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“She already thinks kindly of you,” I said.

“Ah, yes. She did bring up… the offspring.” Duncan’s expression didn’t suggest he was into that notion.

“Yeah, sorry about that. She gets ideas in her head, and she’s a stubborn woman. But you don’t need to bribe her with medallions to visit. The ones who attacked you… They’re all gone now.”

“All? The brute who jumped me on the porch wasn’t one of Augustus’s followers, was he?”

“You mean Rocco? Whom you smashed face-first into the log wall? You couldn’t have been disturbed by that ineffectual display of aggression.”

“I suppose he wasn’t egregious to deal with, but it would be nice…” As Duncan trailed off, looking past my shoulder, his expression grew wistful.

“To have a family?” I asked, aware that he’d never had that, not in his youth, growing up in Abrams’s castle laboratory, and apparently not in the decades he’d been a nomadic treasure-hunter either. “A pack?”

“Over the years, I’ve occasionally found the notion had some appeal.”

“It might, but I don’t know ifmypack is the one you’d want.”

Duncan snorted softly. “Does anyone ever love the family they’re born into?”

“I don’t know. My sons are okay.”

“Even the one who gave you chocolate-covered crickets?”

“Especiallythe one who gave me chocolate-covered crickets.”

Austin, after all, had come home for Christmas. I hoped he had a good time snowboarding with his friends—and that Radomir and Abrams didn’t know he existed.Hedidn’t have any werewolf magic and wouldn’t be able to assist in figuring out those artifacts, so he shouldn’t interest them in any way. By now, they’d probably lost their interest in me too. It wasn’t as if much had happened when they’d lured me up to their base so I could touch the wolf medallion.

“That’s not a new preference for you, is it?” Duncan asked. “Because if you adore those chocolates, I could buy you a pallet of them.”

“Don’t you dare. I really would have your van towed. And as it was dragged away, I would pelt it with candy crickets.”

Duncan grinned at me. Did he look… smitten? Nah, he probably had something in his eye.

“I’ve missed your snark,” he said.

Huh, maybe thatwasa smitten look. I admit it touched me.Mostmen I’d dated, including my ex-husband, had found my sarcasm unappealing.Vexingwas a word I’d heard often.

“You should have called and invited me along on your adventure.” I stepped closer to him, reaching a hand toward his.

“Would you have come?” Duncan wrapped his fingers around mine. “I believe you only joined me at the pond next to the convenience store because you were avoiding people.”

Bolin’s parents, yes. I tried not to think about the problem they represented, one that couldn’t be solved with werewolf magic or anything else that I could imagine.

“The pond full of duck droppings didn’t sound that interesting to me,” I said.

“Such a strange woman you are.”

“Says the naked guy standing amid the remains of a robot dog.”

“Itisa romantic setting, isn’t it? Did you see the glowing bats?”

“Yeah, they really set the mood.”

“Quite.”

He must not have been dive-bombed by them.

He leaned closer, eyebrows raised. Asking for permission to kiss me?