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“D raw eight!” Morlie set her draw-four card on the discard pile and smiled at Lovel.

The three had moved from the kitchen to the living room and sat around the coffee table, playing the old game.

Morlie used to play this game with her parents and sister when she was younger, and it was always one of her favorites.

When Amira mentioned the UNO, Morlie was excited to play the nostalgic card game.

Amira had first hit her with a draw-four, but Morlie held onto that same card for such a moment and was pleased she could pass on the extra cards pull to another player, leaving her with only two cards.

The game had been just what Morlie needed to keep her mind from drifting to Chanin.

She wanted to see him and wondered what kept him so long.

Their situation between her and him was too new for her to believe she missed him. However, besides the two women keeping her occupied in his absence, Chanin was the only person she knew in the Lupine territory. Not to mention, he was her mate.

That thought warmed her blood and caused a tightness in her core.

She could not help but recall what happened between them in the woods.

She held her cards in one hand and pressed the palm of the other to her hot cheek, trying to cool it.

The last thing she needed was for her new friends to see her flush and question her. Exhaling, she focused back on the game.

Lovel frowned at the pile and then stared at the four cards she held. “Um... I don’t think so.” She pulled a card out of her hand and set it on top of the card Morlie had just laid down. “Draw twelve, love.”

“Ah!” Amira squealed. “No way. How could you do this to me.” Amira leaned toward Lovel and batted her lashes. “I thought you loved me, mate.”

Smiling, Lovel reached across the table and caressed Amira’s cheek gently. “I do. But I plan to finally beat you at this silly, childish game.”

Amira pouted. “Childish, hm.” She collected her twelve cards from the stack next to the discard pile. “Watch me. I’ll have a comeback. And you’ll have to change the baby’s diapers the first month.”

Morlie scrunched her nose. Before she got sick, she used to volunteer at the daycare plex after her learning day.

So many people had babies to get the government stipend, but the extra sum on their account didn’t last long, and most mothers had to return to work within six months of having a child.

She recalled just how bad an infant's diaper could stink.

She felt sorry for Amira for issuing the challenge because she had planned to win the game before the other human.

“You’re not going to beat me. But I won’t mind doing whatever to tend to our little one’s needs once it gets here.”

“Well, I am sorry to disappoint you both. But I am going to win. Uno!” Morlie set down the wild card. “The color is yellow.” It was the color of the last card in her hand.

Lovel, whose turn was after Morlie’s, mouth dropped open wide. Somehow, Lovel had utterly missed the few cards in Morlie’s hand while trying to beat her human mate. “Damn it.”

Morlie danced in her seat, excited that she was about to take the game.

Then Lovel offered her a wicked smile. She slowly pulled out a card from her hand. When she set it down, they all saw it was a wild card, just like Morlie’s. “The color is red.”

Morlie groaned. The color change would force her to pick a card out of the stack when it came around to her turn again.

“Thank you, beautiful.” Amira cheered and started a dance of her own. “Not so fast there, Morlie. Draw two.” She placed a red draw-two card on the pile.

“I wasn’t trying to help you, but whatever stops Morlie.”

“Hey, don’t you all know the rule that you should let your guests win the first time you invite them over?

” Morlie plucked two cards. Disappointment weighed her shoulders when she saw one was a yellow card and the other a blue one.

Now, she had three cards in her hand, and none of them were helpful.

“I think you just made that up,” Amira teased.

“Did it work?” Morlie raised her brows.

“Nope.”

“Never,” Lovel added. “We’re wolves. We always fight to win.” She relinquished another card from her hand.

They went around the table again, where Morlie had to pull another useless card, and Lovel’s hand dwindled to two.

When Amira laid down a wild card and changed the color to green, Morlie peered at her through squinted eyes. She pulled another card—yellow eight. “You planned that.”

Amira laughed. “Yes. I planned not to make it yellow. But I also hope Lovel doesn’t have any green cards.”

Lovel stuck her tongue out at Amira as she confirmed what was in her hand when she drew a card.

When they went around the table again, Morlie was finally about to place her yellow eight on top of Amira’s discarded green eight and change the odds back in her favor.

“I wonder how much longer Bleddyn will be,” Lovel questioned as she plucked.

Morlie wasn’t sure if the she-wolf asked because she was gaining more cards than giving up or if she missed her mate. Either way, Morlie had the same question and desire to see Chanin but was glad she didn’t have to say it.

“He’s either shielded his thoughts or perhaps too far away for us to pick up.” Amira absently rubbed her stomach as she frowned.

“Should we be worried?” Morlie peered out the window. It was late now. The sun had set a while ago. Since there weren’t many lights beyond the porch, she couldn’t see much in the darkness.

If these two women’s vision was like Chanin’s when he had walked them through the pitch-black woods, they could see a lot more than her if they looked out. Since both Amira and Lovel questioned their return, she doubted they had seen anything.

“Uno!” Morlie finally called out again during her next turn.

“Again—” Amira began but stopped and turned toward the door.

Morlie glanced in the same direction. She had not heard any steps coming up the porch.

However, a moment later, she heard the rumble of male voices a few seconds before the door opened.

Then her gaze alighted on Chanin as his tall, lean, muscled frame filled the door. His blue eyes found her’s in the room and locked on.

“Mates.” Bleddyn entered next.

She didn’t pay the Beta any attention, nor Bleddyn’s two mates, who rose to their feet and went to greet him. Morlie couldn’t focus away from the one man who arrested all her attention. Still seated, she let her gaze travel from his handsome face to his bare chest and rugged jeans. She gasped.

“Are you hurt?” She tossed down her card and scrambled to her feet as she realized something that resembled blood covered Chanin’s body.

Instinctively, she reached out to ensure he was all right, but he grasped her wrists and stopped her.

“I’m fine. It’s not mine,” Chanin reassured her.

A cool sensation washed over her, relief. Morlie couldn’t stop taking in the sight of all the blood and dirt now that she was right before him. “What happened? Whose is—?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I want to take you home.” Chanin’s big hands flexed around her wrist, making her feel fragile. Not because he was hurting her but because she was very aware of his strength and size compared to her.

He didn’t so much as frighten her. Neither did she believe he would do her harm, but maybe it was after the day she had, and being surrounded by the might of the Lupines made her aware of her mortality.

Humans may have controlled the earth for centuries, but it was clear to Morlie in the last few weeks that it was because the preternatural world allowed it—humans were the weaker vessels.

The heat in his gaze caused her heart to race, and the same heat she had felt earlier at the thought of him returned twice as intense. “Home?”

“Yes. We have unfinished business, Morlie.”

The tension and need swirling around them zipped and crackled with sexual energy.

Even though Morlie's only experience in that area was the moments she spent with Chanin, which felt like a lifetime ago, her body understood what was building between them.

It was responding to him in ways that made her dizzy with desire.

She could only nod as small tremors built in her core and spread outward.

He released one hand and linked his fingers through her other. Chanin turned and walked out the open door. She let him tug her along.

“Shouldn’t we tell them—?”

“No.” His voice was rough and dark as the night sky around them.

It caused her mind to envision naughty, wicked things. Such things as Chanin’s strong hands touching and cupping her body or his tongue gliding over her skin and between her legs. Her sex bloomed, and wetness began to spread onto her inner thighs.

Hell if she didn’t want to do all those things to Chanin, too.

“Besides, the Beta was already preoccupied with his mates.”

“Oh.” She was unaware of what happened between the other three shifters in the room.

Morlie barely had time to pull the door closed behind her before he guided her down the steps.

It was then she noticed Faolan no longer stood guard.

She assumed Chanin had relieved him when they returned.

But she didn’t want to think about the intense Fang Warrior.

Only one person had her complete attention, and he was dragging her through the dark toward the house on the spacious property next door.

Her boots were clopping and pounding fast and heavy behind Chanin while his bare feet were soundless, even as he rushed them over grass and gravel.

It wasn’t long before he took the steps to his house two at a time, and she had to do the same if she wanted to keep up. Finally, he halted his speedy progress once they were standing in the foyer of his house with the door shut behind her.