“That’s ridiculous.” I stood, suddenly itching to be moving. To…run. Instead, I grabbed the clothes I’d worn when I fled the Southeast Pride—someone had done my laundry while I’d slept—and shrugged out of the robe to pull on my underwear. “Jace’s family could come see him here even if the council never lifts his exile.”

“But they won’t,” she insisted. “Melody and Patricia don’t feel safe in the free zone, and they won’t even after it’s officially a Pride. They’re kind of…precious.”

“So I recall.” I’d only met Melody and her mother once, but that was plenty. “Abby, if I go back, they’ll never let me out of their sight again.”

She shook her head. “Faythe and my dad gave you their word. They won’t break it.”

“They said I could stay with Titus for two weeks.” I pulled my jeans on over my underwear. “They didn’t say they’d let me leave again if I came back early. And anyway, the whole council’s already broken their word, letting Jace visit after they said—” I gasped as the truth hit me like a slap to the face. “That’s what this is about.”

Abby gave me a confused look as I buttoned my jeans and reached for my bra. “What are you talking about?”

“They’re trying to lure me back early. They don’t think Titus will keep his word.” And I was starting to hope they were right. Titus might be trying to turn the free zone into another Pride territory, but that was like trying to build a brick house out of rough-cut stone. His “house” was never going to look like all the others, because he was using different building materials. Strays, instead of Pride cats. And if I could make him understand that his territory shouldn’t be like all the others—that he didn’t need to give his Pride a dam—then there was no reason a female stray couldn’t live in peace there like all the others.

“You think my brother’s wedding is a ploy by the council to get you back?” Abby frowned. “Robyn, they’ve been engaged for two months. You’re starting to sound paranoid.”

I shook my head as I shrugged out of the robe. “Not the wedding. Lifting Jace’s exile.” I hooked my bra into place, then pulled my shirt over my head. “They’re letting you and Jace come to the ceremony because they think I’ll come with you. And once I’m there, I’ll never get out again.”

“I doubt they’ve put that much thought into it.”

“She’s right,” Jace said, and I looked up to find him in the doorway, leaning against the frame. “They’re making a play for Robyn, and she can’t come with us unless she’s willing to go to Atlanta after the wedding.”

Abby crossed her arms over her chest. “You really think my dad and Faythe would do that?”

He shrugged. “I think they only make up one-fifth of the council, and even if the other four-fifths agree on nothing else in the world, they agree on getting Robyn back. For the research potential, at the least.”

“I hate to think they’d be so duplicitous about it,” Abby murmured.

Jace stepped forward and pulled her up by both hands. “Your faith in people is adorable.” He kissed her on the forehead, and they looked so sweet together that I almost gagged.

When I looked past them, I saw Jace’s packed bag lying on the floor in the hall, next to their closed bedroom door. “When are you leaving?”

“After breakfast.” Abby turned around in Jace’s embrace until she was pressed against his chest. “Robyn, you will be okay here. Titus won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Nothing you don’t want, anyway,” Jace added, and my pulse spiked at the thought. Abby elbowed him in the gut, but he hardly even flinched. “I’m kidding,” he amended. “The man’s a perfect gentleman. And he’s not looking for a wife.”

I could feel my face flame. Abby told him about my suspicion. Jace must have thought I was a total egomaniac. “Good.” I cleared my throat and pushed past my own embarrassment. “I’m only here because the alternative is Atlanta.”

Abby stepped out of Jace’s embrace and looked up into my eyes. “Robyn, promise me you’ll be here when we get back.”

I shrugged. “Where else would I go?”

“I just… Don’t run, okay? It’s not safe out there by yourself. If you really don’t want to go to Atlanta, we’ll figure something out after the wedding. You have my word.”

Jace laid a hand on her arm. “Abby, don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I…” She didn’t seem to know how to finish that. Instead, she nodded. “We’ll be home in a week. Stay put, okay?”

“I will.” Probably.

After the paper plate revelation of the night before, I’d expected breakfast to consist of two or three enforcers in jeans and dark tees eating cold cereal and slopping milk on the countertop. What I got instead were Jace, Abby, and six toms in various stages of undress, pouring coffee from a French press, squeezing orange halves in a steel-handled juicer, and devouring homemade waffles.

On paper plates.

Though I’d already met several of them, I lingered in the arched entryway for a minute, watching. Trying to decide how—and whether—I fit in. Trying not to be intimidated by the crowd, and by how close they all obviously were.

I’d spent more than two months with the Di Carlos and never felt like I knew a soul, other than Dr. Carver, who only visited to draw my blood.

“Hungry?” a voice asked from my left, and I jumped, startled to find that Drew Borden had snuck up on me. Only he hadn’t really snuck. He’d probably just walked with a cat’s inherent silent grace.

Even in human form, my hearing was excellent when I paid attention to it. But I hadn’t yet mastered the art of listening to my surroundings without conscious effort, something a natural-born shifter never had to learn, as far as I could tell.

But these weren’t natural-born shifters. I was finally among people who truly understood what I’d been through and what still lay ahead. I should have been thrilled for the company—for the commiseration—yet the thought of stepping into Titus’s kitchen made my chest feel tight.