“Don’t touch him,” Wanda warned. “He’l bite your hand off as happily as he’l lap up his own brother’s blood.”
Pietr snarled as if in agreement. Startled, I yanked my hands away.
“Unbutton your shirt.”
I whipped around to see Catherine leaning against the door frame. “What?”
She shrugged. “We’re animals, after al , Jessie. Survival and dominance drive us. Pietr’s deep in his desire to dominate, and Max isn’t smart enough to submit.”
desire to dominate, and Max isn’t smart enough to submit.”
“She’s right,” Alexi coughed, rol ing over to watch with detached curiosity. “Give him something else to focus on.”
“I doubt unbuttoning my shirt wil get Pietr’s attention.”
“You might be surprised,” Alexi muttered.
My gaze flicked to Wanda.
“Do what you have to before I do what I have to.” She tapped the holster snuggled just beneath her shirt.
Max started sliding forward, eyelids drooping. I fumbled at my top button.
“Pietr,” I whispered, stooping back over to catch his eyes. The first button opened.
Pietr’s eyes narrowed.
I opened the second button. “Pietr, don’t do this,” I pleaded, focusing my eyes on his. He watched my fingers work, watched them tremble and flounder. His eyes widened when he got a glimpse of more bare skin.
“You’re no monster.” I drew down a deep breath. This was not what I’d ever imagined as a moment with my werewolf ex-boyfriend. Not me unbuttoning my shirt. And not in front of an audience.
I tried to think of it as an actress playing a part with a strange actor. Necessary. But nothing to do with anyone’s relationship. I fought back the fact I’d earned a D in Drama. My life now should rate extra credit.
The third button opened, and the tension left Pietr’s jaws. He let go. There was a clunk as the back of his head hit the floor. He rol ed to right himself, lying on his furry stomach, canine attention absolutely fixed, tongue lol ing. To the credit of his animal instincts his eyes stayed hopeful, entranced by what remained beyond button four.
Max flopped to the floor with a whine. One eye stil open, it also lingered on my fourth button expectantly.
Catherine howled and I blushed, buttoning up in record time.
“What have I said, Jessie? Men can be total dogs,” Wanda said, blousing her shirt around her holster.
I kept my eyes on her to avoid the distraction of two naked guys slipping back into the clothes their wolflike counterparts always slinked out of.
Max spoke first, back in his pants and running his hand through his tangled hair. “Thanks, Jessie,” he said coyly. “For everything.” He grinned and rubbed the wicked bruise already fading on his throat.
Pietr’s head snapped up, the first rumblings of a growl beginning. Blood streaked his shoulder, but the long cut mended as I watched.
I stomped a foot. “See that, Pietr Rusakova?”
He rol ed his eyes from my foot to my face, only pausing briefly on my shirt’s buttons on the way up.
“Da,” he said thickly.
“That is me putting my foot down. No fighting with family.”
He arched an eyebrow at me.
“And don’t expect me to”—my tongue tangled in my mouth and heat rose to color my cheeks—“to do that for you again, either.” I crossed my arms.
His lips twitched. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he whispered.
Max snorted. “It’s al you’l be dreaming of now, little brother!”
I kicked him in the leg. Not hard. But it was better than getting his attention by unbuttoning part of my shirt again. Far more satisfying, too. “You almost got your head chewed off.”
“Because you threatened Jess,” Pietr said level y.
Max rubbed his jaw, remembering my slap.
My hand ached. Max was thick-skul ed in more than one way. I’d probably remember the slap longer than he would.
“I’d never hurt Jessie.”
“Damn rrright you won’t,” Pietr said.
Heart in my throat, I reminded myself this wasn’t about me. This was stupid alpha and beta wolf stuff, nothing more. I was territory to piss on. And man, did it piss me off.
Max looked at me and lowered his gaze. Submitting for now. “Sorry, Jessie. Are you al right?”
“Yes. I’m fine,” I insisted. “Why is everyone so worried about me? Ask Alexi how he’s doing.”
Alexi bowed his head, looking away.
“We’d have to care before we’d ask,” Max said, his simple logic chil ing.
“He’s been your brother for years,” I reminded them.
Catherine frowned. “He’s played our brother for years. He is no relation. We share no blood or DNA.
No kinship.”
“But you share a bond.”
Three pairs of eyes met mine. Assessed me as if they were once again more wolf, more ferociously feral, than not.
“The bond of your secret.”
“And that means he’s a liability,” Max stated.
“Am I a liability, Max?” I stepped forward.
Wanda hissed. “Do you have a death wish?”
“I know the same thing Alexi does. Wil you try to kil me?”
“Don’t you have any common sense?” Wanda wondered aloud. “Nonconfrontational!”
“Wel , Max? When wil you try to choke the life out of me?”
Max dragged a finger along the carpet’s edge. “I won’t.” One shoulder rose. “You’re strange—”
“Says a werewolf,” I muttered. Wanda swore. And not for the first time since we’d entered the room.
Max smirked. “I trust you, Jessie. I used to trust him. But now, he just needs to go.”
“Unfortunately that won’t work. He’s the only one of legal age to play guardian,” Wanda pointed out.
“A few months from now…,” Max growled as he rose, reminding us al of his upcoming eighteenth birthday. He crossed his arms and widened his stance, readying for a confrontation.
With a sigh, Wanda continued. “If he goes, you al wind up wards of the state.”
“Foster care,” I realized.
“Yes. Probably split apart because groups are harder to place.”
The three ful -blood Rusakovas grumbled.