Once they reached the table, Kye introduced her to Eli, Saskia’s husband, then to Leif and Jaden, leaving Miles for last. Kye and she took the two remaining empty chairs, which had Michaela sitting next to Eli.
After the introductions were over, Leif turned to Kye, and said, “I guess I should thank you for telling Miles about Jaden being pregnant.”
She saw Kye cringe. “I wasn’t thinking, all right. I was a bit…distracted trying to handle something else at the time. I didn’t mean to ruin the surprise.”
“From the looks of you and Michaela, I’d say you two worked through your distraction,” Miles said with a laugh. “I assume congr—” He stopped talking and reached down to rub his leg under the table and looked over at Jaden. “What did you kick me for?”
Jaden glared at him, giving an almost infinitesimal nod in Michaela’s direction. “Dad, you don’t want to say something that will embarrass Kye’s girlfriend, do you?”
Michaela’s gaze shot over to Miles. There was no way he could be Jaden’s father. He didn’t look much older than her. And the way Jaden had stressed the word “girlfriend,” Michaela thought it a bit strange.
“Oh, sorry,” Miles quickly said in return. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
Jaden nodded, then looked at Kye. “It’s okay about you telling my dad about me being pregnant. I wasn’t upset by it.” She glared at her husband. “Not like someone else.”
Leif held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. I only thought you might want to wait until you were a little bit further along. You’re only four weeks pregnant.”
“So? I might not go around telling the whole world, but I had planned to tell my dad.”
Leif ran a hand over his face. “I think I’m just going to shut my mouth now, since every time I open it, I seem to bury myself in deeper shit.”
One minute they were all chuckling over what Leif had said, and the next, everyone, except for Michaela, instantly quieted. They appeared to sniff the air, and a low animalistic growl rumbled out of them, except for Jaden and her. Michaela couldn’t overlook the sound this time, as she’d managed to do every time Kye had done it.
She stiffened when a group of men suddenly arrived on the lawn a short distance away. They moved so fast Michaela had a hard time tracking them. It definitely wasn’t normal.
All the men and Saskia shot to their feet as one man from the other group stepped forward and spoke. “Did you think you could just drop us like we were crap on your shoe, Miles, and think we would just walk away?”
“Leave, Curtis, or this is not going to end well for you and the others,” Miles snapped back.
Curtis laughed. “You think we’re afraid of you and a few Protectors? You promised us that once you had the foretold one in your possession things would be different in the packs. That we, the lone wolves, would have all the control. Just because it’s your daughter doesn’t mean we don’t want what you’d said we’d get if we joined you.”
Miles snarled his lip and snapped his teeth. “The foretold one being my daughter does change everything. She has also opened my eyes to the path my life had taken—one that would’ve ended in my destruction.”
Curtis slowly clapped his hands. “Ah, isn’t that sweet. But that doesn’t get me the status or money you promised us.”
Michaela felt a scream lock in her throat as Curtis and the men behind him turned into wolves. At the scrape of chairs being violently pushed away, she looked at the others around her as they too, one by one, became wolves. She couldn’t pull her gaze away as Kye’s eyes glowed mutedly just before his body shimmered and blurred, taking on the form of a wolf with very light brown fur.
The two groups of wolves launched themselves at each other. Michaela found herself unable to move, her mind having a hard time processing what she actually saw. A large hand wrapped around her arm and pulled her away from the table.
“Get back,” Leif shouted. She turned to find him and Jaden close by. He let go of her and cupped his wife’s face in his hands. “Promise me you won’t shift.”
Jaden shook her head. “It’s still early enough in the pregnancy that I can without hurting the baby.”
“I don’t care, Jaden. I don’t want you in the fight. You’ve never had to face anything like this before. Just do as I ask. Please.”
Jaden closed her eyes for a few seconds and nodded. “All right. Just be careful.”
Michaela couldn’t hold back a startled yelp as Leif too became a wolf in a matter of seconds, then ran off to join the fray. “What…what are you people?”
“I’m sure this isn’t how Kye wanted you to find out, Michaela, but we’re all werewolves,” Jaden said.
“You’re one too?”
“Yes.” Jaden looked toward the battle that took place on the lawn. “God, they’re outnumbered. If anything happens to Leif or my dad, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Seeing how upset Jaden was, it helped to bring Michaela out of some of the numbness that had descended over her. They were two women with no way to protect themselves as a group of wolves tore into each other with teeth and claws.
She looked around for something that could be used as a weapon, or at least as a deterrent. They might be werewolves, but they were still just wolves with the same weakness as the wild variety from the looks of it, though they were slightly bigger. Relying on her training from the zoo, she knew she should never confront an aggressive animal empty-handed. It was too bad there wasn’t a tranquilizer gun nearby.
Michaela spotted the metal straight-edged rake that leaned against the brick wall of the house. She ran over to it and snatched it up. It wasn’t much, but its points would hurt. She’d just turned around to go back to Jaden when the other woman screamed.
“Dad! No!”
Looking in the direction Jaden stared, Michaela saw a white wolf being pinned by a darker one who had his jaws around the back of his neck. Now that she’d convinced herself to think of them as just normal wolves, her fear evaporated. Having dealt with larger and potentially more dangerous animals at the zoo, she had no qualms about going in to help the white wolf she’d seen Miles shift into.
Running up to the pair, she swung the rake at the darker wolf’s head, knocking him away from the white one. He turned and snapped at her, but she shoved her makeshift weapon in his face. “Don’t even try it. I’ve faced down a pissed off tiger before, and you’re nothing compared to that.”
Michaela hovered over the white wolf as he slowly got up on his feet. His assailant looked as if he wanted to try and come at her again, but a loud howl preceded a form covered in light brown fur launching itself at him. The fight between them was vicious and over quickly with the second wolf being the victor. After that the battle wound down.
“Thanks.”
Michaela turned her head to see Miles once again human and standing where the white wolf had been. He bled from a number of places. “You’re welcome.”
“Weren’t you afraid? Most mortals would think twice before wading into the middle of a werewolf fight.”
She shrugged. “I’m an animal keeper at the zoo. I deal with wild animals every day.”
Miles threw back his head and laughed. “I have to say you’re the perfect mate for a werewolf.”
At the sound of her name being called, Michaela looked over to see Kye standing over the defeated wolf in human form. He had a few bite and claw marks on him, but he looked relatively unharmed. Dropping the rake, she ran into his open arms.