She knew she had to do something quick or she’d lose Sara to the quagmire of her obsessive mind. “No, honey. Look at me. Don’t look at her.” Angie snapped her fingers in Sara’s face to regain her attention. “Focus on me and not the crazy bitch sitting across from us.”
“Hey!”
“Quiet, Kendrick.” Angie focused on Sara. “I need you to hear what I’m saying to you, Sara. Are you listening to me?” Sara nodded. “Good. Look, I’ve never met your mother, and she may have been a Mafia princess in training, but she had friends. People who would kill for her and die for her. Your grandmother had nobody.”
Angie took Sara’s hand off Roscoe and gripped it tightly. She wanted to make sure her friend heard her loud and clear. “But in the end, none of that matters. None of it. Because you’re not like either of them. You’re Sara. The coolest chick I’ve ever met in my life. You’ve got a seriously hot man who thinks you walk on water, a pack of people who respect and fear you, and the entire shifter universe completely convinced you and your friends are dangerous psychopaths.” Sara laughed at that. “And this whole Nik thing simply solidifies that. So, if I were you, I wouldn’t worry about you becoming some power hungry bitch. Do you know why?”
Wearing that gorgeous Sara smile, “No. Tell me, O’wise one.”
“’Cause, my dear, you are too fuckin’ lazy. If taking over the world requires you to get your fat ass up off the couch during football season—no one has anything to worry about.”
“Do you really think my ass is fat?”
“Well, honey, it ain’t small.”
“I think we better be careful throwing stones from that glass house, Santiago.”
“I can’t believe you called me a crazy bitch,” Miki cut in.
Angie dropped Sara’s hand and turned on Miki. “‘The Don Corleone of the Magnus Pack?’ What exactly is wrong with you?”
“Don’t yell at me!”
Angie turned away from Miki, her hand up and in front of Miki’s face. “We’re done.”
Miki growled, slapping Angie’s hand out of her face. But instead of ripping into her, as Angie expected, Miki focused on Sara. “Don’t worry, Sara. You’re sane. Weird, but sane.”
Smiling, Sara asked, “How the hell do you know?”
“Hey, dude. I’ve done the research. I’ve lived every day worrying that I’d cross that line between brilliance and madness.”
“Brilliance?”
“Shut up, Santiago. Anyway, I know all the signs, I’ve taken all the tests. You’re a freak, Morrighan, but you’re not an insane one.”
“Good to know, Kendrick.”
Miki grinned like she’d deciphered the Rosetta Stone.
But Angie did feel like she’d leaped her first big hurdle. Getting Sara to deal with the truth about her mother. Not easy, but Angie had done it. Next step…the truce. But this wasn’t the time or place for that conversation. No, she’d have to ease Sara into that one. But Angie was determined to do it. And she had just the idea to help her start her stubborn friend down the path.
“I was thinking, once Nik is safe back in North Carolina and desperately trying to forget me—”
Both her friends snorted at that and rolled their eyes, but she ground her teeth together and barreled on, “I thought we could go shopping.”
Sara, confused by the suggestion, stared at Angie “Why?”
“Because that’s what girlfriends do.”
“Normal girlfriends. I can shift into a completely different species. And she’s…” Sara glanced at Miki, “She’s crazy.”
“I am not. I took the test. I thought we just had this discussion.”
“I know, Momma. I know.” Nik covered the mouthpiece of the phone and motioned to Ban. “Call me,” he whispered fiercely.
Ban, laughing, leaned back. “Nik. I need you.”
With a grateful nod, he returned to his mother’s rant about how she wanted all “dogs” put down for their insolence.
“Momma, I gotta go. Ban needs me.”
“But you’re okay, right?”
“Momma, I’m fine. Really. I’ll call ya later.”
“All right, darlin’. I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Nik clicked off his phone.
“Love you, Momma,” his brothers sang to him.
Growling, Nik chucked one of the pillows at them. His brothers, after a moment of staring at him, threw pillows back. They’d been hoarding, waiting for this moment. Nik slammed pillows back at them as fast as he could. They took cover behind seats and cried “incoming”.
They kept it up a good five minutes before the captain came out of the cockpit and stared at them.
“I thought we had this discussion, Mr. Vorislav.”
Nik sighed. “Yes, we did.”
“No playing when the plane is in the air.”
“Yeah, but—” Ban began, but the captain cut him off with one look.
“No playing when the plane is in the air. Do you understand me?”
The men nodded.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Yes,” they answered in unison.
“Good.”
The captain returned to his cockpit.
“That is the last time we hire Marines for that position.”
“No shit. He’s downright surly that one.”
Nik sat back in his seat as his brothers lambasted another man’s good sense.
Unlike the captain, though, Nik knew exactly what his brothers were doing. Trying to get his mind off Angie. At least for the moment. They’d never say it, but they both felt guilty. By taking Angie they brought the wrath of the Magnus Pack’s crazy Alpha bitch down on his head.
She could have killed him. Or, at least tried. But this revenge was much more eloquent. Proof to the cats they trifled with her and her kin at their own risk. If it hadn’t been his butt waking up in the zoo, he would have thought the whole thing pretty damn funny. His brothers definitely did, once they knew he was basically okay. Apparently someone called Ban and told him exactly where to find Nik.
Ban swore it wasn’t Angie. He said he’d know that sexy voice anywhere. So it must have been one of her friends. They’d made their point, so the rest was gravy.
Of course, none of that mattered. Nothing mattered until he knew the truth about Angie and her involvement in all this.
And definitely not until he fucked her again.
“Here. Try this.” Angie took the lip brush and put a dark red lip gloss on Miki’s bottom lip. She leaned back. “Nope. That’s not working. It’s too dark.”
Angie wiped the lip gloss off Miki with a tissue. She needed to do something to distract herself from the current situation. Sara still wasn’t telling her where she’d put Nik, Derek still hadn’t phoned her back, and Nik’s family still hadn’t contacted her. She could imagine how angry his mother would be. And she couldn’t quite get One-Eyed Grandma out of her head either. She’d have to call one of her great aunts back in Brazil. See if she could do a protection spell for the entire Pack.
“Wow.”
Angie stood and went to her makeup case. “What’s wrong?”
Miki looked up from the laptop she’d been studying for the past hour. “Having a baby is frikin’ expensive.”
Angie glanced at her. Talk about coming to the party late. “Yeah. They’re expensive.”
Miki let out a deep sigh and went back to her computer. Before Angie could ask her what her problem was, Conall muttering “hey” to one of the other wolves outside the door spurred Miki to sudden and swift action. She jumped up and began pulling her skirt off.
“What in hell are you doing?”
“I love this skirt.”
“What?”