Ryan saw Dee before he was ready to leave Kate’s side. He didn’t like the way the VonBrandt boys had been looking at her, but at least her cousin was with her now. He felt like he could leave, and he had to get to Dee.

“I have to go inside. The meetings are starting soon,” he said as another girl joined Kate. The other Quade women would be able to keep an eye on her, just fine. He had to get to his cousin before she did something monumentally dumb.

He ran across the drive toward Dee, just as she was about to head into the house. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her aside. “Do you know where Adam is?”

Dee shot apologetic glances to the big guys in black who were all around. “No. I haven’t seen him. You said—”

“I asked you not to talk to him yet, but if you see him, you’re not going to have much of a choice. I need to find him.” He gestured down at the group of girls around Kate. “I need to get to him before she can.”

“Why?” Dee narrowed her eyes at him. “What did you do, Ryan?”

“I need to convince Adam to sell the horse to me. And I need to do it now.” He pressed his lips together, not wanting to tell her about the rest of his plans. Dee glanced around the yard again, but it was dark, so it was fairly hard to see. Everything out here just looked dark.

“Ryan.” Dee’s voice dropped to a low-low warning growl. “What. Did. You. Do?”

He waved a hand. “I sent Kate after the wrong guy.”

“Ryan!”

“He’s harmless. He’s the professor one. I’m not even convinced he has a dick, let alone knows how to use it.” Ryan put his hands on his hips, wishing he had some alpha magick to push at her. Make her obey him. “Now. Tell me where Adam is.”

“I cannot believe you did that.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m related to you.”

“This is important, Dee. If I don’t stop her from finding Adam—” He couldn’t say the rest of the words out loud. She’s going to be around me every day was almost as bad as I’m going to have to see her all the time. No, it wasn’t about that. I won’t be able to be the alpha.

There.

That was the real problem. If he didn’t get Kate to lose this job opportunity, he wouldn’t be able to be the alpha. There was just no way he’d be able to have her in his pack. Now that he’d spent more time with her, he knew that his first thought—segmenting the job so he wouldn’t have to spend as much time with her—simply wouldn’t work.

He couldn’t be in the same vehicle as her…

He couldn’t be in the same room as her…

Hell, he probably couldn’t be in the same town as her…without constantly thinking about her. Without obsessing over how much he wanted to climb between her legs—or, for that matter, obsessing over who else might be climbing between her legs.

Nope. No good thinking about that.

Instinctively, he glanced around. The professor had gone inside with his buddies, and Kate was still outside. Thank God.

Okay, let’s be honest, buddy. You can’t even be in the same state as her.

No, he could not.

“Knowing Adam, he’s either out at the barn, or up in the library.” Dee’s smile was brief, like she was entertained by the memory. “He’s got a bottle of Scotch in there he thinks his brother doesn’t know about. Of course, it’s ridiculous to think anything happens on this ranch that Aaron VonBrandt doesn’t know about.”

“Okay, I’ll check the library. You check the barn.” Ryan moved out of the way while Kate’s brunette friend stalked by, her arms full of planners, her nose buried in a notebook that looked like it was full of lists.

“You said you weren’t ready for me to talk to him,” Dee said.

“Don’t approach him.” Ryan put his hands on her shoulders. “Just text me if he’s out there. Go.”

He hurried inside before Kate saw him, heading straight for the library. Adam wasn’t there. He stuck his head inside the hallway that led off the library. Some voices drifted toward him, but none of them were familiar.

The little beep in his pocket brought a smidgen of hope, but Dee’s text reported that she hadn’t had any luck either. Ryan walked through all of the accessible first floor rooms, still not finding Adam. Everyone was gathering for the big meeting in the dining room, and Ryan saw cousins of his and plenty of shifters he didn’t know yet. Wolves all.

But no Adam VonBrandt.

He texted back to Dee. Meet me in the kitchen.

Like it or not, she had just become an accomplice to his mission. The kitchen was empty, save for two pretty middle-aged women doing the dishes and having a polite conversation that didn’t interest him in the least. One of them looked up when he made his presence known. A brunette with big, bright blue eyes.

“Can I help you?” she asked. “Actually, it’s easiest if you tell me who you’re looking for.”

“Adam,” he said, keeping his voice down.

“He’s around here somewhere,” she said, drying a big blue plate and putting it in the cupboard. “He was just at the family meeting, so I imagine he’s around.”

“I saw him with Matt and Julian earlier,” said the other woman, and Ryan’s stomach clenched. Julian. The professor.

Dee came in through the mud room, and smiled at the women. “Tonya. Laura. Good to see you.”

“Oh, Dee,” said the one with sharp blue eyes, “it’s great to see you again.”

“You, too, Tonya.” The smile was tight, and Ryan knew why. Tonya. That was Aaron’s wife. Adam’s sister-in-law. No wonder Dee was pulling at the cuffs of her sleeves.

Ryan grabbed his cousin’s arm and led her out toward the dining room and then past the library. The hallways were on the dark side, and they passed a couple of people. None of them were Adam VonBrandt.

“Where else do you think he could be?” Ryan asked, but then he heard a familiar voice in the distance, carrying out of one of the little rooms. Kate.

“Helena, what are you doing?” Her voice sunk its teeth into his heart. She wasn’t even talking to him—hell, she was at least thirty or forty feet away—but it was like he could feel her presence pressing on him.

He stopped, putting a finger to his lips. Dee punched his shoulder, whispering, “What the hell, Ryan?”

“Just wait,” he hissed back, listening closely. He needed to know if Kate had found Adam.

But no, she was saying something about ovaries, and a female voice answered back. Dammit. Why the hell are they talking about ovaries?

He didn’t like the idea of Kate discussing her ovaries with anyone else.

No. Not anyone else. Just anyone.

Come on, man. Get a grip on yourself.

“What the hell are we doing?” Dee whispered, staying close. “Who is that?” But before he could even attempt to answer, she made a long, quiet, “aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” like she was singing a children’s song under her voice. “Kate.”

“Shut up.” He glared at her, trying to force a warning into his gaze, but he didn’t have the alpha magick yet, so she just smirked at him, shaking her head.

“You are so predictable, cuz.”

“Where is your new mate, by the way?” he whispered, like that would put her in her place. But Dee kept smiling.

“I can text him if you want. I was trying to keep a low profile. Alpha’s orders.”

“Shut up,” he repeated.

Kate’s voice filtered back to him as he focused his attention on her. “Let’s go dance with some cowboys and get you drunk enough to make you forget about feeling sorry for yourself because you had to stop working for one itsy-bitsy minute.”

Ryan’s palms hurt and he looked down to find he’d been squeezing his hands together so tightly, his knuckles were white. So, he didn’t like the idea of Kate dancing with cowboys. Or getting drunk.

But frankly, it was better than her sticking around to find Adam.

“Did she just say they’re going to go get drunk?” Dee whispered. She was speaking softly, but he couldn’t hear anything in the room over her talking.

“Stop it, Dee. I’m trying to listen.”

“How about we just go in there and you kiss her, like you want to, and we can mate bond the pair of you and get it over with.” Dee huffed out a breath. “I swear, you’re worse than Bracken sometimes.”

“I can’t mate her,” Ryan ground out. “This isn’t about her. I’m just trying to figure out if she’s found Adam or not.”

“Well, he’s not in that room, or we’d be able to hear him.”

“Will you just shut up, so I can listen?”

Kate’s laugh caught his attention as she continued talking to whoever was with her. “Yes, they will. But we’re not focusing on that right now. Right now, we’re going to go find alcohol and single guys you can flirt with.”

Shit. He pushed Dee into a dark room off the hall. Kate was on her way out. He could hear her movements. He shook his head when Dee opened her mouth to talk.

He didn’t want Kate to hear them—didn’t want her to know he’d been spying—but that was the least of his worries. He couldn’t think about anything now, except for images of Kate gyrating around some cowboys. Cowboys were notoriously loose when it came to sexual morals. If a girl who looked as good as she did went to a bar full of cowboys, odds were good there’d be some kind of action. At the very least, plenty of men would be after her.

Fuck, no.

But he had a choice. Either he could find Adam and try to talk him into selling the horse, or he could follow this annoying blonde who couldn’t seem to make up her mind about what she wanted to do.

Dammit. Women.

Kate’s footsteps echoed down the hall beside them, and he grabbed Dee’s arm, pulling her after the pair of girls.

“Where are we going?” Dee asked. “I thought we were going to look for Adam.”

“Change of plans.” Ryan yanked her along. “We’re going after them.”

“Ryan. You can’t.” She stopped, pausing them both in the middle of the hallway. “Stop and think straight for two seconds. You’re here for the summit. You have to go in, future alpha.”

He shook his head, like he was waking up out of a dream. Shit. He’d been so focused on Kate…on Kate and Julian…no, on Kate and the sale of the horse.

She was right.

Where the hell is my head?

The girls were getting away, but he’d have to let them go. He had a job to do. Ryan backed up against the wall, trying to slow his thoughts for a few moments.

“How about this,” Dee started, watching the hallway. “I’ll go after them.”

“You can’t. You should really be in the summit with us.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Damn, I can’t believe I lost my focus so bad.”

“That’s what happens when you find your mate, cuz.” Dee’s smirk was pissing him off.

“Quiet, you.” Ryan pushed off the wall. “All right. Let’s go to the meeting.”

He was not happy. He didn’t want to let Kate loose in a bar of cowboys, but there was no reasonable excuse for him to follow her. It was idiotic. He had to get his shit together. Start acting like the potential alpha, and not like some jealous teenager.

They walked through the hall until they found the doors to the big formal dining room where the meeting was to take place. People were filing in and out. There didn’t seem to be much organization at this thing. But someone was talking inside. Loudly.

Ryan slipped through the doors with Dee behind him. The long, dark wood table at the center of the room was surrounded by chairs, all of them occupied. Several people stood in clusters around the walls, and the room was fairly crowded, even as big as it was.

The packs were obviously delineated, though. The big, bearded Texas alpha had a group of his family around him at the head of the table, and then there was an obvious shift to the Quades, who all looked like they wanted to be Johnny Cash. None of the Quade women, he noticed, had come to the meeting. The Dubois pack from New Orleans was at the opposite end of the table from the VonBrandts, with their silver-and-black-haired alpha dressed in an impeccable suit in the middle.

Then there were the Trewitts, and Ryan knew each and every representative from his pack. They were all his cousins, aunts, and uncles. He and Dee had come in just behind Bracken, who was the one talking. Thankfully, their alpha didn’t seem to take notice of their late arrival.

“My pack is spread out over most of Oklahoma. We have little families all over the state who pledge to—or are blood related to—one pack alpha,” Bracken was saying. “Our official count doesn’t include the un-mated humans—”

There was a loud snort from the old Quade alpha, Kate’s alpha, at that comment.

But Bracken continued, undeterred. “Children of female wolves and human men, who carry the Trewitt bloodline, but are not shifters or mated to shifters. Anyone who isn’t bound to the moon, in some way, we allow the choice to pledge or not.”

At the end of the table, there was a woman with a high, blonde ponytail sitting next to the VonBrandt alpha, writing studiously in a notebook and nodding as Bracken spoke. Finally, Bracken turned around and made eye contact with him.

“This is Ryan Travis, my sister’s eldest son,” he said, as though he hadn’t even known Ryan was there until just that moment. “He’s set to take over as the Trewitt alpha in three days. He was voted into the position by our pack, and we’ll all meet to pledge to him on Sunday.”

A few nods and polite smiles were directed at him, and Ryan felt a fresh wave of awareness wash over him. How idiotic he’d been to consider running after Kate. He had responsibilities too important to be abandoned.

“His younger brother, Beau,” Bracken continued to introduce the rest of the present enforcers and pack members by name, telling a little bit about each of them. It was like introduction time around the campfire.

Ryan continued to listen as his alpha droned on, and noticed that Dee had taken off her coat. She held it over one arm. He glanced around the room, his heart racing as he looked for the familiar face of Adam VonBrandt.

Nowhere to be seen. Phew.

Dee’s brother reached for her coat and she handed it over. Ryan nudged her with his elbow. “You don’t think you should keep that on?”

She looked down at her wrists and froze. Suddenly, the door behind Aaron VonBrandt opened, and Ryan recognized the tall, plaid-shirted cowboy who owned Black Guardian.

Shit. He grabbed Dee and scooted her out into the hallway, as quickly as he could, closing the door softly behind him.

“What was all that?” she whispered.

“You didn’t see Adam come in the room?”

Her eyes went wide. Dee glanced back at the closed door and pointed at it in disappointment. “My coat, Ryan.”

“Why the hell did you take it off?”

“It was so hot in there.” She pulled on her T-shirt, as though that would help to fan herself. “I couldn’t just stand there with that heavy jean jacket on. It was like a hundred degrees, and we already run so hot.”

Ryan shook his head. “We need to get you out of here. If Adam sees you…”

Dee rolled her eyes, like she’d heard it all before. “I know, I know, mortal peril or whatever.”

“Seriously, Dee.”

She crossed her arms, staring at him. “Are you sure this isn’t just a convenient way for you to get out of the summit meeting and chase after your mate?”

“She’s not my mate. And I’m not going anywhere.”

“She is your mate.” His cousin held up one finger, shaking it at him. “Don’t think I don’t know what that looks like. I know the difference. Will and I met twice before we were fully grown shifters. I’ve seen him without magick, and then with magick, and the effects are unmistakable. She’s your mate.”

Ryan’s head kept shaking, like he could deny the existence of Kate Quade just by…well…denying her existence.

“I’m not chasing after her,” he insisted. “I have a plan to handle her situation without getting her a job on our ranch.”

“You only want to avoid her because you know she’s your mate.”

“Deirdre,” he growled, wishing he could put the alpha power behind it.

She shrugged her shoulders. “Fine…” Her brow went up and she leaned into him conspiratorially. “What do you want me to do?”