“On second thought,” Ria said, making Alex freeze, “I think I’d rather go out for a walk—I can show Emmett where I was ambushed. Grandmother wants

to talk to Tom.”

Grinning inwardly at how neatly she’d cut off all options but the one she wanted, Emmett stepped out onto the drive and waited for her to join him.

“You’ve done this before,” he said when she came up beside him and they headed off.

“You have to grow a fairly strong personality in my family,” she said, a smile flirting with her lips. “It’s a survival mechanism.” Reaching into the pocket of her coat, she passed over a folded piece of paper. “The account number.”

“Thanks.” He glanced at her features, frowning at the bruise she’d tried to hide under makeup. “Show me your hands.”

She turned them palm-sides-up. “Healing okay.”

“The bastard is in a coma,” he muttered, cupping her hands so he could inspect the damage.

The leopard hated seeing her marked up. So did the

man. “You know a Psy we could chat up?”

“Well,” she said when he forced himself to let her go, “my mother’s accountant is Psy but I don’t think Ms. Bhaskar is into interrogations.”

“Pity.”

“So, last night . . .”

“Can you talk about it?” He paused to look down into her face. “If it’s too hard, we can delay it for a few days.”

A hint of open irritation flared in her eyes. “What about making the streets safer for all daughters?”

“It’s important,” he admitted. “This gang, Vincent’s Crew, they’re taunting us. If we don’t get them out of the city soon, we lose the right to hold it.”

“Really?” Lines marked her forehead. “Why?”

“It’s about power,” he told her. “A predatory changeling pack can only legitimately claim territory it can hold—and that means clearing it of all other predators. The Crew calls our authority into question. Another changeling group could decide that means we have no right to this area.”

“And then blood would spill,” she said, voice solemn. “The SnowDancer wolves?”

“Dangerous,” he told her. “But they’re holding a massive amount of territory already. Our intel says they haven’t got the manpower to push us out.”

“But they’re not the only ones are they?” Sliding her hands into the pockets of her vivid red coat, Ria nodded left. “That’s the alley where he grabbed me.

I was walking home after a night class. My last class actually.”

“Why were you alone?” he asked, a slight growl in his voice. “It was after dark.”

“It was barely eight.” Irritation sparked again—Emmett was starting to show the same overprotective tendencies as her parents. “And I’m an adult in case you haven’t noticed.”

A slow blink. “Oh, I noticed.”

THREE

Heat curled up from her stomach, spread through her limbs, threatened to color her face.

“Then don’t patronize me.” Steeling her spine against the impact, she met those gorgeous eyes of his. “My decision was a solid one. There were a lot of people around, heading out to restaurants or coming home from work. That excuse for a human being took me during a split-second respite in the foot traffic.”

“Means he had to have been following you, just waiting for an opportunity.” Emmett stared into the dark maw of the alley, his eyes narrowed.

She wondered if he’d even heard her first two sentences. “That’s what I thought. I’m always careful when I get off the skytrain, but it’s hard to pick up that sort of thing when so many people disembark at the stations.” Last night, the mass of humanity had spread out as soon as they hit the ground, but there’d been enough of a crowd going her way that she hadn’t really paid attention to anyone in particular.

“Until we neutralize the Crew,” Emmett murmured, still staring into the alley, “you don’t go anywhere alone.”

Her mouth fell open. “What?”

“To Death,” he said, turning to face her, “that’s their motto. They follow their quarry to death.

They’ll come after you again and again. It’s a matter of

‘honor.’ ” He all but spat on the street. “What the fuck kind of honor is it to hurt a woman?”

The unflinching conviction of his words reached straight through to the warm feminine core of her. But—“I can’t sit at home. I have to start interviewing for jobs for one.” Work was her ticket to freedom, a freedom she’d worked hard to gain. “And I take my grandmother to her appointments—”

“Who said you have to sit at home?” An intent stare.

Ria didn’t react well to any kind of intimidation. “Well, if I can’t go anywhere alone—and I’m not going to put my grandmother in danger—then what else

am I supposed to do, hire a bodyguard?” The minute, the second, her father found out about this, he’d use it as an excuse to stop her from finding a job.

Simon and Alex Wembley loved their only daughter. They loved her so much, they couldn’t bear to have the world put a single bruise on her soul. As a result, Ria had grown up being protected and cosseted. If it hadn’t been for her grandmother, she might have turned into a spoiled brat. Instead, she’d grown up cherishing her parents’ love . . . while understanding the sadness that lay behind its protective fervor. That’s why she hadn’t gone away to college like Ken—she hadn’t been able to put that much worry in their hearts. But she couldn’t live in a cocoon forever, not even for her mom and dad. It would

never suit her—it would, in fact, destroy her.

However, her parents hadn’t yet figured that out. In Simon’s and Alex’s minds, marriage to Tom would provide the ultimate protection—as a Clark wife, she’d be expected to do nothing more strenuous than look pretty and maybe arrange a few flowers. “Emmett?” she prompted when he remained silent.

“I’ll protect you.”

Her heart thudded. “How long?”

“As long as it takes.”

She almost took a step back at the sheer untamed power of him. “You can’t be with me twenty-four/seven. I won’t say no to an escort from the skytrain at night, though.” She was independent, not stupid.

“The Crew’s been known to kidnap people off the street in broad daylight.” His skin pulled taut over his cheekbones. “They intimidate any witnesses into silence, so their victims seem to disappear into thin air.”

The need for freedom came up against the logic of what he was saying. “What about my family?”

“We’ve already posted pack soldiers at your mother’s store and around your home. The Crew’s M.O. is to hit the women in the family, so your mother, sister-in-law, and grandmother are most at risk.”

“Amber’s over eight months pregnant,” Ria began.

“Really?” A teasing smile. “I thought she looked a bit different.”

She felt a flush stain her cheekbones. “She hasn’t been going out much anyway—if we tell her about the Crew’s tactics, she’ll probably be okay with staying inside for a bit.”

“It would definitely make our job easier. Your mother?”

“No way. She’ll go to work—she refuses to surrender to intimidation.”

“I can’t say that’s exactly a surprise.” He shook his head. “I’m not even going to ask about your grandmother. Just make sure she knows someone will

be shadowing her every time she goes out alone.”

“Knowing her, she’ll get them to carry her shopping.”

Emmett’s eyes gleamed. “And you?”

“I’ll be ignoring you,” she said, feeling an odd sense of excitement in her gut.

No smile, no hint of softening in his face. “You’re welcome to try.”

Emmett finished fixing the computronics inside his mother’s car and picked up his cell phone to call her. “I’ll drop it off tomorrow morning. It was a short circuit, nothing big.”

“Thanks, baby.” His mom was the only one Emmett let get away with calling him “baby.” The one time he’d tried to question her about it, she’d simply stared at him until he’d sighed and given in.

“Has Dad gotten in yet?”

“No,” she told him, her voice holding a rare kind of clarity. “He’s running an extra training session for some of the new soldiers. If things keep going the way they have been, I think there’ll come a time when we’ll have to take a stand against the Psy—we need to be prepared.”

Since his mother was the pack historian, her words carried real weight. “What do you see?”

“I’ve been tracking the Psy Council’s actions since I was a teenager,” she told him, “and year by year, I see more and more darkness creep into their

world. They’re slowly going beyond cold, to a place that makes me scared for the Psy race as a whole.”

Emmett felt no pity for the Psy—not given what he’d seen of their tactics, but his mother had always had a soft heart. “Lucas is obviously listening to you

—I’m scheduled to teach more sessions as well.” Somewhat to his surprise, he’d inherited his father’s way with the younger members of the pack.

His mother chuckled. “I hear he gave you the ten- to fourteen-year-old crowd.”

“They teach me patience.” It was a deadpan comment.

“Oh, Emmett.” Another laugh. “Why are you single? You’re gorgeous, good with children, and you adore your mother.”

Grinning, he fixed the timecode on the dashboard computer. “Not that you’re biased.”

“I get to be biased about my baby.”