“That seems a little strange to me. I think I’d be worried.”

She took a sip of her coke. “I slammed you with my head, hit you with a toilet, and shot a hole through your door. You, however, threw me in a closet.” She shrugged. “So, no. I’m not worried.”

He unwrapped his fourth burger, “I guess ya got a point.”

“I figure if you were gonna kill me, you would have done it by now.”

“I could always sell ya to the lions.”

“Well, if they look anything like that group we passed outside the diner…sell, sell, sell away!”

He debated about whether to hit her with the burger in his hand, but his hunger overrode his impulse.

“So you’re not married, are you?”

Nik choked on his burger. He hit his chest several times to dislodge the beef while she watched him quietly.

“Why do you ask,” he wheezed out.

“Just a question.”

“My kind don’t get married. We don’t settle down. We live alone. Happily.”

“So you’re not like the wolves?”

He shuddered, “No. We are not like the wolves.”

“Interesting.”

“Really?”

“No. Not really. I’m just looking for shit to say.”

Angie’s phone rang. He’d gotten her a new phone but with her old number so that she could keep in touch with her friends.

She pulled the gold-plated phone out of her Dolce & Gabbana handbag. Nik guessed it would be those dog friends of hers. He expected tears, soothing words about how she was doing fine.

What he didn’t expect…

***

“Don’t you dare yell at me, Sara Kylie Morrighan!”

“We’re coming for you. Tonight!”

“Like hell you are!” Angie stood up. “I swear to god, you push me on this and I’ll make that scar on your face look like a fuckin’ scratch!”

“Here!” Sara barked away from the phone. “I can’t talk to her!”

Angie began pacing around the table. “She can’t talk to me? She’s being an irrational psychopath and she can’t talk to me?”

Nik worked on another burger—how many was that now? Forty?—and watched her, but didn’t say anything. She suddenly wanted to punch him in that handsome face, but that was cause she felt a little tense. She stopped taking out her anger on others a long time ago. Or at least she worked really, really hard not to.

“Hello?”

“And when the hell where you going to tell me you were pregnant?”

“I just found out! I didn’t even have tests yet!”

“What do you mean you haven’t had any tests? Then how the hell do you know?”

“Because they can smell it on me! Like that’s not fuckin’ freakin’ me out! And why are you yelling at me?”

“I don’t know!” With a sigh, Angelina sat back down at the table, right beside Nik.

“Miki, you need to get control of Sara. Now.”

“I don’t think she’s wrong. I think we should come get your ass this damn second.”

“Miki Kendrick, I swear to God…”

“Angie, we don’t know these people you’re staying with.”

“They’re tigers…”

“Siberian,” he offered.

She glared at him over her shoulder, but barked into the phone, “Siberian, apparently.”

“Oh, really. Well, according to Page six-hundred-and-ninety-five of the Encyclopedia of Mammals, male tigers are one of the most vicious and deadly predators known to man. They’ll kill cubs just so they can get the female back into heat so that they can get her pregnant with their own.”

Angie used her free hand to rub her forehead. “That’s fascinating, Kendrick. But I really don’t think I have anything to worry about here. You do. So why don’t you focus on yourself for awhile? You are the one about to breed.”

“I wish everybody would stop fucking saying that!”

“Oh, I’m sorry. How about you’re the one about to experience the wonders of childbirth.”

“You are such a bitch!”

“And you are such a psychopath!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

Angie slammed her phone closed, then slammed it down on the picnic table. She picked it up and slammed it down two more times.

“Do you and your friends fight like that all the time?”

“That wasn’t really a fight. That was a disagreement. Fights usually involve finger pointing and the occasional headlock.”

“And parts of the toilet?”

She smiled, her anger evaporating in seconds at his humor. “Naw, Sugar,” she mimicked back in her best hick accent. “That was a full-on assault. Texas style.”

Not even realizing her actions, Angie reached over and gently touched the cut she’d given him right above his eye. Already it damn-near healed completely. Must be nice to have that awesome shifter metabolism.

“I didn’t hurt you too bad, did I?”

He didn’t answer. Instead he closed his eyes as her fingers stroked along his brow and leaned his face against her hand.

At that point, she really should have taken her hand away. Normally she would have. Normally she wouldn’t have touched him in the first place. But after being kidnapped by hillbillies, “normal” seemed the least of her worries right now.