"Shouldn't it be her mate doing that for her?"
Fang shrugged. "He was always a selfish asshole."
Anya nipped hard at his fingers. "Careful, brother, that's the sire of my pups you're talking about."
Fang scoffed at her protective tone. "One chosen by a trio of psycho bitches who-ow!" He jumped as Anya sank her teeth deep into the fleshy part of his hand. He cursed as he saw the blood dripping from the wound she'd given him.
She narrowed her gaze. "Again, he's my mate and you will respect him."
Vane cocked him on the back of his head. "Boy, don't you ever learn?"
Fang bit his lip to keep from snapping at both of them. He hated how they treated him like their mentally defective distant relation. As if his opinions didn't matter. Anytime he opened his mouth, one of them told him to shut it.
Honestly, he was more than tired of their treatment. All they saw him as was the muscle they needed. A loaded gun to be used against their enemies. The rest of the time, they wanted him kept in a box, completely silent and unobtrusive.
Whatever.
Changing into a wolf, he left them before he said something they'd all regret.
But one day . . .
One day he was going to let them know just how tired he was of being their omega wolf.
Aimee paused at the table where the wolves had been. In the corner was a pair of discarded sunglasses. She bent down and picked them up only to catch a whiff of the owner.
Fang.
A slight smile hovered at the edges of her lips as she remembered the way he'd looked leaning back in his chair. Relaxed and lethal.
"What's that?"
She jumped as Wren spoke right behind her. Looking at him over her shoulder, she smiled at the young tigard. Handsome and lean, he had long blond dreadlocks with bangs that fell across his eyes, shielding them from the world. She was one of the very few people he ever spoke to.
She held up the sunglasses so that he could see. "One of the wolves left them."
He scratched at his whiskered cheek. "You want me to put them in lost and found?"
"It's okay. I'll do it."
He nodded before he moved on to bus another table.
Aimee closed her eyes and held the sunglasses tight. As she did so, she saw a perfect image of Fang in wolf form running through the swamp.
Someone sneezed.
She jerked, looking around quickly in fear of someone catching her using a power that no one knew she held. It was something only the most powerful of Aristi could wield and the fact that she had it . . .
It was as much a danger to her as a gift.
And it was a power that had cost two of her brothers their lives. For that reason alone, she could never allow anyone to know what she could do.
But today those powers weren't scary. They would allow her to find Fang and return his property to him. She checked the watch on her wrist.
In thirty minutes she'd be free to take a break and then she'd find the wolf. . . .
Aimee paused next to the cypress tree that jutted out of the water and twisted up toward the sky. The setting sun fanned around the branches, casting a majestic glow as it also reflected the cypress against the rippling black water. It was eerie and beautiful. Haunting.
Even though they'd lived in New Orleans for more than a century, she'd never spent much time in the swamp or bayous. She'd forgotten how beautiful they could be.