Eggie stared at her and she stared back, unwilling to look away.

Look, she wasn’t a saint. She really didn’t mind the beating these men had taken. They’d deserved it and it would be a good lesson for them so that hopefully some other girl never had to face a similar threat. At least not from them. But Darla couldn’t escape the fact that when it was all said and done, they hadn’t actually done anything to her. Maybe they’d wanted to try. Or maybe they’d hoped to scare her into cooperating. Or maybe they’d planned to just harass her until she’d run off into the crowd. She’d never know and that was why she couldn’t allow this. She knew for Smiths there was no question about this sort of thing, but she wasn’t a Smith. Never would be. She would always be a Lewis and, more importantly, she’d always be Darla Mae.

“Come on, Eggie,” she urged, softening her voice and holding out her hand to him. “I heard Lynyrd Skynyrd might be playing later tonight.”

“I hate Lynyrd Skynyrd. It’s my Alabama cousins who like ’em.”

“Oh.” She shrugged, gave him a little smile. “Ooops.”

He looked away but she knew that was because he didn’t want to be relieved of his anger. She understood that. She got that way about her sisters. But she kept her hand out and her eyes on his face.

“Smith?” a black bear prompted, his foot now on the back of the neck of one of those men. One push of that enormous foot and that full-human’s spine would be snapped like a dry twig.

Growling, Eggie slammed his knife back into the holster on his thigh, grabbed the full-human by the throat and lifted him up. He rammed him into a tree and held him there. The full-human tried to fight him off but he might as well not have bothered. Eggie leaned in and whispered something to the male. Darla cocked her head, trying to hear him but she couldn’t make out a word, the pitch too low and Eggie too far away for her wolf ears to catch anything but muttering.

When the man literally pissed himself and then, based on the smell, crapped his pants, Darla was relieved she hadn’t heard anything. She didn’t want to know.

Eggie stepped back and dropped the man to the ground. He glowered down at him a little longer until he turned away—she knew he didn’t want to, knew how hard it was for him to do that—and walked over to Darla.

Darla still held her hand out and she wiggled her fingers at him, but Eggie shook his head. “Got blood on my hands.”

But Darla realized something about Eggie . . . he’d always have blood on his hands. Whether physically or metaphorically, he would always have blood on his hands or paws for the rest of his life. She knew that now. Understood it. And, as she reached down and grasped his blood-covered hand with her own, slightly calloused and scarred from baking and cooking over the years,Darla accepted that about him.

She had to because she knew now that she was in love with him. Whether she wanted to be or not, she loved him.

Of course, her sisters would call her foolish. Not because it was Egbert Ray Smith or because he was one of the Smith boys, but because he was her first. Because for Darla, there was no separating love and sex. They were one and the same for her, always would be.

She smiled into Eggie’s angry face, knowing his fury wasn’t directed at her, knowing without doubt or concern that she was safe with this dangerous, deadly wolf.

“Come on,” she said. “I’m starvin’.”

They came out of the woods after using a rag that Lloyd had on him to wipe their hands free of blood. It didn’t help with the scrapes and cuts they had from beating the men but that was all right. Maybe, if Eggie was lucky, no one would find the three and they’d die of their wounds. He knew why Darla had stopped him but he also knew men like that. Predator full-humans were, in Eggie’s estimation, the worst. Because food or survival had nothing to do with why they hunted. Absolutely nothing. But if there was just one female who could rein in Eggie’s love of putting down useless humans, it was Darla Mae Lewis and only Darla Mae.

As they cleared the woods, a large group of wolves suddenly stalked up to them and, going on training rather than instinct, Eggie and his teammates pulled their Smith & Wesson Model 59 semi-automatic pistols and aimed them at the wolves. The Pack skidded to a halt except for a darker-skinned She-wolf who kept coming anyway, but a tall male caught her arm and yanked her back, keeping her at his side.

“Darla?” the male demanded.

“Egbert Ray,” Darla sighed. “They’re my friends.”

Eggie sniffed the air and growled out, “Magnus Pack wolves are your friends?”

“I have lots of friends. Weapons down, gentlemen,” Darla ordered.

Eggie nodded at his team and he tucked his gun in the back of his jeans, under his denim jacket.

“Are you all right, Darla?” one of the Magnus Wolves asked.

“I’m fine. Just fine.”

Another one of the wolves pushed through the Pack, and stepped forward. And, with one look and a nod, Eggie recognized him as one of the Navy engineers who helped his team blow up shit when necessary. “Thorpe.”

“Smith.”

Ezra Thorpe had been part of the Magnus Pack since he was sixteen but he’d joined the Navy when he was twenty. He was, from what Eggie could tell, one of the best demolition experts he’d known. The wolf could take down an entire block with only a couple of strategically placed sticks of weak dynamite. He wasn’t real friendly but that’s why Eggie tolerated him. He hated real friendly.