Sasha stood, let out a weary breath, and headed out the door.
Silver Hawk spotted his friend of many years sitting at a table alone, nursing a drink, a half-eaten plate of steak and potatoes pushed away from him. He slid into the chair in front of Xavier Holland, causing him to look up.
“It’s no fun to eat alone without family, brother. I would have joined you.”
Doc nodded and looked down into his glass. “I don’t know what came over me… I flipped, as though Sasha was my teenage daughter… as though I had a right to tell a grown woman what to do. It was complete madness, and I knew it, and still I couldn’t stop myself.” Doc let out a long sigh. “I need to sit down with Sasha… as well as my son, Crow Shadow. There is so much for us to talk about, so many blanks in their lives to fill in-as well as in my own… But each of us has been holding back, afraid of even going there. It’s as though we acknowledge the lineage, respect it, but have yet to come together to discuss how any of this had made us feel… And tonight, I went after her as though I had that right, and I don’t.”
Silver Hawk closed his eyes and rolled his neck. “This darkness has us all in its grip. I do not ever want to know what you saw that may have caused that argument, for I fear I already know. Then, I could not be impartial at a time when I must be.”
Silver Hawk opened his eyes to stare into Doc’s intense gaze. For a long while both men said nothing.
Shogun looked up into a gorgeous smiling face, but it was not the one he longed for. Her perfect brown complexion made her entire body seem as though it had been dipped in cinnamon. As she straddled him, her pendulous breasts swayed above him and her taut nipples competed with her eyes for his attention. Interesting how her nipples were the same color as her eyes, bittersweet chocolate.
Her mouth was kiss punished and full, her eyes smoldering still, and her hair was sticking up all over her head. Then he looked down and realized that huge tufts of sandy brown hair were in his hands and all over his chest and the bed.
“I’m so sorry,” he said quietly, wondering how she could still be pleasant after what he’d done-money paid or not, it had to hurt like hell.
“Aw, sugah, it was just weave,” she said, laughing and kissing him. “Gonna take me about three or four hours in the salon chair to get it all put back in, but it was worth losing every track.”
He didn’t understand. “Weave?”
She brushed the fallen hair off his chest and pulled it from between his fingers. “A girl can’t tell all her secrets,” she said, still smiling brightly, canines fully exposed. “But you could spring for the hairdresser… since four hours off the clock to get beautiful again is a real killer on the revenue.”
He nodded and traced her smooth hips with his palms. “Not a problem.”
She leaned down and took his mouth and then sat back, beginning to slowly move with him still lodged deep inside her. “You are so damned sexy and such a doll… What is wrong with that girl?”
“Excuse me?” Shogun held her hips firm, not letting her move.
“Oh, don’t get all tight on me and paranoid. Of course I’d know about her… Ya called her name about a half dozen times and then came so hard I thought I was gonna have to call an ambulance for you, sugah. And right about now, you feel like you’re ready to go like that again. Just feminine observation… but if thinking about her makes you act like that, I’ll be her for you any night. Your time, your dime.”
“This stays here,” Shogun said, staring at her hard and then sitting up fast with her on his lap. He held her around the waist and spoke to her over a low growl. “You understand?”
Unfazed, she adjusted her legs to wrap around his waist as she kissed him and held him by the shoulders. “Everything that happens in here stays in here, always. House rules. I don’t even know what we were talking about.”
“I don’t see why we had to go,” Crow Shadow said in a forlorn voice as he and Bear Shadow trudged down the street. “They wanted us to stay until morning, and were even gonna make us breakfast.”
“Two things,” Bear Shadow said, counting off with his fingers as they walked. “Number one, these are human females, and the closer it gets to midnight, the more selfcontrol you’ll lose as your wolf makes you more aggressive… Gotta go before a tragedy happens.”
“Okay… True, true,” Crow Shadow said, rubbing the nape of his neck. “I can see that.”
“She was already fatigued, yes?” Bear Shadow said as they crossed the street.
“Laid out,” Crow Shadow said with a wide grin and then slapped Bear Shadow five.
Bear Shadow chuckled and shook his head. “That was my point.”
“So, what’s point two?”
“If you stay till morning, you stand the risk of getting attached.”
Crow Shadow nodded. “She was real nice.”
Bear Shadow nodded. “Mine was, too.” He let out a long sigh. “I made the proper excuses for us both… There was no reason to be dishonorable and hurt their feelings, after they were so… nice.”
“But, man, how the hell do you just get up out of some woman’s bed and not have her get her feelings hurt? We’re Shadow Wolves, we can’t lie… like-”
“We had to get back to the base, which is no lie-it is not my fault if she interpreted that as though we are soldiers… which is also not a full untruth. We are warriors.” He glanced at Crow Shadow from the corner of his eye and then looked straight ahead, speaking slowly and succinctly. “Warriors that have defied a direct order from our alpha, the commander and chief of the Shadow Wolf North American Federation, to guard the house. Hunter… is going to… 6 ip.”
Crow Shadow stopped walking, but Bear Shadow didn’t. Crow Shadow bent over and grabbed his hair with both hands. “Oh, shit! We didn’t even wait till Sasha got back safely… You know, to put our own eyes on her, man! Hunter is gonna-”
“Flip,” Bear Shadow called out, now a half block away.
Crow Shadow jogged to catch up to him. “What were we thinking, man?”
“We weren’t,” Bear Shadow said flatly. “I had absolutely no blood flow to my brain, and that is definitely no lie.”
“Like, when did it occur to you, man, that we were gonna get our faces ripped off?”
Bear Shadow let out a long weary breath. “Maybe after the third time I was done. Could have been the fourth.”
They walked along in companionable silence for several blocks, each man caught up in his own thoughts.
“But I would have liked to have breakfast with her, man, if this was going to be my last meal,” Crow Shadow said solemnly. “Southern hospitality and all.”
“If you would have stayed,” Bear Shadow said carefully. “You would have been on her body all night and she would have possibly wound up in ER in the morning. You didn’t need to add that to the list of offenses.”
“Okay, okay… But she was still nice.”
Bear Shadow stopped walking and his abruptness made Crow Shadow skid to a halt.
“Did you use protection?” Bear Shadow folded his arms over his barrel chest.
“Huh?” Crow Shadow’s eyes widened.
“Tell me you did not mate with a human female multiple times and not use human protection-just tell me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man,” Crow Shadow said, waving his arms as he walked in an agitated circle.
“Great Spirit, I know this is my punishment for giving in to my weaknesses,” Bear Shadow said, opening his arms, closing his eyes, and turning his face to the sky in supplication.
“What the hell are you talking about, Bear! Stop yanking me around!”
Bear Shadow leveled his gaze. “Brother, brother, brother… human females are on phase once a month. They can get pregnant at any time. They aren’t like she-wolves that go into heat biannually.”