“I look at you,” Sharyn sneered at her daughter, “and I think again why didn’t I make him wear a goddamn condom? Too bad I never have an answer that doesn’t make me throw up a little.” That said, Sharyn went back in to her house and slammed the door shut.

Donna McNelly glared at the hand held out to her, then slapped it away. “Fuck you!”

“Whatever.” Jay went back to his cell phone and her eyes narrowed. Useless. He was absolutely useless!

Pushing herself off the ground, she wiped the blood from her lip. “I can’t believe you didn’t do anything.”

“I’m not getting between you and your mother.”

Angry and needing to take it out on somebody, Donna slapped the phone from her boyfriend’s hand. He stepped toward her but stopped when she didn’t back down, their eyes level as they were the same height, the same build.

“Why do I bother having you around?” she sneered. “You’re fuckin’ useless.”

“You have me around because I give you what you need.”

She blinked, briefly studied him. There were only two things she ever really needed from the man.

Money, to keep her mother off her back, and a good fuck.

Oh, wait. There was something else her boyfriend provided—information. “You know where they are.”

“’Course I do.” He smiled, showing his fangs. “And those bitches are closer than you ever knew.”

CHAPTER 10

Gwen was inputting the information from recent receipts and was taking her sweet time about it, too, when Blayne received yet another text message. She responded quickly and shut her phone. Placing the phone in her backpack and her backpack over her shoulder, Blayne got up and headed toward the office door.

Gwen kept typing, waiting until Blayne’s hand was on the door handle before she said, “Where you going?”

Blayne stopped, her body tensing. “Huh?”

She continued to work. “I said, where are you going?”

“Out.”

“For drinks? I haven’t had a Guinness in forever.”

Blayne stared at her. She’d been a nervous mess all day, jumping when the phone rang, tearing papers she had on her desk into shreds, and twisting and untwisting poor, defenseless paperclips. When it came to emotions, Blayne was always an open book.

“No,” she finally answered. “Not drinks. I’m…uh…” Gwen could see her out of the corner of her eye, struggling with what she wanted to say. Struggling between lying and telling Gwen the truth. After a minute, she went with the lying. “I’m going to the hospital. Again.”

“The volunteering. Right. Okay.”

Blayne nodded, stared at Gwen for another moment—her frustration evident in the way she was twisting and untwisting herfingers—and went out the door.

Gwen went back to work…for about thirty more seconds. Then she shut off her monitor, pulled her backpack onto her shoulders, and ran to the office door. She stopped long enough to lock the doors and took off running. It still amazed Gwen that Blayne had finagled office space in the Kuznetsov Building. It was a small space, barely big enough for their two desks, small fridge, and coffeemaker, but the rent was too good to pass up and there was basement space to accommodate their company trucks and supplies. Really, Gwen couldn’t ask for better, especially in this city.

Stopping at the main doors of the building, Gwen stuck her head out and looked both ways. She could see Blayne running west and she took off after her. She didn’t get too close, though, not wanting Blayne to catch sight of her.

Thankfully Blayne didn’t grab a bus or take the subway, which was good because Gwen was still learning her way around this nightmare town. Still…the door Blayne disappeared into nearly fifteen minutes later did nothing but convince Gwen that she’d have to rescue Blayne from herself yet again.

Gwen walked to that door, stopping immediately when she stepped inside. Nope. Not a hospital—a place Blayne knew Gwen would never willingly go into—but an ice-skating rink. The entire floor teeming with full-humans watching their children skate, all of them hoping to be the breeder of the next gold Olympian.

Yet Gwen’s powerful sense of smell told her that full-humans weren’t the only ones using this building.

Sniffing like a bloodhound on the trail of a murderer, Gwen followed her nose to a discreet door behind a set of stairs. That discreet door led to another discreet door. She pulled it open and came face-to-face with several bathrooms and closets filled with cleaning and maintenance supplies. She almost got sidetracked by some copper pipes in the maintenance closet but made herself focus.

She sniffed the air and went to another set of stairs and a locked door. She sniffed at the door and pawed at it a couple of times. It opened, a wolf standing on the other side.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Gwen walked in, ignoring the way the male automatically sized her up, and quickly examined everything around her. This area of the building was huge, with its own set of elevators, a food court, several sports-related stores, and a Starbucks. This was a shifter-only space, huge and all-inclusive. A safe zone for every breed. That meant no fighting of any kind, including Pack, Pride, or Clan wars, and no hunting or bloodletting. Shifters got bitchy when they had to clean up any messes that required cops or disposing of carcasses.

“Can I help you?” the wolf asked.

“Uh…yeah. I’m looking for my friend. She’s a little taller than me, black with brown hair…she was probably talking to herself.”