“I know. I wasn’t going to ask. You’re such a stubborn bitch, why bother?”

“Good point.” She tickled the ugly beast under the chin. “Isn’t there something else you want to talk to me about, Santiago?”

Angie took in a deep breath. “Zach told you.”

“He didn’t have much choice. Besides, it was the perfect opportunity. I’m not speaking to him so I was forced to listen.”

“Smart man.” She scratched her head. “So, are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? You know, I found out my mother was kind of a power-hungry scumbag like her mother, which means I will be too. So why wouldn’t I be fine?”

“What are you talking about?”

Sara let out a soul-deep sigh and Roscoe licked her arm. “I thought if my mom was sane, then I’d be sane. But she was just like her. She was just like that bitch. And I’m going to be just like her, too. I’m going to destroy everything I love and care about cause I got the Redwolf crazy gene.”

“That’s a load of shit, Sara. And you know it. We all know it.”

Fifty feet away, Miki suddenly stumbled out of some bushes, pulling her skirt down. She walked toward her friends.

Angie frowned, “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

Angie leaned back, her palms flat on the grass, her long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. “Then why do you look guilty?”

“Fuck you, I do not.”

Sara shook her head. “I smell Conall all over you.”

“I really need you to stop saying stuff like that to me. It’s freakin’ me the fuck out.”

Miki sat down across from her friends, rubbing her hands across Roscoe’s flank. “So what are we talking about?”

“My mother.”

“Oh, you mean the Don Corleone of the Magnus Pack?”

Angie sat up straight as Sara, her face stricken, looked at Miki in horror. The Sara Angie remembered when her grandmother still breathed suddenly re-surfaced with only a few words. It really didn’t take much for close friends or family to put you back in that place you hope you’d sprung out of.

She knew she had to do something quick or she’d lose Sara to the quagmire of her obsessive mind. “No, honey. Look at me. Don’t look at her.” Angie snapped her fingers in Sara’s face to regain her attention. “Focus on me and not the crazy bitch sitting across from us.”

“Hey!”

“Quiet, Kendrick!” She focused on Sara, “I need you to hear what I’m saying to you, Sara. Are you listening to me?” Sara nodded. “Good. Look, I’ve never met your mother, and she may have been a Mafia princess in training, but she had friends. People who would kill for her and die for her. Your grandmother hadnobody.”

Angie took Sara’s hand off Roscoe and gripped it tightly. She wanted to make sure her friend heard her loud and clear. “But in the end, none of that matters. None of it. Because you’re not like either of them. You’re Sara. The coolest chick I’ve ever met in my life. You’ve got a seriously hot man who thinks you walk on water, a pack of people who respect and fear you, and the entire shifter universe completely convinced that you and your friends are dangerous psychopaths.” Sara laughed at that. “And this whole Nik thing simply solidifies that. So, if I were you, I wouldn’t worry about you becoming some power hungry bitch. Do you know why?”

Wearing that gorgeous Sara smile, “No. Tell me O’wise one.”

“Cause, my dear, you are too fuckin’ lazy. If taking over the world requires you to get your fat ass up off the couch during football season…no one has anything to worry about.”

“Do you really think my ass is fat?”

“Well, honey, it ain’t small.”

“I think we better be careful throwing stones from that glass house, Santiago.”

“I can’t believe you called me crazy bitch!”

Angie dropped Sara’s hand and turned on Miki. “The Don Corleone of the Magnus Pack? What exactly is wrong with you?”

“Don’t yell at me!”

Angie turned away from Miki, her hand up and in front of Miki’s face. “We’re done.”

Miki growled, slapping Angie’s hand out of her face. But instead of ripping into her, as Angie expected, Miki focused on Sara. “Don’t worry, Sara. You’re sane. Weird, but sane.”

“How the hell do you know?”

“Hey, dude. I’ve done the research. I’ve lived every day worrying that I’d cross that line between brilliance and madness.”

“Brilliance?”

“Shut up, Santiago. Anyway, I know all the signs, I’ve taken all the tests. You’re a freak, Morrighan, but you’re not an insane one.”

“Good to know, Kendrick.”

Miki grinned like she deciphered the Rosetta Stone.

But Angie did feel like she’d leaped her first big hurdle. Getting Sara to deal with the truth about her mother. Not easy, but she’d done it. Next step…the truce. But this wasn’t the time or place for that conversation. No, she’d have to ease Sara into that one. But she was determined to do it. And she had just the idea to help her start her stubborn friend down that path.

“I was thinking, once Nik is safe back in North Carolina and desperately trying to forget me…”

Both her friends snorted at that and rolled their eyes, but she ground her teeth together and barreled on, “I thought we could go shopping.”