Page 24

“I saw him with her yesterday. He’s got this. How you doing, Lucien?” Vince asked.

“Better than I ever expected,” Lucien said, extending his hand to shake Vince’s as Vince approached.

Maverik smiled. “Where you belong I’m thinking,” Maverik said, his smile genuine as he hugged Lucien again.

“No doubt,” Lucien said.

“So, listen,” Maverik said, growing tired of not addressing the true reason of them all being here, “I told everybody what you confided in me,”

“Which is why I went to get you this morning. We figured if Hellen knows, she’d go off half-cocked and we needed to get our bearings here first,” Brandt said.

“I understand,” Lucien said.

“You know everybody here?” Brandt asked.

Lucien looked around the large group of males some sitting in lawn chairs, some leaning on stumps and against the railing of the steps leading up to a side door of Kaid’s place, and some just standing.

Some were of Brandt’s generation, others older and obviously of Maverik’s generation.

“Not quite everybody,” Lucien said, realizing there were a few unfamiliar faces there.

“Those of y’all that haven’t met him, this is Lucien, Hellen’s mate. And it has been made official. He’s one of us, now,” Brandt said.

Congratulations and welcomes were offered from everybody there. One of the males stood and walked over to offer his hand. “I’m Remi. Good to meet you. Welcome.”

“Remi. Appreciate it,” Lucien said.

“I’m Shaun. Glad to meet you,” Shaun said, almost mimicking Remi’s behavior exactly.

Remi scowled at Shaun, and Shaun smirked at Remi.

“I’m Kiernan,” a third male said.

“Lucien,” Lucien said, inclining his head.

“I’m Daniel. Remi’s my son,” Daniel explained. “Heard you were around but missed meeting you at Kaid’s yesterday.”

“That was a fun time,” Lucien said.

Daniel laughed. “I feel for you. Imagine being the only thing in the world your mate is afraid of and every one of the males in her clan wants you to die when you show up.”

“Oh, damn. No, I’ll take my circumstances, thank you, though,” Lucien said.

“Glad you’re here, Lucien. Hellen deserves all the happiness she can get. She’s a wonderful young lady,” Daniel said.

“Thank you. Glad to be here.” He took a minute to look around at everybody else and realized he knew them all.

Kaid, Maverik, Bam, Bane, Vince, Brandt, Barron, and Christian.

But then his gaze landed on the only two males who hadn’t introduced themselves.

But one of them didn’t have to. He looked so much like Hellen that it was clear this male was her twin.

“You must be Havoc,” Lucien said, looking Havoc in the eyes.

“Yeah. I’m Havoc. The fuck you claiming my sister without even bothering to come to introduce yourself to her family and ask permission?”

“Havoc!” Maverik warned.

Lucien grinned. “And there it is…”

“There what is?” Havoc asked.

“That attitude that I love so much in your sister, and in your daughter. I had no doubt you had it, too.”

Havoc’s brows bunched down over his eyes. “That’s it? That’s the best you got?”

“Best I got? No, the best I got is Hellen. I’ll fight tooth and nail against anything that even so much as irritates her. I’m stating a fact. Like it or don’t, it doesn’t matter to me.” Lucien turned his attention to the younger boy who looked a whole lot like Havoc and Hellen. “Hey.”

“How you doing? I’m Ronan. Welcome to the family. Ignore Havoc. He’s an ass.”

“Hey! I’m not an ass. I’m protecting my sister’s honor.”

“In case you haven’t understood. That’s my job now. I don’t like people making her unhappy, and I don’t like people assuming to speak for her. And I’m sorry if this pisses you off, but that includes family. She’s mine. I’m hers. Get used to it, or get the fuck out of our way,” Lucien said.

Havoc’s eyes narrowed as he took Lucien’s measure, then one side of his mouth turned up, displaying his crooked grin. “That’s all I need to know, brother!” He walked over to Lucien and performed a complicated hand shake, hand slap, finger grab routine.

Lucien nodded and did his best to keep up with whatever the hell it was Havoc was trying to complete as a handshake.

But he did notice when he touched Havoc, just how dangerous he was.

He might have made a nuisance of himself by being a loud-mouth, he might have even thrown around a threat or two here and there, but the thing was, this Wolf could back it up.

He was a shit-stirrer, but he was also a very dangerous male.

“Let’s get this meeting started. No need to go over the whole thing again, I updated everybody. What are we going to do about it?” Maverik asked.

“We have to stop them. Take them out to protect the animals, so they don’t start it up somewhere else,” Brandt said.

“They’re shifters?” Barron asked.

“Yeah. Badgers, mostly. A Panther. A couple of Bears. Whoever else they might have brought in since they ‘killed’ me.”

“I hate a damn Badger. They’re some killing bastards. Psychotic fuckers,” Bane said.

“Without a doubt. I’m talking hundreds of animal carcases rotting in the sun,” Lucien said. “Only thing that slowed it even slightly was when I started taking them out one-by-one. I’m sure with them thinking I’m gone, it’s right back to where it was before.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard to find, then,” Kiernan said.

“You’d think not, but that’s not the only thing they’re moving. So, they do try to at least keep the evidence off the shores and in the less inhabited areas,” Lucien said.

“How many you take out before they got you?” Havoc asked.

“Eight. There’s at least twice that left,” Lucien said.

“Don’t see any reason we can’t handle this ourselves,” Daniel said.

“Yep. Gotta stop it. Fucking shifters having absolutely no respect for nature and the wildlife in it,” Kaid said.

“We already know there’s bad shifters just like there’s bad people, bad dogs, bad everything,” Bam said. “But there’s good, too. We got to protect the good, especially when they can’t protect themselves.”

“Amen to that,” Vince said.

“What about the females?” Barron asked.

“I can’t see any reason to lie to them. Tell them what we’re going to take care of,” Brandt said.

“I second that,” Kaid said. “Some of our females are as strong if not stronger than we are.”

“Except Hellen. We can’t tell Hellen,” Maverik said.

“Hold on; what?” Lucien asked, not liking that they wanted him to keep a secret from his brand new mate.

“She is a Wild Life and Fisheries agent. What part of getting herself in ass deep don’t you get?” Maverik asked.

“It’s her job. It’s what she does,” Lucien said, defending his want to tell her about it.

“Yeah, it is. And she’s not a rule breaker.

She’s strong as hell, but she’s not like Havoc.

She will follow every damn rule down to the nth degree!

She’ll have the damn place crawling with human authorities before we get a chance to clean it up and they’ll either get killed, or we risk the fact that shifters exist will be found out, but regardless, Hellen and all of us will get caught in the crossfire.

We do not need that,” Maverik said. “I love my girl, but damn, why couldn’t she play a little looser with the rules on any damn thing. ”

“She told y’all the other day, she’s not the problem child, she’s the good child,” Bam said, grinning.

“That she is,” Maverik agreed. “I give her a hard time, act like I did, but I never had to give her a second thought.”

“I’m not sure, but I think I resent that,” Havoc said, having not been there to hear the context of the conversation that might have implied that he was the problem child.