“Gwenie? Sweetie? What’s the matter?”
“Her leg flared up,” Ronnie offered, sounding all sorts of concerned. “But the doctor warned that would happen throughout the day. Didn’t she, Gwenie?”
Gwen nodded, gritting her teeth against the brutal pain.
“I’ll get the pain pills.”
“I’ll get ’em,” Ronnie offered before Brendon could step away. “You two talk.” She winked at Gwen and sauntered back into the house.
Brendon crouched in front of Gwen, his big hand reaching up and gently brushing the tears from her face. “You poor thing. Maybe I should take you back to the medical center?”
Christ! That was almost worse than the hillbilly! Almost. Gwen shook her head.
“All right, all right. Don’t panic. We’ll get you your pills and let you rest on the couch. You’ll even have control of the TV remote.” He winked. “And then we’ll talk about you staying at the hotel when you move to New York. I promise it’ll be temporary but I know I’ll feel better if—”
“I’ll take it,” Gwen said quickly, too quickly.
“You will?”
“Yeah. I’ll take it.” She nodded, desperately. “It’s fine. I’ll take it.”
Surprised, Brendon grinned. “Wow. Okay.” He carefully reached under her legs and behind her back, easily lifting her off the porch stairs so he could carry her inside. “I have to say, though, Gwen,” he teased, “I definitely thought you’d put up more of a fight.”
The male wolfdog fell to his back, the jaws clamped tight around his neck, the heavier animal holding him down against the blood-encrusted dirt floor. He slammed his claws into the throat of his opponent, tearing at the flesh, hoping to hit the arteries, but it didn’t seem to do any good. His opponent only squeezed harder until, with his windpipe crushed, he could no longer breathe. As he struggled, his body was swung back and forth, and from side to side until it was tossed across the floor and into the low wall surrounding the pit.
As his life drained out onto the floor beneath him, he heard the roar of the crowd…
CHAPTER 7
Gwen stumbled out of bed and headed straight into the living room. She poured herself a cup of coffee and walked over to the window. She pressed a button and the drapes silently drew back. She smiled at the sight of the Manhattan skyline.
After nearly six weeks, she’d thought she’d be bored by the same view every morning, but she wasn’t. It kind of felt like the entire world was at her feet, waiting for her. Stupid, but she enjoyed the delusion anyway.
The sun was barely rising and she had a busy morning ahead in Jersey. She didn’t look forward to the traffic, but a job was a job. She and Blayne were doing better than anyone but Blayne’s dad expected. Plus leaving Philly had not been an easy task. Her Uncle Cally gave her a hard time for leaving the family and her mother acted like Gwen was moving out of the country and joining a cult.
“I blame Blayne!” her mother had shouted dramatically, Gwen’s aunts shaking their heads in disgust and tsk-tsking all over the place.
“You love Blayne,” Gwen had to remind her. “Any new friends I’ve brought home, you were quick to compare them to Blayne and they were always not good enough.”
“She tricked me. Goddamn wolfdog!”
“Ma.”
Shoving that long and torturous argument out of her mind and lured by the delicious scent of food, Gwen wandered over to the small dining table and sat down. She pulled off the silver cover to one of the plates and smiled. Crispy French toast, bacon, sausage, and scrambled eggs. Then it hit her—she hadn’t ordered room service. She’d planned on grabbing a couple of donuts from the bakery next door to the office before she headed out.
Where did this come from?
The hotel room door slammed open, and suitcases were tossed inside, followed by her brother.
“Don’t blame this on me!” he yelled at the empty doorway. “If you’d kept your trap shut, we wouldn’t be in this situation!”
“Me?” a female voice yelled from the hallway. “Are you actually blaming me for this, Mitchell Shaw?”
“Yes! I’m actually blaming you for this!”
Mitchell O’Neill in Philly, Mitchell Shaw in New York, kicked the bags he’d just tossed down out of his way. He was uncharacteristically pissed as he tore off his leather bomber jacket and threw it on the couch.
“Is it really that hard for you to listen to me—for once?”
“I did listen to you!”
Mitch came across the room toward Gwen. She watched him closely, ready to flee if she deemed it necessary. But instead of demanding to know what the hell she was doing in his hotel suite, he snatched a piece of French toast off her plate and dunked it into the serving bowl of maple syrup. “Only when it looked like we were about to go to prison!” He leaned down and kissed Gwen on the forehead. “Yo, little sis.”
Gwen brushed her forehead against his chin in a proper Pride greeting, while forcing herself to remain calm. “Yo, Mitchie.” Christ, why was he here? He wasn’t supposed to be back in the states for another month, maybe two. “Closer to Christmas,” was what she’d last heard.
It was not Christmas! Why was he here and it was not Christmas?
Sissy Mae Smith, her big brother’s mate and Alpha Female of the New York Smith Pack, stumbled into the room loaded down with even more bags. “You pack like a woman,” she snarled when she finally dropped the luggage to the floor. “How can one man have so much conditioner?”
His mouth filled with French toast, Mitch pointed at his hair and snarled, “Tawny mane! Do you think this shit stays this beautiful on its own? It needs care and love! Which is more than I’m getting from you!”
Storming over and swiping her own piece of French toast off Gwen’s plate and dunking it in the syrup, Sissy snapped, “Keep pissing me off, Mitchell Shaw, and you won’t get anything from me!” She shoved that French toast in her mouth and headed back toward the door. “As it is, you better learn to suck your own dick, ’cause you won’t be gettin’ nothin’ from this mouth!”
“Hey! Do you mind? My baby sister is sitting right here!”
“She’s twenty-five!”
“I’m twenty-six.”
“Who cares?” the canine bellowed before the door slammed closed after her.
Letting out a sigh, Mitch dropped into the chair across from his sister. He glanced down at her breakfast plates, now with a hundred percent less French toast. “I thought I ordered more.” Mitch grabbed one of the suite phones and called down to room service.
Okay, so he was back. No reason to panic because he was back. And he looked good. Better than he had the morning he’d gotten shot after Jess Ward’s wedding. Gwen still woke up in a cold sweat from time to time, the image of her brother lying on the floor of his hotel room in a lake of his own blood. She closed her eyes, not wanting to think about that. She didn’t want to think how close she’d been to losing the big idiot. Yeah, he was a pain in the ass. And yeah, he didn’t know when to cut it out—no matter what “it” may be. And yeah, he could sometimes be the most overbearing, overprotective, and overly delusional big brother on the planet.
But he was her big brother, and Gwen loved the asshole even when he didn’t deserve it, so all that mattered to her was that Mitch was safe and very alive.
Still…it wasn’t Christmas yet!
After