Page 40 of Wild Wolf

“Grease burns,” I confirmed. “Is my bedroom safe? I need to get clothes.”

“You’ve already seen me naked, so what are you worried about?” Amber replied.

“Richard gouging my eyes out if I see his wife naked,” I replied.

Richard chuckled. “Don’t worry about that. The only rule we have is to keep any lust private, so if you can’t handle looking at a naked woman without getting turned on, leave the room. And if a woman happens to leave the room with you, well, nobody cares. The last time Nicolina pranced around after a shift, I ran away because she’s that beautiful.”

Amber, wearing one of my shirts and nothing else, strode out of my bedroom and headed for the stove, staring at the rice. “Can I eat this?”

“Save a few bites for the others, but yes. There’s curry in the pot next to it, and same deal. Save just enough for the others to not starve,” I replied. “Personally, I don’t really care if they starve if you’re hungry, but they’ll probably whine they didn’t get any of my curry, and do we want that?”

“Not a chance.” Amber grabbed one of the bowls. “Thanks, Declan. Go take your bath before Nicolina gets ideas. Just step over her when you’re getting your clothes. She’s being slow today. Richard? You might want to nudge her along. I’m off duty for at least two or three weeks.”

Richard came into the kitchen long enough to kiss Amber’s cheek before heading to my bedroom. “You got it. If you’re hungry, eat it all. Us big, bad wolves can cope with being hungry for a few hours.”

Amber did save some for everyone else, but only after she polished off half the pot of rice and went from coherent to unconscious on her feet. Richard, who’d spent most of his morning hovering, caught her with an arm and pulled her against him. “Welcome to how the rest of today will surely go.”

I continued rummaging through my cupboards in search of stray food I might have missed cleaning the place out, locating a single bag of rice I’d hidden behind a pot. “I could make this for the road.”

After easing Amber onto my rocking chair and tucking her in with my blanket, Richard joined me, and he laughed. “It’s fine. She’ll be out for at least a few hours, she’ll wake up throwing up, and we’ll find something to feed to her. Hopefully, the Chinese will have come to our rescue with food for her by then. They have some pretty good remedies to help smooth things along, too.”

“Wait, what? What do you mean she’ll be out for a few hours? She barely lasted an hour during the night.”

“I’ll be helping her with that. I’ll nip her whenever it looks like she’s starting to wake up, and that’ll knock her back out again for a while. Or Desmond will, depending on which one of us is keeping an eye on her. Sanders might. You need a lot of training to learn how to do it, so you won’t be putting your teeth anywhere near her throat. The last thing we need is you nipping her awake. She might end up with a severe case of frisky because you don’t know the difference between a love bite and helping her stay asleep.”

I stared at him. “Pardon?”

The Anderson twins burst into laughter, and Dante got up, came over, and slapped my shoulder. “Fenerec talk with their teeth. Mates are especially good at it, but Alphas can force other members of their pack, when they’re really working at it, to pass out from a nip. It’s easier to do on mates, and generally, most people believe only mates can pull that trick on each other. Richard disproved the theory after being overwhelmed with curiosity, so he nipped his brother’s mate and knocked her out. Now it’s his favorite trick. He’ll come up behind people and nip them hard enough to make them pass out. He will then drag his victim off and move them somewhere, often pulling some form of prank in the process. He got me once, and he had my mate dress me in one of her bikinis and left me at the pool. He even stuffed the bikini, waited for me to wake up, and told me I made a beautiful woman.”

“Richard, I will pay in recipes to watch this.”

“I’ll pay you in recipes to join in,” the Alpha countered.

My wolf loved the idea. “How are we keeping score?”

“When we get back to the States, we’ll go through the pack and select someone for our teams. As I’m more experienced, you’ll pick first. By default, I’ll get Nicolina, and you’ll get Amber. I will be the leader of Team Richard, and you will be the leader of Team Declan.”

I pointed at Desmond. “I pick him, because watching him and Nicolina fight is fascinating.”

Desmond huffed, and he headed for the bedroom. A moment later, Nicolina shrieked, and she hopped out of my bedroom. Like Amber, she’d stolen one of my shirts and wore nothing else. Red teeth marks on her calf indicated her father had taken a nip on his way in. “What the hell was that for, Father?”

“We’re making teams. Declan just picked Desmond for his team. You’re on mine, and I told him he’s taking Amber. We need to pick another team member. I’m pretty sure he bit you to rile you up.”

Nicolina pointed at Sanders. “Make sure Declan gets Sara, and we need to take Mom. What are the teams for?”

“The nip wars.”

“Does Declan even know how to nip?”

“That’s why we’re doing it. He has to learn, and turning it into a game is a good way to teach him, and the only experiences he’s had with Fenerec have been less than stellar. And I put Amber with him to mitigate accidental nips of the wrong type.”

“She’s going to be pissed at you,” Nicolina predicted.

“She’ll love me, because she’ll get to work with Declan to get revenge on me for the dastardly and cruel things I will be doing to her all day today, most of which involves enforcing her general unconsciousness with a ruthless paw. You know how much she hates being helpless. The next time she wakes up, she’ll be surrounded by Russians and possibly a few Chinese delegates without any clue what’s going on.”

With wide eyes, Nicolina turned to Amber, who slept peacefully in my chair, wrapped in my blanket. “I’m going to miss you when she kills you, Richard.”

“You could protect me. You’re on Team Richard.”