Neither of the bears spoke on the ride back to the den, and Nick didn’t mind it a bit. The wolf strained at his control, ready to run as soon as his paws hit the ground. Enough of this bullshit. Their mate didn’t want them, and there were too many villains in the world to hunt.

Kaiser parked the car next to the building but didn’t kill the engine. He glanced at Axel in the passenger seat and tilted his head at the window. “Give us a second, Ax.”

“Sure,” the polar bear said, and got out of the car. He kicked his door shut and headed for the building, where no doubt his mate waited for his return.

Nick pushed away bitterness at what he’d never have. No mate, no young, no warm den waiting for him to return to at the end of a long day. Not that he’d expected Lacey to settle for a staid existence in a two-bedroom apartment in some colorless apartment complex in one city. She deserved the world.

He wanted to follow the polar bear out of the car instead of listening to whatever the alpha bear had to say, but he didn’t want to risk facing Kara and her emotions. So he waited.

Kaiser took a deep breath, his hands still braced on the steering wheel. “Okay, wolf. No bullshit. Is this a suicide mission?”

“Not for me,” Nick said. “I can’t speak for anyone else.”

Kaiser gave him a dirty look over his shoulder. “You know what I mean. Something happened between you and Lacey, and neither one of you looks like you’ve got a lot of plans for the future.”

“Have you taken up therapy, bear?”

A hint of the grolar bear—half-grizzly, half-polar bear—lurked in Kaiser’s gaze. “No more joke, wolf, or I’ll lock your ass up and everyone else can figure this shit out tonight without you.”

Nick sighed, rubbing his eyes. He needed a gallon of water, a couple pounds of almost-raw steak, and an hour or two to nap. Everything else would work itself out. “Lacey rejected me. There’s no reason for me to stick around, so I’m going to take off as soon as I know for sure that Smith is fine. He and I can sort out payment and the rest of that bullshit later. I’d rather get on the first thing burning out of the airport. You won’t have to put up with me.”

He tried to smile, since he knew that Kaiser wasn’t a big fan of lone wolves living in his basement and occasionally losing their minds.

But the alpha bear tugged at his beard and shot Nick another dirty look. “You are welcome here, wolf, or you wouldn’t be here. Have you told your sister?”

“No. And I’m not going to.” When Kaiser started to object, Nick leaned forward between the seats and looked the alpha bear dead in the eye. “She doesn’t need the stress. I’ll call her from the airport. I don’t want to put her through an in-person goodbye. It’s too hard on her. She’ll be fine here, man. That bear of hers will take care of her.”

The last was a grudging admission, and one that tasted particularly sour. He didn’t have to like Owen to acknowledge that the bear could protect his sister. Nick would return to meet his little niece or nephew after the birth, when most of the chaos and hormones and crying were done.

Kaiser’s mate, Josie, appeared in the door and frowned as she looked at where the alpha bear still sat in the SUV. Kaiser sighed. “She probably thinks I’m avoiding fixing the washing machine. A hose came loose and she won’t let me just buy a new one. She said it’s wasteful.”

“You could just order it and let her blame it on the delivery guys.”

The alpha bear snorted and shook his head, turning off the car. “You’ve definitely never had a real relationship, Nick. I hope that changes for you, and that I’m around to see all the... learning you’ll have to do.”

“Fat chance.” Nick slid out of the car and shoved his hands in his pockets, wandering toward the door as Kaiser trudged up to the building. Nick waited until the door was open and Josie could hear every word before he shook his head earnestly and did his best impression of trying to be helpful. “I know it’s kind of tedious to just fix the machine, but really—throwing it out just to buy a new one is so wasteful. Your children—and the environment—will thank you.”

Kaiser started growling as Josie smacked his shoulder and said, “See?”

The alpha bear kissed her cheek and shooed her toward the elevator. “I know, I know. I’ll be right up.” He waited until she headed in that direction before he turned and grabbed the front of Nick’s shirt and slammed him against the wall.

Nick couldn’t keep from laughing at the man’s expression, and just held his hands up in a weak defense. “Man, I’m sorry. You just set that up too perfectly.”

“Go fuck yourself, wolf.” Kaiser’s eyes glinted gold, but Nick knew the bear wasn’t too pissed off, otherwise he’d already be dead. Bears only made noise when they bluffed. The bear tossed him in the direction of his room, so Nick landed with a grunt and as much grace as a newborn foal. “Go clean yourself up and get some rest. You smell like a whole week of bad decisions. You’re going to eat dinner with us tonight, along with your sister, and you’re going to be a positive ray of fucking sunshine, do you hear me? No morose talk about surviving the night or dying horribly or running away to Europe.”

“Kara will know something’s up if I’m a ray of sunshine,” Nick called after him as Kaiser stormed to the gym and toward the elevator. “But whatever you say.”

At least it brought a smile to his face as he unlocked his door and slid into the room he’d only call his home for a day or two more. He meant what he’d told Kaiser. After the realization of how impossible it would be to say goodbye to Lacey, Nick had lost his taste for farewells completely. He didn’t want to say goodbye to his sister, and he sure as hell didn’t want to deal with the herd of children who’d grown particularly attached to him. He’d never had so much trouble leaving a place before.

He stripped down, took a shower, and was in the process of drying himself off so he could get dressed and scrounge up some meat when he paused, his hair half-combed. Well, of course. He’d never really felt like he belonged someplace before. As much as he chafed against the bears’ rules and the confines of a... family... there was some goodness in it. A degree of reliability he’d never known before.

Nick rubbed the towel over his hair again before throwing it on the floor in the direction of the bathroom. He searched for clean sweatpants, and debated whether Kaiser would murder him if he went upstairs with a load of laundry. If the bear hadn’t managed to fix the machine, he might use it as an excuse to put Nick to work. He snorted and pulled on the least dirty of them, figuring he could probably knock on Sasha’s door on the way up to borrow some sweats.

And that right there was what got under his skin, like ants crawling all over him. He knew that Sasha would lend him sweats, even if the batshit crazy Chechen grumbled about it. Owen would probably be awake late at night to sit in companionable silence when the dreams were too bad. Malcolm would have a bottle of moonshine that would curl his chest hair, almost as good as vodka for making the ghosts go away for a while. Axel would go round for round in the ring when Nick needed to exhaust himself. And Kaiser kept a level head to balance them all out. Like a goddamned family.

Nick sighed as he flopped back onto his bed. He’d never wanted that kind of stability, that certainty. It felt more like an anchor than a comfort. But the last few months with the bears... He might not have survived what happened with Lacey if it hadn’t been for Kaiser and his bears. He owed them more than he could articulate, and probably more than they knew. If Lacey was the one who brought him back from being only the wolf, then the bears kept him human after.

He scrounged around under his bed for where he’d last seen his multitool and a few other tools, and shoved his feet into a battered pair of flip-flops. So much for his nap and a quiet afternoon. He dragged himself up the stairs, bypassing Sasha’s apartment since he planned on getting his clothes dirtier anyway, and knocked on Kaiser’s door at the very top of the building.

A split second after he did so, Nick found himself crouching behind the offending washing machine, what seemed like half a dozen kids climbing on him and banging various metal objects against the machine, and asking a shit-load of questions that had absolutely nothing to do with washing machines or anything else that Nick knew about.

The alpha bear had looked downright suspicious when Nick offered to work on the washing machine for him, but like any good soldier, he knew when to go with the flow and let someone else do the work. Nick had clearly forgotten the first rule of being a soldier: never volunteer for anything. He’d lost his damn mind.

And he knew it when it took longer than planned to get the belts lined up and he was still there, on the floor in the laundry room and surrounded by a half-circle of children mesmerized by his swearing in Russian, when Kara and Owen appeared for dinner. Kara stood in the doorway and started to look all misty-eyed as she watched him doing something domestic for the first time in his goddamned life. “Nick—“

“Don’t you fucking start,” he muttered, and the children all said, “Ooooooh,” in a chorus.

Nick lifted his head, startled, and looked for the threat. But instead the little ones stared at him with wide eyes, and the little princess with blonde curls waved a wand at him. “You said a bad word.”

“Yes, he said a very, very bad word.” Josie appeared in the door behind Kara and gave Nick a look that nearly stopped his heart. “And he promises never to say that word again. Right?”

“Sure,” Nick said.

Josie eyed him for a long moment, and when Nick smiled winningly, she rolled her eyes and started to shoo the children away from him. “Let’s give Nick a break, shall we? Come and help me put away all these trains that somehow showed up on my table.”

The little ones scampered away except for the little boy, who lingered like he expected Nick to start spewing dirty words at any moment. Kara tickled the little one until he, too, skidded away into the melee in the living room, then she leaned against the doorjamb near where Nick contorted himself to reach a particularly stubborn nut and bolt. “So... what are you up to?”

“Not up to anything.” Nick winced and stretched, irritated beyond reason that the goddamn thing was in a space so small only someone with a pair of tweezers could possibly hope to reach the nut. Fucking bullshit washing machines. “I’m just trying to help Kaiser out a bit.”

“Do you have a fever?” Kara crouched to try and feel his forehead, her expression radiating mock concern. “Did you hit your head on anything and lose consciousness? Have you been possessed by an evil demon? Blink twice if you’re under a mind-control spell.”

“Very funny.” He finally got the bolt threaded and spun it into place, then sat up and started wiping some of the grease and dirt off his hands. “I just got to thinking that I probably wouldn’t have... made it the last couple of months without some help, and since I suck at putting words together, this is my way of thanking Kaiser. Okay?”

Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. “This feels like something else, Nikolai. Be straight with me. What’s going on?”

He smiled and tweaked the end of her nose with his greasy fingers, leaving black smudges on her otherwise flawless face. “Boop.”

She swatted him and squalled, rocking back on her heels, and in a snap, Owen appeared in the doorway, ready for battle. He caught sight of Kara and exhaled in relief. “Thought something was wrong in here.”

“Something is wrong,” Kara muttered, wiping at her nose and only smearing the grease around. “Goddamn it, Nick, you piece of shit. This isn’t coming off!”

“Something for you to remember me by, then,” Nick said. He groaned as he stood, feeling every creak and crack in his bones and joints. He was getting too old to roll around on the floor for hours at a time. He went to the deep sink next to the washer so he could use some fancy soap to get the grease off his hands. “If you loved me, you’d get that tattooed on your face for real. Like signing a masterpiece.”

Owen snorted but managed to fix a stern expression on his face when he saw the dirty look Kara gave him. “Nick, dinner’s almost ready.”

“Great.”

Kara’s scowl deepened as she blocked Nick’s way, her arms folded over her chest. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Let’s just eat dinner and call it a night, okay?” He didn’t want to think about goodbyes. It was all just “see you later,” nothing more. He’d be back in a couple of months to see the baby after it was born. Easy-peasy.

She didn’t like it, but she got out of the way and followed him to where Josie and Kaiser set their massive dinner table for five adults. The kids all congregated around a smaller table, clutching fries and chicken nuggets and corn dogs and all kinds of food that Nick would have gladly fought over. Instead, he got wedged into a chair next to his sister. At least she passed him a beer.

He kept half his mind on the meal, grateful that he wasn’t required to say a whole lot in the conversation, and half his mind on what he needed to do to help the witch and control as much as possible in Smith’s backyard before the ErlKing was released. He played through as many scenarios as he could come up with, calculating where to place people for the biggest advantage. Benedict and Eloise needed to be at a distance so she could paralyze people long-range, so maybe they could stay on the second-floor balcony that overlooked the backyard. Meadow needed to be closer so she could potentially put hands on Smith when he came back, but that meant Rafe would be in the mix as well. Nick frowned at his plate and wished he had a sand-table and a model of Smith’s backyard so he could really sort through everything.

Kara wasn’t the only one who noticed his mind was elsewhere; Kaiser watched him meditatively, like he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to know what Nick was thinking. Nick decided to get up and excuse himself half a dozen times during dinner, but he’d seen what Josie made for dessert and couldn’t tolerate the idea of walking away from tiramisu. As soon as he got his bowl, though, he saluted Josie with his spoon and said, “I need to focus on some planning for tonight. Thanks for the lovely meal. I’ll see all of you a bit later.”

Kara looked like she meant to stop him, or maybe to go with him, but Owen squeezed her knee under the table and she only frowned instead. Nick really didn’t want to be grateful for the little punk putting his hand on her, and might have glared just a touch.

Kaiser leaned back in his chair and absently scratched his beard. “Okay. You can take the sedan over to Smith’s house. We’ll need the SUVs for our part of the night, in case we have a lot of passengers.”

“I’ll see you in the gym before you leave.” Nick nodded to him, not daring to say more, and headed for the stairs. He didn’t do mushy stuff. There was plenty of time to say “see you later” to all of them. It would all be fine.

The tiramisu tasted like ash and regret as he choked it down, and all he could think of was Lacey.