“The geriatrics are grumbling?” Liam guessed.
“I don’t know if we talked to anyone in the Atric Pack, but every Jerry, Jane, Joe, and Josephine I met today asked me if you two were really mates and if you were really going to let Scout be the Alpha Female.”
“Let me be the Alpha Female? I am the freaking Alpha Female!”
Joshua, who had wandered in with Charlie, hauled himself up on the Donovan’s kitchen counter. “Weren’t you just saying this morning that you didn’t want to be the Alpha Female? I really wish you’d make up your mind. It’s very confusing to those of us with testosterone who lack a woman’s prerogative.”
Before Scout could respond, the door leading from the kitchen to the dining room swung open so hard it bounced off the wall. The room was filled with the new Alpha Pack, which included not only the Alpha Male and Female, but an Immortal and the person the Alpha Pack recognized as the Stella Polaris, regardless of the fact that she refused the title. Even the Shifters and Seers who didn’t like being ruled by a female Shifter or a group of teenagers went out of their way to show respect when surrounded by them. There was only one person in the world with enough courage to walk into that room as if she owned the place and regard them all with equal amounts of contempt and adoration.
“Why are there always a hundred people in this kitchen?” Angel asked, hands on her hips as she huffed at the labyrinth of chairs and bodies between her and the refrigerator.
“Your math skills are seriously lacking, Munchkin,” Jase said to his baby sister. “Let’s count together now. One… two…”
Angel gave Jase a look that was a perfect imitation of the one Scout had been giving him most of the morning. “I’m eight. I know my multiplication tables, thank you very much. I was being ironical.”
“What I don’t get,” Joshua said, rummaging through the candy-filled cookie jar, “is how two people as nice as Mr. and Mrs. Donovan could raise three obnoxiously sarcastic children. Munchkin is barely out of diapers and she already speaks ironical as her primary language. Do you think it’s something in the water here?”
“My name is Angel, and you’re going to get in trouble for sitting up there.”
“I’m not scared of you,” Joshua said.
“I’ll holler for my mom.”
“I’m not scared of her either.”
Angel took a deep breath and pursed her lips together.
“Okay, okay.” Joshua slid off the counter. “Geez, Louise.”
“You talk funny.”
“You look funny.”
Angel’s eyes narrowed so far you couldn’t see even a hint of blue peeking out and her lips disappeared into a thin line of nothingness. Talley braced herself for a full-on tantrum, knowing exactly how much fury that tiny body could hold.
Scout was obviously expecting the same outcome. “Could you please make them stop?” she asked Liam from across the table.
The Alpha Male quirked an eyebrow. “Me? I thought you were the Alpha Female. Surely you can handle a little kid and an old man.”
“I’m not old!” Joshua asserted, and then mumbled, “I’ve just been alive a really long time.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Liam said to his mate. “If you can force those two to act civil to one another until this evening, then we’ll forego any and all mating ceremonies. But if you can’t…” Liam shrugged. “Mating ceremonies all around.”
Talley couldn’t be sure if Joshua hadn’t been paying attention to what Liam was saying or if he was being his normal interfere-with-the-matings-of-Shifters self, but Liam barely finished his ultimatum when a spray of water arched from the sink where he stood to drench the front Angel’s shirt, which sent her into a bout of hysterics.
Scout closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Be glad I’m not telling you exactly how I feel about you right now,” she said to Liam.
“You don’t have to. I can remember exactly what you said last night as I was—”
“Okay, time to break this party up!” Scout said, jumping up from her chair so quickly it would have toppled over if she hadn’t used her Shifter reflexes to snag it with her foot and set it back on all four legs. “Charlie and Joshua, you’re on Aunt Rachel duty.” Charlie nodded as if he was accepting a suicide mission, and Joshua did a fist-pump and hissed the word yes through his teeth. “Jase and Talley, you’re with us in Gertrude,” which is what Scout named the Humvee with bullet-proof glass that Liam insisted she drive. “And Angel…”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
Talley thought she might have heard Scout mutter “thank God” under her breath before turning to her little sister. “I was just going to tell you that I don’t know when we’ll get home tonight, but if it’s early enough, we’ll go grab some ice cream, so don’t eat a lot of junk food after supper.”
Angel looked wary. “Ice cream?”
“I’ll let you get whatever flavor you want,” Scout said, walking across the room and sweeping her sister up in a hug. “I love you, kid.”
The wariness turned to fear. “You’re not leaving again are you?”
If the wrinkled foreheads and shifty eyes were anything to go by, the guys couldn’t figure out where this seemingly random burst of serious emotion was coming from, but Talley understood. It wasn’t unreasonable for her friend to think the night would turn into a fight for her life. After all, it was rare that Scout found herself in a room filled with unknown Shifters and her untimely death didn’t seem imminent.
“I don’t think so. But if I don’t come home tonight, know that it wasn’t something I could control.” She squeezed her little sister even harder. “Be a good girl for Mom and Dad, okay?”
The rest of the farewells were decidedly less dramatic, although Scout’s sense of doom and gloom was spreading across the entire group. Even Joshua was subdued as he told Angel goodbye and headed out the door. Talley, Jase, Scout, and Liam were already halfway to the car when Angel ran out on the porch.
“Hey!” she called out to Liam. “You better bring my sister home.”
Liam looked at Scout, and in that look, Talley saw enough love that it made her heart ache. “Always,” he said.