“That wasn’t me! It was a hellhound!”
“A what?!”
Her mother, Heather, cleared her throat. On-screen, Aroha slammed her hands against her face and groaned. “That’s enough,” Heather said placidly. She turned to the two of them sitting on the picnic bench. “Let’s deal with the important things first.”
Fleance saw Sheena revving herself up to complain again that she wasn’t hurt, she wasn’t too cold or too tired or too hungry she was fine, when Heather followed up with: “How did you two meet?”
The mate bond trembled with indignation, but Sheena covered it well. Fleance hid his grin. *Now you’re indignant she’s not asking after you?*
*Hush, you.* Sheena ran her fingers through her hair. “Funny you should say that. I was about to run into a burning building—”
“Sheena!”
“—but then Fleance turned up and ran in for me, which was real helpful. It meant that I had the first bash at this dickhead hellhound shifter who turned up…”
“No!”
Fleance began to suspect as the story unraveled that despite her protestations Sheena actually quite liked scandalizing her family. He joined in the retelling where necessary, but mostly sat and enjoyed Sheena winding up her audience. Even in Pine Valley, he’d never been so close to the center of such a clearly loving group of people.
These people were real family. Not just the shared blood he had with Angus. Even if Sheena couldn’t remember all of her cousins’ names or how they were related to her—and he gathered, from a few whispered remarks, that she wasn’t alone in that—they were all ride or die for her. People talked about herd mentality like it was a bad thing, but if it meant everyone coming together to protect one member of the herd from an outside threat?
He wrapped his hand around Sheena’s as she skipped over the non-PG parts of the story and began to describe their early-morning car race out of town. The mate bond hummed, and he let some of his feelings filter through it: his joy at seeing her surrounded by her family, how new it was for him to see people all coming together like this.
How it felt like a perfect Christmas miracle.
She raised one eyebrow but didn’t say anything to him until she reached a dramatic pause in her story: “There was nothing I could do. If Fleance didn’t agree to obey Parker’s every order, I’d be under his control forever.”
Everyone gasped. Sheena’s aunt Rena, who was standing by the door, covered her face. “This is all my fault,” she muttered. “If we hadn’t let him get his claws into us…”
Fiona put an arm around her shoulders and held her close.
Sheena’s eyes sparkled mischievously. “But then, just when it looked like there was no way out—”
“You must have been terrified,” another aunt/cousin/miscellaneous relation burst out.
“Well, yeah, I—”
“But you shouldn’t feel bad about not being able to get away,” another relative said quickly. “We all know—”
“Poor wee lamb!” Another aunt—How many does she have?—squeezed Sheena’s hand. “You must have been so frightened!”
Sheena’s cheeks started to turn red. The smell of burning lanolin filled the air. Fleance cleared his throat. *Babe…*
She gave him a long-suffering look. *See? They literally can’t imagine any scenario in which I did more than get in the way.*
“And out by the geysers! We all know what you’re like with the thermal wonderland around here.”
“Ooh, yes. Remember last time they came to visit? That sinkhole?”
Sheena’s cheeks were the color of traffic lights. “I—”
“But you did get away.” Her mother, Heather, turned kind eyes on Fleance. “We’re so glad you were there, Fleance. I don’t want to think what might have happened if you weren’t around.”
She still thinks I saved Sheena? Even after what I said back at the hotel? No wonder his mate was glowing with frustration. Her family were all loving and supportive… and couldn’t even conceive that she might have been the one who’d saved him. Who’d saved them both.
“I hardly had anything to do with it,” he tried to say, but no one was listening. He glanced over at Sheena. He wasn’t stupid enough to send calming thoughts through the mate bond to his beloved but was relieved when he saw that despite the conversation battering back and forth over their heads, she looked more amused than enraged.
*I’m not mad,* she explained, shrugging. *I just… this is exactly what I expected. Total support, and total treating me like a particularly dim soft toy.*
“Where is this Parker now, then?” her father asked.
“Someone must have dealt with him.”
“I bet it’s one of those dragons she was talking about. Far, a dragon shifter! I hope we get to meet them.”
“Oh—look at her, she’s all red. She must be feeling sick, poor thing.”
“Good thing that dragon showed up.”
“She does look feverish, doesn’t she? Sheena, lamb, do you want a Panadol? I’ve got some in my purse.”
“I’m not sick!” Sheena burst out and slammed her hands palm-down on the table. “And there wasn’t a—”
*Of course she’s sick. This is just classic Sheena. Come on, I’ll put the jug on for a lemon and honey drink.*
“I don’t need a lemon and honey! Seriously, Mum, I’m not a kid anymore!” Something inside Sheena must have snapped. Even her acceptance of her family’s view of her couldn’t survive everything. “I’ll show you—”
The room quietened.
“You’ll always be my little lamb, sweetheart,” her mother told her. “And you’re not the only one who’s had a long day.” She rubbed her eyes, suddenly looking exhausted, and Fleance felt Sheena’s heart lurch. He reached out to her gently and she leaned into his touch.
“Oh,” Sheena mumbled. She whispered into Fleance’s mind: *I thought it was normal that my whole family would somehow show up out of nowhere, but it’s not, is it? They all raced here from across the whole bloody country because they thought I’d got myself into real trouble this time.* Sheena bit her lip. *Gotta admit, I was planning on going for the whole ‘surprise, motherfuckers’, but
