His woman.
The word rattled in his head like more than a suggestion, and he wondered why he felt hell-bent on protecting a gentle female so opposite from the women he normally pursued. He’d wrestled with it all day since leaving Austin’s house. Never in such a short period of time had he been so taken by a woman—so completely transfixed that he couldn’t focus his mind on anything or anyone else.
After Ivy gave Lynn an extra pillow, she returned to Lorenzo and he called to her wolf until she shifted. Whether her wolf wanted to sleep or not didn’t matter, because Ivy’s mind would tumble into darkness—far from bad spirits and dreams. She nuzzled against Austin’s leg and he rubbed her ears, casting his affection on his packmate.
Lorenzo looked around at this motley crew and felt like an interloper. Austin’s pack behaved more like a family, and those were two things he’d always considered impossible to converge. He sat down beside the door and stretched out his legs.
Austin handed him a cold bottle of beer and sat to his right. “Just so you know, I never loved Winnie. She was just the first Shifter I’d ever dated. It’s not like we’d slept together,” Austin said quietly. “That was ages ago.”
Lorenzo chuckled. “Just so you know, she wasn’t that good in bed.”
Austin sipped his beer. “Better you than me, my friend. So… what’s your angle with Ivy? Is this just about that old-fashioned competitive streak? Still trying to take something that’s mine?”
“Yours?” Lorenzo growled more than said. “She’s in your pack, but Ivy is not yours.”
“Well, she sure as hell ain’t yours.” Austin set his bottle on the rug beside him.
Ivy’s wolf trotted over so gracefully that one would hardly notice her hind leg had never touched the ground. She stood before the two men, her nostrils twitching as she took in their heavy scents. They remained silent, realizing her wolf was about to prove which man she belonged to.
Austin patted his lap. When Lorenzo sent him a sharp glare, Austin returned the glance—his cocky eyes lit with amusement.
So Lorenzo patted his leg.
Ivy wagged her tail and growled low, looking between the two men. She sniffed harshly, showing her frustration, and then bowed.
“Ivy, come,” Austin said.
She lifted her brown eyes to her Packmaster and Lorenzo could see the compliance in her posture. This became more than a game, but a contest to show which man Ivy’s loyalty lay with.
Lorenzo patted his chest and tilted his head to the side. “Come, Ivy,” he said softly.
She barked at both of them.
“Shhh!” Denver said. “What the hell are you two doing over there? You’re going to wake everyone up.”
After a high-pitched whine and another growl, Ivy walked forward and stood between them. Then she turned around, facing away, and wagged her tail so hard that it slapped both of them in the face. Eventually she settled down, folding her front paws and resting her head on them.
“Now I think we need to talk,” Austin said with a hard sigh. “What’s your plan?”
“She’s accepted my offer to pursue her.” Lorenzo crossed his legs at the ankle and noticed Reno’s woman lying on the floor behind Jericho’s sofa. Just a spray of bright hair peeked out from a dark sleeping bag.
“Ivy didn’t mention that.”
Lorenzo smirked while Austin scratched his stubbly jaw. “She only just agreed an hour ago while on a food run. Is that how you value a woman of her character? Send her for peanuts while a man who assaulted her is on the hunt?”
“My men have secured this building. It won’t take long to spot someone who’s out of place. In case you haven’t noticed, Church, we’re not trying to hide from Fox. We’re luring him out of his foxhole. Soon he’ll realize we have all the comforts we need in the city and he’ll make a stupid move. Let him try to burn this club down and face the wrath of a hundred pissed-off immortals who would love nothing more than to make a fur coat out of him.”
“Are your men armed?”
“Judge all you want,” Austin said. “When a man threatens my family, it’s not about fair. You come at my pack, and I’ll come at you with guns blazing. I spent years working as a bounty hunter, and the one thing I learned was that nobody plays fair.”
Lorenzo respected that. “Do you think Fox has found the child?”
Austin coughed into his hand and took a swig of beer. “I think he’s blowing smoke. That’s what men like him do best. Reno’s pulling a few strings to track the boy down, but I don’t think we’ll need to worry about that.”