Page 76 of Pack Baby for the Silver Foxes

“Let us drive you home,” I said again.

She looked toward the road, where black cabs moved through the mist and people hurried under umbrellas. Her scent was tired now, violet tucked low under rain.

“Maeve will ask questions.”

“She already knows about us?”

“She knows there are alphas.” She rubbed her thumb over the damp cuff of her coat. Mary’s eyes flicked to mine.”You’re not ready for Maeve.”

“Probably not.”

“She’s five foot five and full of grudges.” The first hint of a smile touched her mouth.

“I’ve survived worse.”

“Not with an Irish accent.”

Hudson joined us, pulling on his coat. “We’ll take you home.”

“You’re not put off by the Bratva men?”

“No,” he said.

She stared at him. “That’s very arrogant.”

“It’s also accurate. You and the baby are our priority.”

“Okay.”

The drive to Surrey was quieter than I liked.

Mary sat in the back because she claimed the front passenger seat made her nauseous, which might have been true and might have been an excuse not to sit too close to either of us. Hudson drove. I sat beside him and watched her in the rearview mirror more than I looked ahead.

At first she stayed upright, chin angled toward the window. Then traffic thickened leaving London, and the motion made her face pale again. She cracked the window. Rain-damp air curled through the car.

“Should we pull over?” I asked.

“No. If I vomit in this car, you can afford another one.”

Hudson glanced at the mirror. “I don’t care about the car.”

Mary swallowed hard and turned her face toward the cracked window. “That’s because you’ve clearly never been poor enough to care.”

“Have you?”

She looked away. “Artem gave me enough to get free,” she said after a while, voice quieter. “Before anyone decides I’m here because you’ve got offices that smell like polished capitalism.”

“We didn’t think that,” I said.

“People think things.”

“Let them. We’re two ordinary alphas who gave up caring what anyone thinks a long time ago.”

That earned me a look in the mirror. “Ordinary. Right.”

Hudson glanced at the mirror. “Two men trying very hard not to make this worse.”

Mary looked down. Her hand drifted to her stomach, then stopped, catching herself.