Lucien paced while the women were in the bathroom, mentally beating himself up over letting Willow get taken from under his nose. On top of it, although Ryenne fought off one of the rogues, he’d never seen her so wild and undisciplined. She’d been a better fighter before she became a shifter.

He called Gavin and explained what happened and where they were now. Gavin reached the restaurant by the time Ryenne and Willow came out, with Ryenne’s arm cleaned up and again hidden under a long-sleeved shirt.

Now, sitting at a table, waiting for burgers, Lucien was kicking himself. “I’m sorry, Ryenne. It happened so fast. I had just caught a glimpse of her coming toward us when a person suddenly yanked her back. That’s when I took off running after her. But I’m sorry I didn’t get to her sooner.”

Willow patted his arm across the table. “It’s not your fault, Lucien. As soon as you saw, you came chasing after us.”

“Yeah,” Ryenne said. “Luckily, you were watching for her and saw them grab her.”

“It just happened so fast,” he repeated.

Ryenne nodded. “Thank you for helping me rescue my mom.”

“Anytime,” Lucien said with a wry look. His stomach was in knots. If it had been his mother, he would have reacted just as Ryenne had. He would have flown at her attackers and torn them apart. But his mother was a shifter and would’ve been able to defend herself. Then again, it had happened in a blink of an eye.

“I’m famished,” Ryenne announced, interrupting Lucien’s wallowing. “Where’s our food?”

Lucien caught the scent of meat on the stale air. “Here it comes.”

Sure enough, the server arrived within seconds with their burgers. Everyone ate in silence, except Willow, who only picked at her food.

Lucien looked a question at her.

“I’m not that hungry.”

As a human, her reactions were different from shifters’. After action, shifters needed to eat. After sex, shifters needed to eat. After pretty much anything, shifters needed to eat. Humans had varied reactions and would sometimes forgo basic needs if their emotions or routines were disrupted.

Lucien loved watching Ryenne eat. Even before she’d been turned, she always ate with gusto. Despite mostly eating for sustenance, she liked to enjoy whatever she ate.

Now, she finished off the last bite of her burger, licked her fingers, and dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. Then she pulled out her phone. “I’m going to call Scotty and tell him what happened. See if he thinks we should file a police report, but at least maybe he can look into this.”

Lucien wondered if involving the police was the right move. He caught Ryenne’s eye and gave her a questioning look.

“Seriously,” she said while the phone rang, “better to get the cops involved now, because if I ever see either one of those rogues again, I’ll tear out their throats.”

That he could understand. He could tell from her face and the sound through the phone when Scotty answered. She excused herself from the table and went outside. He could’ve listened in, what with his preternatural hearing, but he decided to give her privacy after what she’d been through today, and focus instead on Willow, who still looked pale and shaken.

He reached across the table and patted her hand. “Are you sure you don’t want to eat anything? Can we get you a cup of tea at least?”

She gave him a weak smile. “I’ll be alright. It was just such a shock. I’ve never been grabbed like that before. Now I don’t feel like going home to my big empty house all by myself.”

“You don’t have to,” Lucien said.

“No, we’ll figure something out,” Gavin jumped in. “We can all stay with you. It’ll be a party.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ryenne said, sliding into the booth next to her mom.

“Why not?” Gavin asked.

“Because the kidnappers obviously know where she lives. She needs to stay with me.”

Lucien’s low mood dropped further. He had been looking forward to helping Ryenne through her transition as a new shifter. She would need a lot of attention and he was glad to be here to give it to her. But with Willow in Ryenne’s small, one-bedroom apartment, it would put a damper on their amorous activities.

“There’s no other choice,” Ryenne said. “The Fangs know Mom’s house and they probably know our office because we’ve advertised our business, but they might not know my place. I’ve tried to stay off the radar as much as possible.”

Lucien nodded, but he wasn’t happy about losing his intimate time with his girlfriend.

Ryenne looked up, over his head, and her face brightened. He turned to see who or what elicited this response.

Two men—one white, one black—had just walked into the restaurant and were approaching their table.

“Scotty, Nick, thanks so much for coming.” Ryenne jumped up from the table and gave each one a hug.

Something about the embraces set Lucien on edge. Sure, he would be jealous of any man other than Gavin she showed interest in. But he knew in his heart how she felt about him and he trusted her not to cheat. They’d been through so much together, even in the short few months they’d known each other.

But this was different.

There was something in her posture, and the smile still hadn’t left her face even though the reason she had called these cops was because someone had just tried to kidnap her mother. A situation that definitely didn’t make Ryenne smile. She’d said herself she wanted to tear their throats out. Her hand slid down the arm of the white guy as if she were about to take his hand. She glanced at Lucien and let her hand fall away.

She made introductions all around.

“Come,” she said to the two men. “Sit with us.”

Nick, the black cop, pulled up a chair. But Scotty squeezed into the booth next to Ryenne. Lucien knew without looking that their outer thighs were pressed against each other, and the wolf he had long ago learned to control wanted him to reach across the table and grab Scotty by the neck and shake him until no part of his body touched Ryenne’s.

He calmed himself. He knew Ryenne wasn’t doing it on purpose. The wolf instincts in a newly turned shifter were at their strongest. Now that he was here, he would help her learn to control those urges, as well as take them out on him, and not on any other man.

He knew she couldn’t help it. He knew she wasn’t throwing out pheromones and signals on purpose. But he suspected that she and Scotty had a history, and Lucien didn’t much care for the looks she was throwing at Nick, someone she’d only just met.

He watched her face as she explained to the cops what had happened and gave descriptions of the two fox rogues.

“You’ve never seen either one of them before?” Scotty asked, looking from Ryenne to Willow.

They both shook their heads.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Mrs. Cavanagh? You’ve just been through a really traumatic experience,” Nick asked.

“I’m fine,” Willow answered. “I’m just glad Lucien and my daughter were close enough to help me.”

Nick had taken out a pocket-sized notepad and was writing notes at a furious pace. He looked up again and smiled at Ryenne.

It was hard not to smile at Ryenne when she turned on the charm. Her blond hair fell over her shoulders, catching a few stray beams of sunlight from the restaurant’s windows, and her face was still glowing from the exertion of fighting the rogues. Any man would want her.

Lucien resisted the urge to reach across the table and take Ryenne’s hand, making his claim on her obvious. He didn’t have a claim on her. She was her own woman and she had chosen to give Lucien her love. He would be forever grateful for that. Now it was up to him to be the better man and not let the clear interest on these men’s faces force him to do something that might push Ryenne away. He didn’t want to upset her or Willow.

“Okay, we’ll go by Mrs. Cavanagh’s house and see if we find any evidence that might lead us to their identity or whereabouts,” Nick said.

“Please, call me Willow.”

Nick smiled at her with genuine warmth. He seemed like a good guy.

“Thanks, guys,” Ryenne said. “For now, Mom’s going to move in with us so we can keep an eye on her and keep her out of the Fang’s clutches.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Scotty said. “But how do you know for sure they don’t know your place?”

“I don’t,” Ryenne said. “At least we’ll be there to protect her.”

“What about my work?” Willow asked.

“You can still go to work, Mom. One of us will accompany you there and back. You should be safe in your office. They require ID badges to get in the building, right?”

Willow nodded.

The conversation petered out then.

Until Ryenne spoke up, her gaze glued on Scotty. Lucien clenched his fists under the table. He would not lunge at Ryenne’s friend.

“Have you found out anything about my father?” she asked Scotty.

“We’ve read the case file,” Scotty said with a frown, “but there’s nothing there. They never found his body or any trace of him. Because of the amount of blood on the scene, it was assumed he’d died and the rogues dumped his body somewhere.”

Willow flinched but Scotty didn’t notice. He was staring at Ryenne.

Nick noticed. He patted Willow’s hand where it lay on the table and she gave him a grateful smile in return.

Lucien had to keep reminding himself these were good guys. They were helping Ryenne and Willow. They would help them bring down the Fangs and they would help keep Willow safe. And Lucien would have to keep his own wolf in check while Ryenne learned to control hers.