that touch go straight through his clothes and skin and right into him. Lock immediately stopped, his fangs and claws retracting. He’d never met anyone, who wasn’t family or a very close friend, brave enough to risk touching him when he was like this. Brave enough not to run off, leaving friends, lovers, and blood relatives to fend for themselves. And that alone startled him back to rational thinking.
“Please don’t,” she begged. “They’ll blame me and then the O’Neills will be responsible for another wedding brawl.”
Lock watched her closely, barely aware that another She-lion—How many did Jess know and invite to her damn wedding anyway?—had come out of the reception in time to see the male go flying.
“Brendon!” he heard the She-lion gasp as she ran after the cat. “Oh, my God! Are you okay?” Her voice was high and weak-sounding because of her fear for the male, making the predator in Lock want to follow and finish the job. To finish both cats and carry this feline off for that fresh salmon meal. But when his gaze followed the sound coming from the woods, the feline pressed harder against his chest to get his focus back.
“As it is,” she went on, her cool but tough Philly exterior disappearing in a flurry of panic and fear, “because of other people’s stupidity, we’ve been banned from three Catholic churches, two Protestant, and one of the Lutherans’. And there are several reception halls where we’ve been added to the ‘Do not allow’ list.”
Lock closed his eyes, more angry at himself than anyone else. “He startled me.” And he winced at the growl of his voice, sounding more pissed-off grizzly than rational human.
“Everybody knows you don’t grab a bear from behind. Not if you like having your face attached to your head.” She rubbed her hands against his chest and Lock’s eyes nearly crossed. She had painted nails that, although not ridiculously long, were longer than any he’d seen on predator females, with each nail painted dark red and elaborately decorated with flowers and other designs in black. It must have taken her hours to get those done, and the feel of them through his clothes was making him crazy. He should hate those nails. He normally considered that sort of thing tacky or gaudy, but damn if that look didn’t work on her. And because it worked on her—it was really working on him.
“This is all my fault,” she went on, oblivious to the effect she was having on him. “It’s a domino effect that only my mother can cause, and I’m sorry. I was trying to keep an eye on her, but she got away from me.” Mother? What did her mother have to do with this? Neither She-lion who’d been about to fight looked old enough to be her mother.
Swallowing, trying to keep his desire to maul in control, Lock motioned toward the woods. “That’s your brother.”
“Him?” She laughed. “No. He just wants to be. He’s the half-brother of my half-brother. And the female who went in after him is his twin, who I really hate, but that’s another story. Which makes her the half-sister of my half-brother, but neither of them have a blood connection to me.” Lock was busy trying to place all that in some semblance of a family tree in his head when she tossed in, “Life in the Pride. It’s not for everybody.”
“I have one set of parents and one sister,” he admitted, “and I’ve never been more grateful.”
“I’m sorry about all this.” She pulled her hands away and he almost made a grab for them so he could put them back where she’d had them. “Why don’t you go before someone comes out here wondering what the latest drama is? I’ll take care of this.”
One side of him yelled at him to stay, to spend more time with the Philly feline, but his more rational side told him to get the hell out while he still could.
Because really, what was he going to do with a woman like her? Like most bears, he liked things calm and quiet, and something told him that even a moment with this woman would never be that.
“Thanks,” he said, taking that first step back from her.
“No problem.”
He told himself he didn’t see regret in her eyes as he turned to walk away. He told himself, as he waited for his SUV at the valet station, a hot but clearly high-maintenance feline like her would never be interested in an average grizzly like him. He told himself, as he got into his SUV and drove away, that she would have only tolerated his quirky nature for as long as he could give her things or buy her things or pay off her debt for her.
And by the time he’d made it to Long Island’s Southern State Parkway, he’d nearly convinced himself that all that was the truth.
CHAPTER 1
Now this was living. A warm breakfast that eventually stopped moving, a lovely swim in a big, empty lake, and now a chance to relax in the tall grass under the last of the summer sun.
Yeah. Gwen O’Neill could so easily get used to this.
Like most Philly and Jersey shifters, this wasn’t Gwen’s first time at Macon River Falls Park, where the deer were plentiful and the land full-human free, but it was definitely her first time in the “rich part.” The section of Macon River Falls owned by some of the richest Prides, Packs, and Clans in the Tri-State area. When she and her best friend, Blayne, had pulled up in Gwen’s work truck two days before, the guards at the gate leading to the private properties wouldn’t let them pass until they’d spoken to Brendon Shaw himself and he’d vouched for them. Then the guards had acted like Gwen and Blayne were hookers hired for the weekend. Whatever. Gwen didn’t let a stranger’s bullshit get in her way of a good time. Family, however, was a different story.
Some days she was convinced that her family made sure their bullshit got in the way of Gwen’s good time. She believed that so much, she had almost turned down Brendon’s offer. He was the half-brother of her big brother Mitch, but with Mitch in Japan until the Christmas holidays and her mother off to some expensive spa with Gwen’s aunts and cousins for this Labor Day weekend, Gwen knew she’d be without any go-between to help her deal with Bren’s constant need to prove they were all “family.” Then last week sometime, it hit her—if she came to Macon River this weekend that would mean no Mitch, no Ma, and according to Brendon, no Brendon twin, Marissa “I’m a pissy slash” Shaw. And that meant, for Gwen at least, no bullshit to deal with—for once.
Gwen would actually be able to go somewhere and relax. Simply relax. She mentioned it to Blayne and got an extremely enthused, “Oh, my God! We absolutely have to go! Free-range hunting! Yay!” Of course, Blayne had that type of response when Gwen mentioned stopping by a diner for breakfast before work. “Oh, my God! We absolutely have to go! Pancakes! Yay!”
Grinning, her long feline tongue hanging out of her mouth, Gwen rolled onto her back and stared up at the blue sky.
Nope. This was “bullshit-free” living all right, and Brendon was at least tolerable. Of course, he was also wonderfully busy. He hadn’t just invited Gwen and “a friend.” He’d invited the New York Smith Pack wolves and the Kuznetsov wild dog Pack. Normally, that much canine in one place would turn Gwen into a hissing, slashing house cat. But she had a secret weapon. She had Blayne and everybody loved Blayne. She was cheery, sweet, funny and, more importantly, she managed to turn herself into a human shield for Gwen. She blocked anyone Gwen didn’t want to be around, somehow knowing who that was without Gwen saying a word. Blayne had a gift and Gwen used it for all it was worth.
Uh…what was that?
Rolling onto her stomach, Gwen listened carefully, positive she’d heard something.
Her
