand.

Trowbridge nodded toward him.

“No disrespect, Alpha,” the claims adjuster began. “But that little wolf at your heels carries more of your scent than she does.”

I felt a sudden and deep kinship with every one of those political wives that found the inner resources to smile at the public as they listened to their dickhead husband explain how one call girl does not equal a marital indiscretion. It hurt to smile, but smile I did. Wider than before. Showing teeth and maybe a little gum. Yeah, Trowbridge, answer that—tell them about that little bitch who carries your scent and basically does everything but wear a sign saying, i’ve slept with robson trowbridge.

Trowbridge pinned the whistle-blower with a cold glare. “If I ever hear you call my mate ‘she’ like that again, I’ll take you out.” When the claims adjuster’s shoulders were sufficiently hunched and humbled, he continued. “The wolf’s name is Anu. She is a half-bred Were and does not have a scent of her own.”

Rachel smirked at me. “And why hasn’t she changed?”

Trowbridge shrugged. “Traveling through the gates has messed up our clocks.”

“But why’d you bring the Fae?” a woman cried out.

“He is not a Fae. His name is Lexi Stronghold and he is the brother of my mate. He was born here in Creemore, sired by Benjamin Stronghold. Ten years ago, he was stolen from the pack by the Fae, but now he is home, returned as part of our pack.”

Another round of murmurs. Then, because I’m part Were, I heard (probably as she’d hoped I would) one woman’s aside to Rachel. “I still don’t get it. Who is Anu to us? Is she another mate?”

“If you have a question about the pack, you address me. Not my sister, not anyone else.” Trowbridge’s thumb stroked my knuckle.

Seriously? I dug my nail into his palm.

Then the Alpha of Creemore said something that made everything in my world tilt sixty degrees toward WTF. “Anu is Lexi Stronghold’s daughter.”

I didn’t see that thunderbolt coming. Anu is my niece.

Rachel threw up her hands. “The NAW didn’t just come here because sh—” She stumbled on her words. “They didn’t show up here because my brother’s mate doesn’t carry his scent. They came here because the treaty has been broken. His consort summoned the fairy portal twice. Just how many times do you think we can get away with that?”

Anu is my niece, and she smells like Trowbridge.

“We keep propping open that door, and the Fae will walk through it. They’ll follow him back here, and then—”

“The Fae will come!” Trowbridge mocked softly. “The bad guys are coming. Be afraid. Did we ever worry about the Fae coming through our portals back when we were kids?”

Anu is my niece, she hates my brother, and she smells like Trowbridge.

The Alpha of Creemore looked around the group, eyes faintly narrowed, until his gaze lit on the large Were at the edge of the crowd. “Hey, Tank, how’ve you been? Do you want to tell me where the bad guys are?”

The Were in question chewed his lip, considering how best to answer the $64,000 question.

“The Fae closed the portal, not us.” Trowbridge’s voice rang with authority. “They don’t want any part of our world. The day humans learned to melt iron was the beginning of their exodus from our realm.”

“Yeah!” cried a male voice.

“Damn right!” called another.

“Well, I’ve seen them around metal and steel,” said the woman from the real estate office. “Your mate’s proof of that. Hedi’s been living in a trailer for half a year, and she—your mate—looks pretty healthy.”

“My mate is half Were and we’ve exchanged blood,” said Trowbridge without looking at me. “It has raised her tolerance level for such things.”

Not true. It hadn’t raised my tolerance level for Weres. The gauge on that particular measure was sinking closer to empty with every little hoo-yah from the boys at the back of the pack. Anu is my niece, she hates my brother, she smells like Trowbridge, and she can change into her wolf.

“You will not see another Fae walk through that portal.” Trowbridge’s voice rang with authority. “They’re demigods in their realm, not ours. There is nothing in our world that they want enough to stand the discomfort of coming here. This is our territory and shall always be our territory.”

All he needed was a horse and some blue face paint and he was good to go.

“Some of you have the ability to scent a lie. Test the wind for the truth. Do I lie?” The Alpha waited, posture easy, as the nose police did their job. One guy made a production of it, taking in a huge lungful of air that swelled his chest.

“He tells the truth,” nose police announced.

Approval rippled through the crowd.

“Your concerns about a Fae invasion are based on fear, not reality. We will be as we have always been. United!” Trowbridge’s mighty chest rose. “Wolves of Creemore! Kneel!”

And bam, they did.

Then the guy I’d bound my life to lifted our conjoined hands skyward one more time.

“I am your Alpha by birth and by right,” he said to his Weres.

They roared. A collective sound—very mortal.

“I vow to protect you and lead you.”

Some starstruck girl opened her mouth and let out a high, keening, plaintive howl. And that’s all it took. Their voices swelled, wolf songs from human throats. Silently, Anu padded over to where we stood, dead under the porch light, and sat down, her flank brushing my mate’s knee. Her tail gave a thump.

Anu is my niece, she hates my brother, she smells like Trowbridge, she can change into her wolf, and she knows no fear.

I gritted my teeth, trying to maintain my balance on my toes.

“My mate and I will never leave you again!” their Alpha cried.

Then to me in a soft aside, “Will we?”

I jerked my hand free, and pushed my way through Harry and company.

And the pack roared.

The house still reeked of dead stuff.

I stood in the hallway, fighting the urge to run. It would be so much easier to scurry away than to stay. Oh Goddess, I need to run. From the pack, from a man who may or may not want me, from all the failures and miscues following me like the shaming trail of bathroom tissue stuck to my shoe.

Run.

In the past, it had been the answer to all that sickened and infuriated me—run. A sprint down the hall, fast as hunt-terrorized deer. A right at the end of the passage, a quick jaunt through the kitchen, and then straight out through the back door. I’d be halfway across the back lawn before the screen door slammed behind me.

But I couldn’t.

Not now, anyhow. Not while my drug-addled brother waited in the kitchen with a laundry list of problems too long to solve in a few hours. Even I, the girl who preferred to ignore the obvious, and run hell-bent from the painful, could understand that.

There were twenty-nine days before the next full moon when supposedly, Lexi would turn glassy-eyed with