“What the hell do you mean you want Roland to go with you?” Dane didn’t like that idea one little bit.
Why the hell would she choose Roland over him? He was her mate. He was there to protect her.
“Well, you are a little…” Rayner shrugged her shoulders.
“A little what?” Dane growled back.
“Growly.” She lifted her hand and motioned towards him as if he’d proved her point, and Dane snapped off the growl.
“That’s not the damn point — I can stop growling when I need to,” Dane grumbled as he forced his hands into the front pockets of his jeans.
The fact that Roland was grinning from ear to ear and chuckling didn’t help matters any. He wanted to plant his fist right in his brother’s face.
“I’m sure you can,” Rayner started, but when Roland slapped his hand over his mouth and chuckled harder, Dane growled louder.
“I will hurt you,” Dane growled the warning to his brother.
“See, that temper of yours…” She shrugged again.
“That’s his fault,” Dane tossed out a hand toward his brother. “Sounding like Mutley, smirking like a damn idiot.”
“Roland is a little more laid-back,” Rayner said. “And when dealing with a threat — I need laid-back.”
“And you’re laid-back?” Dane scowled at the thought of his mate doing anything subtle.
From the moment that she’d turned up at their door, Rayner had been a firecracker in the palm of their hands waiting to go off. Now, she had a bear of her own within her, and that made her a little more unpredictable, a lot more easily riled, and Dane felt that it was his job to protect her — even from herself.
“I’m — working on it.” She folded her arms and raised her eyebrows at him, challenging him to deny it. He grunted a chuckle but snapped it off when she twisted her head to one side and glared at him.
“Fine,” Dane begrudgingly bit out. “Take my brother with you — but, if anything happens to Rayner…” He turned that warning on his brother.
“I’ll guard her with my life,” Roland assured him.
“That about sums it up — yeah,” Dane warned him again.
“So protective,” Rayner teased him with a smile and a small chuckle, and Dane mellowed — grinned from ear to ear.
“Well, she’s got your number, brother,” Roland chuckled again as he watched his brother melt like spring snow.
“But I’ll still rip your arm off and beat you to death with it,” Dane growled at his brother.
Bowie was off behind his cabin hammering up a storm, and Rayner eyed her mate for a long moment as she considered the problems that still existed within her new family.
“And while I’m gone, you can make nice with your brother,” Rayner informed him.
Dane snapped a look toward his cabin and then forced his gaze back to his mate. He looked as if someone had slapped him.
“You’re kidding, right?” Dane growled at the thought.
“Call it a mating gift to me.” Rayner folded her arms, tipped her head to one side, and glared back at her alpha.
“You aren’t serious — wow, damn it, you’re serious.” Dane swallowed down on the urge he had to toss his head back on his neck and roar with laughter at the thought of it.
Make nice with his brother! He was still undecided if he was going to kill him or not.
“No, I’m lying,” Rayner huffed.
“After what he did…?” Dane lifted her hand and pointed a finger at his brother’s cabin.
“If he hadn’t done what he did — even, accidentally — then I just might have hightailed it out of here, and you could be standing here mate-less…”
“You think I couldn’t have wooed you?” Dane growled.
“I think you might not have had the chance,” she offered back, and her mate grunted. “Who says I can’t do subtle? If I can be diplomatic then surely I can be subtle.”
Rayner chuckled as Dane did a double take at her. Then he folded his large arms across his broad chest, and made his body look so much wider — sexier — a growl rumbled in her chest.
“That’s what you think?” Dane answered her growl with one of his own.
“I think — that Roland and I need to leave before I get distracted and we end up back in our cabin spending the rest of the day wrapped around each other…”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Dane grinned from ear to ear.
“Oh, it’s not a bad thing — unless I have somewhere else to be, which I do, so, Roland, let’s go.” Rayner was already stalking toward the truck.
“Roland…” Dane growled.
“I know — I know, protect your mate,” Roland grumbled as he rolled his eyes and followed on after Rayner. “You seem to forget that your mate is also my sister. What the hell do you think I’m going to do – throw her to the damn wolves?” He grumbled with a shake of his head in disbelief.
“Wolves!” Dane snapped to attention.
“Damn, Dane, it’s just a saying,” Roland grumbled, but the sound of Rayner’s chuckling made Dane curse out a few choice words at his brother before he took to mumbling himself.
“Alphas — no sense of humor,” Rayner sniggered.
“Of course I have no sense of humor about damn Wolves,” Dane grumbled as the pair of them walked away from him. He continued cursing and mumbling until they were out of sight.
~
~
~
“Damn it, Bute!” Rayner bit out as the heat of anger swept through her body. She could feel her bear just beneath the surface of her skin.
Maybe Dane had been right; maybe it was just too soon for her to keep a handle on her temper and her bear. Hell, it was distracting enough remembering not to growl at the pigheaded idiot of a man sitting behind the desk, let alone trying to keep her bear in its damn cage.
She’d always had the urge to rip Bute’s damn head off, and that should have been a warning sign right there.
“Rayner, I want my damn money,” Bute growled back, but that was a human growl, and she knew that she could do a whole lot better, but that would drop the clan and Bowie in deep crap.
“Maybe if you stopped lending to assholes…”
“Like Bowie?”
“But, I’m guaranteeing he pays…” she snapped back.
“Sorry,” he reached up and tapped the sign on the wall behind him. It read; trust no one.
“That’s how you feel?” Rayner slammed her palms down on his desk and leaned in over the top of it, eyeing the man with a steely glare.
“Rayner,” Roland’s tone warned her to be careful.
It was true; she could lose control of her bear at any minute.