“All right,” Gwen said. “Very short lesson in derby before the whistles blow. Four girls from each team that includes three blockers and one pivot make up the pack. The whistle blows, they take off. Two other girls, one from each team, are jammers. When a second whistle blows, the jammers’ whole goal is to get through the pack as quickly as possible. Whoever passes the other team’s Pivot first becomes the lead jammer and she’ll earn points for every player she passes from the other team. This all happens within two-minute intervals called jams, although the lead jammer can call off the jam before then. The whole thing wraps up in about two hours, including time-outs and a thirty-minute halftime break. There. That’s derby.”

The wild dogs stared blankly at Gwen, the disappointment evident on their faces.

“That’s it?” Jess finally asked. “That’s the entire game?”

“It’s called a bout, not a game. And yes. That’s it.”

“That sounds kind of…”

“Boring,” Phil finished for her.

Gwen shrugged. “To each their own,” she said, focusing back on the track.

As Gwen said, five females from each team rolled onto the track. Blayne was among them. She looked terrified as she rolled to a stop, lifting her gaze to the crowd, her eyes searching. She saw Jess and the wild dogs first, her smile painfully forced as she waved at them. Then Blayne’s gaze moved over to Lock and Gwen.

She blinked, her head tilting like a confused German shepherd’s. Then she smiled—and the power of it nearly blew out the stadium lights.

She lifted her arm high and waved. “Hi, Gwenie!”

Laughing, Gwen waved back, but both women jumped when a large hand slammed down on the rail in front of Blayne.

“Who is that?” Gwen asked, her eyes targeting the good-sized player leering down at Blayne.

“She’s one of the Staten Island Furriers.” Jess smiled around her chocolate-dipped banana on a stick, like most canines ignoring the potential risks of eating chocolate. Even her wedding was a veritable chocolate fiesta that every dog attending indulged in. They were fine the next day, but Lock didn’t understand taking the risk.

Then again, if someone told him he couldn’t have honey…“Her name is D.F.A.”

“D.F.A.?”

“Death From Above.”

Gwen and Lock looked at the wild dog. “That’s her name?” Lock asked.

“It’s her derby name. And considering her size…kind of fitting.”

“Muzzles on,” one of the refs ordered and Lock could only stare.

“Uh…Blayne’s wearing a muzzle.”

“Yeah,” Gwen clenched her hands together. “I heard some leagues insist on it if wolfdogs, coyote-dogs, or wolf-coyotes play. They have to wear muzzles.”

“Tell me you’re kidding.”

“Nope. It’s the only way the leagues would allow them to play against nonhybrids.”

Well, at least the muzzles they wore were fitted, snapping on to their helmets, the crisscrossed strips of white leather stretching over their noses and mouths and under their chins. Not only did they protect the other players from bites, they also looked pretty cool. Lock’s dweeby side was impressed.

The first whistle blew and the pack of females shot off. Lock and Gwen leaned forward and he wondered if they saw the same thing when it came to Blayne as a player. She had solid strength, holding her own against the other players in the pack, but she was a little timid and she needed more confidence on her skates. A few times it looked as if a strong wind would knock her on her ass.

The second whistle blew and the two jammers sped off after the pack, working their way through when they reached them. The Furriers’ jammer tried to get past Blayne, and Blayne was nicely holding her off so the rest of her team could get their jammer through. But as the pack tightened up, Lock suddenly heard Blayne snarl, and Gwen sat up straight as they watched her best friend lifted into the air by D.F.A.

It was strange how he knew, how he sensed it without actually knowing, what Gwen would do.

Automatically his hands reached out and caught hold of her waist as she tried to shoot past him. He yanked her onto his lap only seconds before she could launch herself over the seats and probably onto the track.

Holding Gwen tight, Lock watched as D.F.A. shot out from the pack with a struggling Blayne still in her arms, rolled toward where Gwen and Lock were sitting, and, when she was about ten feet away, shot-putted Blayne right at them.

The entire section instinctively ducked as Blayne’s body flew over the railing and into the protective glass between the audience and the track. He’d never been so grateful for protective glass as he was right now.

Slowly lifting his head, his mouth open, Lock stared at the spot where poor Blayne’s body had hit.

Had he really just seen that? Had he really just witnessed one player throwing another at the crowd? And, more importantly, why wasn’t that player thrown out of the game?

“Do you know her, Gwen?” he had to ask, because D.F.A. had been staring right at Gwen when she’d lobbed Blayne at her.

“No. I’ve never seen her before.”

“Why is she still playing?”

Gwen was sitting up, straining to see Blayne, who’d hit the floor between the banked track and the stadium seats. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not kidding.”

“You’ve gotta do a hell of a lot more than toss around a player before they’ll throw you out. Marla the Merciless didn’t even get a thrown out after she took me down.”