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often.”
    I frowned. Mom was a little over the top, but she couldn’t help it. She’d been dreaming of grandchildren for years, and this one in particular was such an unexpected blessing.
    Angela burst into tears. Her hands flew up to wipe her cheeks, and she sucked in a great, hiccupping breath, trying to stop the flow.
    â€œOh, come sit,” my mother insisted, already guiding Angela toward the couch.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she sobbed, blotting beneath her eyes with the tissue my mother plucked from a box on the end table. “This has just all happened so fast, and I was afraid you guys would be mad, or think I was a…But you’re so nice…. ” The tears started again. “Thank you.”
    My mom sank onto the couch next to Angela and wrapped an arm around her shoulders while the rest of us stared, speechless. “We’re just so glad you want to involve us in the baby’s life.”
    After a couple of minutes, Angela had herself under control, and my mom fixed her a plate of tiny sandwiches and sliced fruit.
    â€œSo, how far along are you?” my mother asked. “And have you seen a doctor yet?”
    â€œYes, just for the initial visit. He says I’m thirteen weeks along.”
    My mom’s eyes widened. “Three months. Wow. There’s so much to do!” I could practically see the gears spinning behind her eyes. But my father was more practical.
    â€œWe’d like to help with the cost either way, of course,” he began, and Angela’s forehead furrowed. “But if you’re interested, we have a family physician who would be glad to see you.”
    Dr. Carver, of course.
    â€œUm, sure,” she said. “I’ll meet him.”
    While she and my mother chatted softly, the guys all filled plates, then stood around the room snacking, and almost reverently observing the miracle that Angela and her child represented for us. It was the single most peaceful, optimistic moment we’d experienced since Ethan’s death, and I never wanted it to end.
    Unfortunately, Angela’s introduction into our family felt very much to me like the calm before the inevitable storm. And I could already feel the clouds gathering…

Three
    M ontana. Again. Because the last visit worked out so well…
    I hauled my duffel from the rear floorboard of the rental car and glanced up at the cabin as phantom pain in my side heralded an avalanche of memories. I’d shed blood and spilled blood here. I’d loved Marc and let him go. I’d found Kaci, killed bad guys, and narrowly avoided execution.
    That cabin and I had a love-hate relationship, almost as complicated as my history with Marc. But Montana was an appropriate setting for this particular council meeting. Calvin Malone should be ousted where he’d first begun his quest for werecat world domination.
    Malone would try to prevent the council—the majority of which harbored no fondness for my Pride—from hearing our evidence, I had no doubt. But I was prepared to shout the list of his crimes from the nearest mountain top, if need be. And to shove the bloody evidence of his guilt down the other Alphas’ throats, if it would help.
    â€œYou okay?” Jace lifted the duffel strap from myshoulder. If he could relieve my emotional burden so simply, he would. Jace was no longer as easy to understand as he’d been a month earlier.
    â€œYeah. I’m good.” That was an outright lie, but it was one I clung to. Survival had become a game of bluffing. Of putting on my game face and pretending I wasn’t worried. That I didn’t have everything in the world riding on this meeting.
    But I did.
    If Calvin Malone were voted into power, we would have to remove him by force. Otherwise, he would make life hell for the south-central Pride and our allies, because we were everything he hated. Everything that threatened his tunnel vision of werecat society as his own