Closing the message, he was about to slide away his phone when it rang. He answered with a smile. “Phoenix. How’s work going?” His closest cousin in age, who also happened to be one of his best friends, had relocated to Mozambique eight months earlier on an engineering contract.

“On schedule, all good to finish in two months,” the other man said quickly. “I called you about something else.” Before Bo could ask what that was, Phoenix burst out with, “I got mated!”

Mated.

That word had very specific usage.

“A changeling?” Bo grinned. “One of the gazelles you’ve been admiring from afar?” Phoenix was brilliant and hardworking, but he was also shy to the point that Bo knew he hadn’t ever had a girlfriend—despite the efforts of his friends to find him equally gentle women to date. “You actually went up and introduced yourself?” Gazelles tended to be gentle and shy, too, so it’d be a perfect match.

“Not quite.” Phoenix sounded like he was grinning so hard his face was about to crack. “Janika came up to me, hauled me into a kiss, and the next thing I know, I’m naked and happy and waking up with the most beautiful woman I’ve met in my entire life.”

Bo blinked. “Not a gazelle then.”

“She’s a bear.”

This time, Bo had to sit down. He did so on the balcony floor. The idea of sweet, blushing Phoenix with one of the toughest predators on the planet . . . “You’re sure you’re mated and your beautiful bear’s not just taking you for a delirious ride?”

“He’s mine and he’s delightful.” Those words were spoken in a throaty female voice that dripped with possession. “You can’t have him back.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere.” Phoenix’s voice, the timbre unexpectedly solemn. “You’re it for me, Jani.”

“Ah-hem,” Bo said before the two forgot he was on the line. “Congratulations to you both.” His happiness for his cousin was no less, despite his shock. “When do we get to celebrate with you?”

“I can’t leave the project at such a critical time, but plan for a huge party when I get back. Jani’s got a lot of relatives.”

Bo felt a scowl coming on. “Your Janika can keep you, but tell her you belong to us, too.” Changeling packs and clans had a bad habit of absorbing people; Bo wasn’t about to lose touch with a member of his own clan.

“Possessive, aren’t you?” The female voice again, her accent distinctive.

Very distinctive.

Bo sat up straight. “StoneWater? You mated a bear from StoneWater?” The bear clan controlled an immense chunk of Russia—and its members were notorious for the way they managed to nab business deals right out from under their opponents’ noses. Someone in that clan had one hell of a strategic brain.

“Tell my brother I said hi when he calls,” Janika said. “I’m now going to ravage my adorable mate.”

From the masculine laugh Bo caught before Janika hung up, Phoenix was more than willing to be ravaged. “Jesus. Phoenix with a StoneWater bear.” It was like putting a fluffy kitten with a saber-tooth tiger.

He hoped to hell his cousin knew what he was doing.

His phone flashed again. This time, it was a call being redirected from the number the Alliance had on file with Trinity. That it was being routed directly to his phone told him it was important. “Bowen Knight,” he answered.

“This is Alpha Valentin Nikolaev.”

Bo didn’t believe it. “I’m still in shock over my deathly shy cousin mating a StoneWater bear.” He banged the back of his head against the railings. “If you tell me Janika is your sister, my head will probably explode.”

Laughter filled the line, the sound big and warm and primal. “We are family now, Bowen Knight!”

Chapter 15

Ain’t no party like a bear party.

It’s the hangover that’s the problem.

Worth it. Carpe-the-diem!

Wolves are cool, bears are fools.

Didn’t get an invite to the party, huh?

—Graffiti on a Moscow wall, each line written by a different unknown individual over successive days prior to erasure by the city works department

TWO HOURS AFTER they’d returned to Denhome, Silver sat in a—comparatively—quiet corner of the Cavern and watched several bears—in bear form—stand up on their back paws to dance. At least two were holding beer bottles in their paws. One had tinsel wrapped around his neck and was, for some unknown reason, wearing sunglasses.

Another was snoring a few feet away from her. Every so often, he’d slap out his paw as if killing dream flies. The cubs who weren’t yet asleep kept sneaking up to the sleeping bear on tiptoe and putting flowers and play “jewels” on his fur. By now, he was extremely well bedazzled. Not far from him, a number of clanmates, who hadn’t shifted form, were playing a game called bobbing for apples.

No one had so far returned from their shallow dive with an apple, but that didn’t stop their stomach-holding laughter. Possibly because the adult barrel was apparently filled not with water but with liquid of a more alcoholic variety. The cubs had a cub-sized barrel that was more traditional.

The tiny gangsters were making up their own games. One was currently standing on her head next to Silver, while another two had stuffed so many cherries into their mouths that they looked like chipmunks. It was a contest from what she could see, with the stems of the cherries neatly lined up beside them.

Two more were in bear-cub form, doing “kung fu”—as told to Silver by the martial artists themselves before they shifted.

“How many seconds?” the head-stander called out.

“Seven,” Silver said.

“Nika’s mated!” the same child called out. “I like Nika!” Tumbling to the floor, she rubbed at the top of her head before running off toward the food table.

Silver watched the tiny girl duck between much larger bears with fearless dexterity, saw a hand reach down to pluck her up and throw her across the room into another pair of waiting arms. She was lowered to the floor right by the food, a wide grin on her face.

“Boom, boom.” A very small cub lurched against Silver’s chair, balance not yet his strong point. Someone had shaped and gelled his soft blond hair into a Mohawk, and dressed him in a miniature replica of a biker jacket, complete with fake chains. “Boom, boom!”

“Yes, the music has a strong beat,” Silver responded. “It’s not as loud as I expected, however.”

Big blue eyes looked at her with solemn attention. “Boom, boom!” He then dropped a soggy half-eaten cookie onto her lap.

Plucking the child into his arms, Valentin blew a raspberry on his stomach. The cub giggled. “You should be in bed.” Despite the stern words, Valentin cuddled the cub close and began to pat the little boy’s back as he leaned up against the wall next to Silver. “Sound’s calibrated not to blow out our eardrums.”

Silver put the unwanted cookie on a discarded plate nearby. “Of course.” Changeling hearing was acute. “I haven’t seen you take a drink.” It was his sister’s mating the clan was celebrating, after all.

A wink. “I’ll wait until Nika’s home with her engineer. That’ll be a party.”

Silver looked around the wild chaos of the Cavern. The kung fu cubs were now doing kung fu on the legs of adult bears, while the beer-drinking bears were pointing to the whiskey bottle on the bar table, and nodding at one another. Pavel’s twin, Yakov, was spinning Anastasia in a dance that kept crashing them both into the other couples. At which point, everyone involved cracked up laughing . . . right before a pie sailed from across the room to nail Yakov on the back of his head.