The Mane Squeeze. Shelly Laurenston

against her ear, he confessed, “When I’m really stressed out…I play with my toes.”

      Gwen leaned back a bit and stared at him. “Seriously?”

      “It’s really relaxing and very bearlike.”

      And very weird. And yet…“I’m oddly comforted by this information.”

      “When this is all over, I’ll show you how to do it.”

      She gave a little laugh, her eyelids trying to close. “There’s a specific way to do it?”

      “If you want maximum benefit.”

      “Oh. Well, then…”

      “I’m going to take you back now, okay?”

      She tensed up but she could no longer fight her desire to sleep. “But you won’t leave me?”

      “I promise.”

      “And you won’t let them kill me or remove any of my vital, healthy organs to sell on the black market? Or exchange my vital, healthy organs with crappy, full-human ones?”

      “Not a chance.”

      “Okay.” She snuggled in closer, her nose against his neck, breathing in his scent. “I have your word?”

      “You have my word.”

      “’Cause where I come from, your word means something.”

      “And you’ve got it. I won’t leave you, Gwen. I promise.”

      “And you’ll stop calling me Mr. Mittens.”

      “Let’s not ask for the world, okay?”

      And even as she felt him taking her back to that death trap, she still managed to smile.

      CHAPTER 4

      The doctor wasn’t remotely happy that Lock wouldn’t leave, but once he started tossing his sister’s name around, she backed off. As the top neurosurgeon at McMillian Presbyterian in Manhattan, Dr. Iona MacRyrie’s name held definite clout, and Lock wasn’t above using it when necessary.

      The surgery went well, but the damage to Gwen’s leg went beyond typical Pack harassment. There’d been real intent behind that wound and, although the unknown She-wolf may have made Blayne her first target, it had been Gwen who had really set her off. Maybe it was the cat-dog thing, Lock didn’t know or care. He simply knew that no matter how much that idiot lion glared at him from behind the glass of the operating room doors, he wasn’t leaving.

      Maybe Gwen was being irrational—okay, she was being irrational—it didn’t matter. He’d made a promise, given his word, and he hadn’t been joking. MacRyries kept their word. That had been drummed into him by his uncles since he was a kid. They’d felt the need to help raise Lock because, to quote them, “Your father’s kind of a pansy, know-it-all. You’ll need us to give you the basics about life.” At five, he didn’t know what they’d meant, but by his early teens he understood that “pansy, know-it-all” translated into “college-educated.” And his father’s position as a highly respected university professor of literature and philosophy? Simply a fancy way of saying, “no real job.”

      Strange thing was, they didn’t feel the same way about Lock’s mother. “Your father’s saving grace” was what they called Alla Baranova-MacRyrie, Ph.D. Although a third-generation Russian-American, Alla was a direct descendent of the Kamchatka grizzlies of the Russian Far East. Tougher shifters one would never meet. There was only a small group of them in the States, but their bloodline was well-known and they were more feared than the Kodiaks.

      In the end, though, none of that mattered to either of his parents. They were intellectuals and raised their children to be as well. Iona turned out perfectly. Brilliant, pretty, and married with three cubs, she was in medical school before she was old enough to legally drink. And only recently turning thirty-five, she was head of her entire department.

      Lock, however, was pretty much…average. He didn’t need a lot to make him happy. Fresh salmon, imported honey, and doorways that he could clear without having to duck usually did it for him.

      “I think she’s starting to wake up,” the nurse said.

      Lock stood and walked over to Gwen’s bed. She was covered from neck to legs by a blanket, but he discovered when he pushed her hair off her forehead that she was cool to the touch.

      “No fever.”

      “Yeah. That’s what her friend said would happen.” The nurse talked while quickly and expertly cleaning up the operating room. “Her Pride doesn’t get the fever. Weird, huh?”

      Things could be weirder.

      “Gwen?” he called out softly when he saw her eyelids flutter. “Gwenie?” Her head rolled to one side. “Mr. Mittens?”

      Her lip curled up as she snarled and her head rolled back so she could open her eyes and glare at him. “Stop calling me that,” she whispered.

      “But you’re as cute as a Mr. Mittens,” he teased. “Like a little house cat.”

      “Bastard,” she mumbled, her eyes closing again. Then she was out.

      “Is she supposed to drop like that?”

      The nurse glanced at her and went back to her work. “It’s normal for her, according to her friend.” And typical that only the nurses listened to the helpful friend while the doctor almost got choked to death because she thought she knew better. “They really need to do more research on hybrids. Less chance of the doctors getting their throats torn out if we knew what we were dealing with.”

      “Uh-huh,” Lock muttered, his gaze stuck on Gwen’s face. She was so pale. He was glad he’d decided to stay and—

      “Excuse me?”

      Lock glanced over at the double doors leading in and out of the recovery room. He scowled. “You must be kidding.”

      The polar grinned and motioned to the hallway with a twitch of his head before disappearing outside. Lock looked back at Gwen, brushed stray hairs off her cheek and out of her eyes before he sighed and followed.

      Lock knew the polar. Everyone called him “Toots.” He’d been born and raised in Macon River Falls, New Jersey, and like everyone else in his family, he’d stayed on to become one of the Macon River Falls Rangers. Part peace officer, part animal-park ranger.

      Stopping in front of him, Lock crossed his arms over his chest. “That big-haired bastard called the cops?”

      “You didn’t expect him to take you on himself, did you?”

      “Yeah, he might crack a claw.”

      Toots laughed. Like most polars, he had a healthy sense of humor and white-brown hair. He was also a good eight inches taller than Lock and quite a bit wider, since the polars had a tendency to stay closer to their bear size in human form than the grizzlies did, which was one of the reasons more polars were found in smaller, out-of-the-way towns like Macon River than in big cities like New York or Boston, where they would receive more attention than they wanted.

      “Personally, I’m thinking that hot little She-wolf stepped in to prevent it.”

      Hot, huh? “Her feet are as big as yours.”

      “The bigger the feet, the bigger the tits.”

      Never a big fan of “guy talk,” Lock shook his head and said, “I promised her I’d stay.”

      “The She-wolf?”

      “No.” He motioned to the recovery room. “The tigon.”

      “Wow. Got a tigon in there and a wolfdog out there. Two hybrids in one weekend—that’s gotta be a record for us.”

      “I’m not leaving.”

      “Yeah,