“Again, this is not a dream,” I said.

Robyn laughed, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “For me, it was coffee.” She stepped into the cell and dropped into the bedside chair, then crossed her legs at the knees. “I got infected in this horrible cabin. There were cat heads mounted on the wall—I didn’t know they were dead shifters at the time—and there was blood everywhere. My friend Abby and I had to stay in the cabin, because I was too sick to hike out of the woods. I was in and out of consciousness with a raging fever, vomiting every hour or so, but through it all, I kept smelling coffee. The good kind. French Vanilla or chocolate biscotti, or something sweet like that. I thought I was hallucinating, but it turns out the asshole hunters who kidnapped me and dragged me to their shifter slaughterhouse had some fancy coffeemaker, and Abby drank cup after cup so she could stay awake and take care of me.”

“What happened to the assholes?” Morris asked, and I stared at Robyn in astonishment. He should either have been backing into a corner of the room, sweating terror from every pore, or convinced that he was either dreaming or hallucinating the whole thing. Yet Robyn had him talking coherently. Asking questions, in spite of a fever that should have knocked him on his ass.

“Abby killed them while I was unconscious, then Jace swooped in and cleaned the whole thing up.” She made a swooshing gesture with both hands, and my gaze snagged on the swell of her left breast, where her elbow grazed it.

Eyes, Titus.

“But at that point, neither of them knew I was infected.”

“So you really were kidnapped?” Morris asked, leaning on his pillow.

“Yeah.” Robyn’s expression seemed distant for a moment, and I could tell from the set of her jaw that there was more to it. Some part she didn’t want to talk about. Then she shook that off and reached over to give the new stray’s shoulder a little shove. “Let’s just say that your origin story isn’t half as traumatic as mine, so if I can get through this, so can you.”

I couldn’t take my gaze off her.

It’s not like I’d never seen a beautiful woman naked. But I’d never met a woman as comfortable in her own skin as Robyn clearly was. I’d never seen anyone bond so easily with a newly scratch-fevered stray, even though that was my job.

Robyn was as fascinating as she was irritating, and suddenly, I wasn’t sure at all that I could give her back.

SEVEN

Robyn

A knock echoed against my bedroom door, and my breath caught in my chest. “Robyn? I need to talk to you for a minute,” Abby called out from the hallway as I wrapped my wet hair in a towel.

I swallowed an unexpected twinge of disappointment—I’d hoped it was Titus—then shoved my arms into the borrowed robe. “It’s unlocked!”

Abby opened the door and stepped into the room. Holding a duffel bag.

Hair stood up all over my body.

For a human, that means goose bumps, but for a shifter, body hair rising away from the skin is an actual physical reaction to a perceived threat. Physical or emotional. Like a kitten whose fur puffs up every time she’s startled, I hadn’t quite learned to control it yet.

“Why are you packed?” Suspicion echoed in my voice.

“Isaac called.” Abby set her bag on the floor and tugged me down on the bed next to her. “The council has temporarily lifted Jace’s travel ban. So he can go to the ceremony.”

The wedding. Jace’s sister, Melody, was marrying Abby’s brother Isaac, the new Alpha of her territory and father of her unborn child. That scandal was the only thing anyone in the Southeast Pride was talking about, other than the unprecedented discovery of a female stray.

You’d think notoriety would’ve given Melody and me something to bond over. But you’d be wrong.

I swallowed my nerves. Surely it only looked like Abby was about to abandon me in a house full of strange toms. “So, when is this shotgun wedding?”

“There’s no shotgun,” she insisted. “They want to get married.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“No.” Abby pushed a poof of red curls from her face. “I’m avoiding the answer. The ceremony’s on Thursday. If they wait any longer, she won’t fit into her dress.”

I fiddled with the sash around my robe, to have something to do with my hands. “That’s five days from now, and it’s, like, an eight-hour drive. Why are you already packed?”

Abby shrugged, but the gesture tried too hard to be nonchalant. “Isaac wants Jace to be one of his groomsmen, so he has to get fitted for a tux, and Melody seems to think she can get a dress altered for me in a couple of days, so I’m going to be in the ceremony too. And there’s the bachelor party and the bridesmaid’s brunch. And the rehearsal dinner. And I think they’re going to squeeze in a baby shower too. This isn’t a one-day event.”

“So you’re just going to leave me here?” Panic echoed in my voice, loud and clear.

“No!” She grabbed my hand and held it so tightly my fingers began to tingle. “I want you to come with us! We’ll only be gone for six days, then we’ll come back here. You’ll still have a week of…vacation.”

“You know damn well this is no vacation!” I snapped. But anger was a poor disguise for my fear and frustration. I’d come here to be with Abby—my best friend and the person most able to convince her father, the council chairman, to let me off for time served.

Letting me off for good behavior seemed like a long shot at best.

“I know. I’m just not sure what else to call it.” She turned to face me on the end of the bed and squeezed my hand again. “Come with us, Robyn. It’ll be fun!”

“I can’t go to a shifter wedding with you!” The whole place would be crawling with eligible toms itching to make a play for the only of-age, unspoken for tabby in the country. “Hell, Melody will probably throw the damn bouquet right at me!”

“So duck.” Another shrug. “There’ll be dancing and an open bar. Think of it as a party. A chance to let loose.”

“While everyone’s staring at me like a fish in a bowl? Sounds like torture.”

“It’ll be whatever you make it, Robyn. But either way, Jace and I are going. This could be his last chance to see his mother and his sister for years.”