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Two vehicles pulled up in the street in front of Hellen’s house and most of their occupants got out shaking hands and patting each other on the back before walking toward their own vehicles.

Two of them didn’t speak at all; Lucien, who walked right up the driveway of Hellen’s home, and Remi, who silently walked toward his car parked about half a block from Hellen’s driveway.

“Lucien!” Havoc yelled.

Lucien stopped and turned in Havoc’s direction.

“You good?”

Lucien nodded slowly. “I appreciate all of you helping tonight.”

“It’s what family does, man. No problem,” Havoc said.

“He’s right,” Brandt added.

“Sure is,” Kaid said.

Lucien lifted an arm to wave at everybody, then disappeared into the house.

“Remi!” Brandt said, his voice just lifted a little above his natural level. “You good?”

Remi kept walking, but lifted an arm to flash a peace sign at Brandt.

“Hey, Remi!” Shaun shouted.

Remi stopped in his tracks, but didn’t turn around.

“I just wanted to say how fucking awesome your Dragon is. And how much I respect you for being able to manage a beast like that.”

Remi stood there a minute longer before he started walking again.

He got into his car, started it up and made a U-turn in the middle of the street.

His tail lights faded from sight as he followed the natural curve of the street on his way back to his own home at the opposite end of that same street.

“Heading home, boys. Thank you,” Maverik said.

“Thank you,” Brandt answered.

“I’m going to Barron’s to get Everly, then we’re going home. You need to talk to that girl tomorrow, Mav,” Bam said.

“I think I’ll withhold my ass-chewing until Lucien gets a chance to deliver his. That boy is mad as hell.”

“Got a right to be,” Brandt said. “Sneaking off on her own to deal with something she already knows almost killed her mate, and playing it down in the letter she left him. She all but bold-faced lied. She’s got one coming from me, too.”

“I love being able to participate without having to dole out the snippets of wisdom,” Kaid said, snickering as he moved in the same direction as Maverik.

“You just don’t want her to give you a dose of her attitude,” Maverik said with a grin.

“And I’m not afraid to admit it,” Kaid said, as he and Maverik crossed the street toward Maverik’s truck.

“I’ll see y’all tomorrow. I’m gonna get some sleep so I can get an early start tomorrow,” Shaun said.

“What’s happening tomorrow?” Bam asked.

“Helping Daisy with her renovations,” Brandt said.

“Oh, yeah. I remember Bane said something about that,” Bam said. “I may drop in, I may not. We’ll see.”

Inside the house, Lucien stood in the shadows watching as the males said their goodbyes, made a bit of smalltalk, and eventually went thankfully on their ways.

Once they were all gone, and the street was finally still, he walked out the back door of the house and retraced the same path he’d followed when he’d first tracked Hellen from the waters edge between Brandt’s and Barron’s homes to hers.

He was so frustrated and angry with Hellen that the last thing he wanted to do at this point was speak to her.

They’d left her behind to deal with her boss and the coworkers they were sending out to contain the “flash swamp fire”, and he had no idea just how long she’d be before she got home, but whenever that might be, he wasn’t in much of a mood to talk to her.

He didn’t see how it would lead to anything good at this point.

He was having trouble getting past the fact that she intentionally withheld the truth from him, while simultaneously putting herself in danger.

They’d spoken about trusting each other and not playing games, and she’d completely ignored the understanding they had and blasted what little trust they’d built full of holes.

With his mind churning with thoughts of Hellen and all the trouble she’d caused, not only him but everyone in her family, he found himself walking right up to the edge of the water before he’d even realized he’d arrived at the river.

Breathing in the scent of the dark night waters, his senses were calmed immediately by the sounds of the night creatures living in and around it.

Closing his eyes, he allowed his awareness to travel out across the water and it in turn called to him.

“This is all I need,” he said to himself quietly as he opened his eyes, blinking rapidly until his good eye focused again.

He began to undress, leaving everything he’d been wearing in a pile on the ground as he shifted into his Gator and slid into the water.

The water embraced him, surrounding his body as he submerged himself. All stress was washed away as he thrashed his powerful tail and propelled himself through the murky waters, leaving all his frustrations and Hellen behind.

~~~

Hellen pulled into her driveway and wearily got out of her jeep as the sun was just beginning to pinken the sky.

She used the key fob to lock the doors of the jeep as she walked toward the house.

She’d had time to think about everything on her drive home and knew she’d been wrong.

She’d known she was wrong as she wrote the freaking letter.

Problem was, she couldn’t go back and undo it.

Even if she could, she’d probably do things the same way all over again.

It was her way to protect those she loved, even if all she was doing was keeping them from going out of their way.

But in this instance, it was more than that — Lucien wasn’t quite a hundred percent, and there was no reason to pull the rest of her clan into this and put them in danger, too.

It was work. The fact that wildlife management and poachers were a standard responsibility of her job made her even more sure that this was something she’d have had to address whether she happened to know Lucien or not.

She’d have been pulled into it eventually.

And it made her angry that not one of her clan gave her a minute bit of credit.

She’d been doing this job on her own for years now, and not one of them ever even asked her about it.

No one showed any interest until she’d finally taken a mate, and then not even he believed in her.

“Assholes,” she muttered as she stepped into the house and locked the door safely behind herself.

“Lucien!” she called. To hell with being quiet. If she was awake and angry, so would he be. “Lucien!”

Only the silence greeted her.

She tossed her keys on the kitchen counter and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge before making her way down the hallway to her bedroom.

“You know, I might have been wrong about leaving the note, and even more wrong about not revealing everything in it, but you are so wrong for having no faith in me. This is the kind of thing I do all the time, on my own, without backup! I confront hunters on the daily while they’re still holding their hunting rifles.

I take possession of animals that were harvested illegally and handcuff those who did it.

I’m not a helpless female and I resent that every single one of you treated me that way last night!

” she said forcefully as she pushed the door open and stood there with the hallway light shining behind her, leaving her a dark outline framed in the doorway.

“Great. That’s just great. You’re going to lie there and ignore me.

” She reached out and flipped on the light, her eyes blinking repeatedly as she took in the sight of the still made bed.

She didn’t walk into the bathroom — she didn’t need to, she knew he wasn’t in there.

Instead, she walked out into the living room, thinking that maybe he was sleeping on the sofa.

As she got close to the sofa she saw that he wasn’t there either.

And she knew before she even glanced at the television that there was no note taped to it. He just wasn’t there.

She stood there for several minutes unsure of what to do next, then she realized they were mates, their telepathic connection was strong and fully in place.

Sending a nudge his way, she got nothing back.

She didn’t even get the sensation of being blocked, it was like he wasn’t even there.

She sat heavily on the edge of the sofa, looking questioningly out into the darkness through the sliding glass doors. “He’s gone,” she whispered.

~~~

Bailey woke early, even earlier than was her usual wakeup time and lay there for a while staring into the darkness, her mind thinking over everything Tempest had told her the night before.

But regardless of all the fantastical things Tempest had confided in her, one of the most human things Tempest said rang true above all the rest. No matter what choice Remi made, he couldn’t win.

Lying there thinking it over, her brow furrowed when the obvious solution suddenly occurred to her.

“I can fix this,” she whispered. She got up and quickly changed from the nightgown she’d borrowed from Tempest, into the clothes she’d worn the previous day.

She made the bed, then folded Tempest’s nightgown and left it on the bed.

She slipped on her shoes and quietly opened the door.

Stepping into the hallway, she held still while listening for any activity at all.

Hearing none, she very quietly left Brandt’s and Tempest’s house, locking the door behind herself and tiptoeing down the staircase outside to her car parked below.

Bailey backed out and drove away, knowing she had to take care of this before she went to work, and she had to be at work to start her day at 3:30 this morning, so she had very little time to settle things with Remi.

~~~