Page 41 of Damien’s Mate

The leopard turned out to be one of the McCall twins. He said reproachfully to Brandon, “Dude. Did you have to put so much juice into it? You scared my leopard into next week.”

“I second that,” his brother the owl added. “Lucky for me I wasn’t thirty feet up.”

The second owl turned out to be Jaeda Harris. Unlike all the guys, she was somehow wearing clothes. Before he could wonder what the hell had happened to the Jell-O bear, she said, “Hey, it’s Fernandez! What are you doing here?”

Six sets of predator eyes turned on Damien. None of them looked friendly.

“Um. I brought you a lioness?” He gestured to Lila. “Careful with her, she’s damaged.”

One of the twins said, “Clearly no one told him it’s presumptuous to bring people live hostess gifts.”

His brother added, “Plus, what we really need is a new blender.”

Brandon’s eyes narrowed. “This isn’t the fucking ASPCA. You brought us an injured lioness because…”

“Well, what the hell else was I supposed to do with her?” Damien got to his feet and picked up his weapon. Everyone growled. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why would I shoot you now?” He put the safety on and holstered it.

He didn’t know anything about shifters, but he knew tough guys. And they only respected you if you stood up to them. He gave Brandon a level look.

“Sorry if I startled you by showing up so late. But she was hit by a car, and she almost shifted in the ambulance. I knew what would happen if they took her to the hospital.” He was leaving out a hell of a lot, but he had a feeling he better keep it short. “I knew if she was outed, it’s bad news for all shifters. So when she needed more help than I could give her, I brought her here.”

Brandon said skeptically, “So you’re telling me you did this to protect us.”

“I try to keep my promises.”

“You also promised to forget we existed and leave us alone.”

Damian let a little smirk escape. “I didn’t say I was good at it.”

Colt snorted. For a second Damien thought he saw the corner of Brandon’s mouth twitch. Good sign. Now he was making progress.

So of course, Lila chose that moment to attack.

She leaped at Brandon’s exposed back, and Kitty raised her rifle and fired.

Damien took off towards her, the shock making him forget the other rifle trained on him from above. “What the hell did you do that for?” he yelled. Had they killed her?

He limped over to Lila, lying on the ground, knelt down and put his hand on her. At least she was still breathing. He glared up at Kitty. “You didn’t have to shoot her.”

Lila shimmered and morphed into a human, but she was still unconscious. The crack of bones made Damien flinch. If she’d injured herself further…

He didn’t see much blood, though—only the scratches from Brandon’s claws, which were already healing. He looked for the bullet hole.

Jaeda dropped down on her knees beside him. “It’s okay. It was just a tranquilizer dart. She’ll be fine.”

Damien closed his eyes and took a deep breath, biting his lip. Just a trank.

“You could have warned him,” Jaeda said to Kitty and Brandon. She turned to Damien. “Are you okay? You should come inside. You—”

Brandon said quietly, “Jaeda.” His voice was like a whip crack. Jaeda stopped talking.

“First,” Brandon said, impaling Damien with his eyes, “I want to know how you found us. I never told you where we lived, and we had that deal we were discussing.”

Right. Apparently, they’d taken that really seriously.

The wolf finally turned human. It turned out to be Brock Reilly—also naked. Damien hadn’t seen so much stranger dick since his high school gym locker room.

“That was me,” Brock said. “I gave him my number, and the address here. Just in case.”