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He rested his beer on his massive thigh. “Romance is a Stone or some such bullshit.”

“Romancing the Stone?”

He shrugged.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Relic said and tossed a pretzel in his mouth. “It’s Wills’s pick this week. She said we’ll like it.”

Zinny snickered beside me.

I glanced around the room. Warrick, Wills, and Violet were snuggled up on a couch. All of the hounds were here except those on security detail, and there were a few others here as well, wolves, mainly females.

My wee mourning cloak settled in my hair, her love still strong even in her weakened state. I sent love back, my heart aching. She wouldn’t have much longer now.

The mother had given me not one familiar but infinite—the catch was they only lived a short time—some a couple of weeks, others a month. In the case of this little sweetheart, roughly a year. I wasn’t like Iris, I couldn’t communicate with animals, but I felt my familiars deeply, communicating with them through emotion.

The door opened and I glanced over as Ren walked in. He strode to a spare seat on one of the couches. Relic tossed him a beer. He caught it and sat back. One of the wolf shifters, Breanne, got up from her seat and strode over to sit beside him. His gaze sliced to me, and I quickly looked away. He’d made his way through almost every female in Draven’s pack. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but that’s how it felt. I’d threatened to knee him in the nuts so hard he’d black the fuck out if he looked at me again. Sadly, I’d just been running my mouth, making threats I wasn’t capable of backing up, which gave me one choice—go back to pretending I didn’t notice when he looked at me.

The lights went off and the movie started. Relief filled me. In the dark, I could pretend he wasn’t right there, that I couldn’t hear Breanne giggle and whisper. Zinny pulled a fluffy blanket over us, and I held it up to Rome. “Want some?”

He shrugged. I tossed it over his lap as well. Zinnia leaned into me, and we settled in with our snacks to watch.

I finished my M&M’s and tried to keep my eyes open, but it’d been a long day, not to mention night, sending that creep Stetson to Hell where he belonged. Zinnia relaxed deeper against me, giving me all of her weight, her breathing coming slow and even. I glanced at her. She and Hemlock were both asleep. I tried to stay awake a little longer, but I was so warm pressed against Rome, snuggled between him and Zinny, the fluffy blanket over all of us, that it was a losing battle.

I jolted awake when Violet let out a little cry. Wills quickly fed her, and she instantly calmed, drifting back off—that’s when I realized I was lying down, my head on Roman’s massive thigh, and he was playing with my hair. I started to sit up.

“You’re good, Jaz,” he rumbled.

Rome and I were buds, and hellhounds were tactile and protective of females, especially when they were in their territory, emotions or not, mate or not. Nothing about what he was doing meant anything more than he liked the way my hair felt. He’d never tried anything before, and he wasn’t now, but for some reason, my eyes shot to Ren like I’d been caught doing something wrong.

He was looking right at me, and his eyes were narrowed. As soon as I caught him out, his gaze sliced back to the movie. I quickly sat up, wiping the side of my mouth. “Sorry I drooled on you,” I said to Roman.

“Not worried about a little drool, Jazzy girl,” he said, his gaze still on the movie. “You want to keep using me as a pillow, have at it.”

I smiled up at him. “Thanks, but I’m good.” I sat up and looked down at my sister. She was still fast asleep. I tried not to jostle her. She’d been exhausted the last week. I knew she was sleeping even less than me.

The movie ended a short time later, and while the credits rolled, a hellhound in one of the seats behind us piped up. “So the takeaway from this one is besides good orgasms, a female likes her male to protect her, but also treat her as an equal?”

“Well, yeah,” Wills said and elbowed Warrick. “The caveman routine gets old fast.”

“Bullshit,” her mate muttered. “You love it when I go all caveman in the bedroom, Dove, and don’t even fucking try to tell my brothers otherwise.”

Laughter rumbled around the room.

Her eyes narrowed, and I saw the moment Warrick realized he’d said the wrong thing.

“Now, Dove…”

“Yes, sometimes a female likes a male to be dominant in bed, as you all know.”

Noises of agreement rumbled around us.

“But you can’t tell me some of you don’t like it the other way around from time to time.” She winked. “I know War does, don’t you, alpha?” There was more laughter, and Warrick scowled. “What you need to remember is, there’s nothing you can give us that we can’t do for ourselves. When you find your mates, don’t assume they’ll fall all over you because you have big muscles and sharp teeth.”

“We don’t just have big muscles, Wills. And I assure you there is one thing they can’t do for themselves,” Relic said with a wink.

“Oh, I assure you we can,” Zinnia said as Hemlock scurried back into her hood and she sat up. “And that way we don’t even have to make small talk or stroke your giant…egos.”

The females in the room burst out laughing, and there was more grumbling from the males.