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His lips twitched. “She’s good at making you feel bad even when you’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Speaking up in my defense, Bailey pointed out that if I hadn’t opened it, you would have. The idea that you might have then been shot made Andaya cry even harder. Which, honestly, didn’t seem to bother the mamba at all. I think she enjoyed it.”
“So, the unholy trinity took care of you, huh?”
“They did their utmost best to distract me. Out of appreciation, I pretended I didn’t know it was their game. And really, they are distracting. Have you seen the mamba and bearcat go at it before?”
He nodded. “I have.”
“I panicked at first because I know mambas are highly venomous. But Havana said bearcat shifters have peptides that make them immune to snake venom, ‘so it’s okay.’ Her words. I didn’t really agree that it was okay, considering those bites had to still hurt. But the bearcat’s just as vicious.”
“She’s just as merciless, too. Last week, they had a brawl in the Alpha’s house. At one point, she sat on the mamba’s head and then unleashed her anal glands.”
Quinley gaped. “Oh my God, that’s awful. Beyond mean.”
“Thankfully Havana has some kind of spray that neutralizes the smell.”
Quinley puffed out a breath. “I tell you, this has been the weirdest Christmas Eve I’ve ever had. Call me strange, but I’ve enjoyed it. Not the bullet-graze part, but the rest.”
“I haven’t enjoyed it.” He cupped her head, sobering. “I came far too close to having to know what it’d be like to live without you.”
“Let’s not stew on what could have happened. Let’s focus on the actual situation. I’m okay. You’re okay. Our pride’s okay. Tommaso Vercetti? Dead and gone. That’s two brothers down, two to go. Their messed-up pack is on its way out. Karma is catching up to them fast, and it’s using our pride to do it. Don’t you think that’s ace?”
“Well—”
“Me, too. I also really don’t want to talk about that pack anymore—they’ve commandeered enough of our time and attention tonight. Can we put them out of our heads for a while?”
He sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, we can do that.”
“Good. Because I’m hungry again, and Havana ate most of my snacks so I need to dig out more.”
“I’m surprised you let her have any.”
Quinley had actually refused at first, which had only made the Alpha laugh. “We made a deal.”
“Which was?”
“I’d let her have some, and she’d replace it all—with interest.”
“‘Interest’ being an additional bunch of snacks?”
Quinley beamed. “Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. Congrats.”
He shook his head, mirth creeping into his eyes. “You’re a nut.”
She could live with that. “A nut who’s hungry, so let’s get that fixed.”
Slipping on her gloves the following afternoon, Quinley walked to the bottom of the stairs and called out, “Are you having a number two up there or something?”
There was a muffled thud. The closing of a door, maybe. “No!” Isaiah yelled from presumably the bathroom.
“Then what’s with the hold up?”
No sounds of footfalls preceded his appearance at the top of the stairs. For a dude his size, he was seriously stealthy.
“There’s no hold up,” he said, making his way down to her, taking the stairs two at a time. Reaching the bottom, he stared at her, the epitome of cool and casual. There was a glimmer of heat in his eyes, though.
Feeling her lips flatten, she set her hands on her hips. “You peeked in the lingerie store bag, didn’t you?”
