Page 87 of Hunted

Thanatos’s voice came out from his hood, calm as usual. “Tristan Barnes. You’re a hard man to find.”

“I try,” Tristan said. “But you sent such a nice message, and I haven’t seen my favorite niece for ages. Do you want to talk here, or should we do this in your lair?”

“Privately would be better. Sugar, show them up to the house.”

He turned and glided away.

Tristan turned to Mikey. “Is he always like that?”

She rolled her eyes. “All. The. Time.”

They all looked at each other, and Sugar said, “Come this way, please.”

Everyone but Rafe Connors went with them. And the dragon boy, who was suddenly nowhere to be seen.

Michelangela turned to her dad. “Aren’t you going?”

“Me?” He grinned at her, and Gunn could immediately see the resemblance between them, in the mischievous look in his eyes. “I’m not even here. If I were, I would be forced to take notice of all the people who resemble Wanted postings in the Enforcer database. But when I’m wearing this patch,” he tapped his shoulder, “all the faces become a blur. It’s the weirdest thing.”

She hugged his arm. “I love you, Dad.”

“Back atcha, Ninja baby.”

Gunn said, “Ninja baby?”

Mikey said, “Because of my name. Remember I told you about me and my brothers being named after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Well, I was the first, so I’m the original Ninja baby.”

Rafe looked Gunn up and down, the fond and doting look in his eyes disappearing in a flash. “I see you finally turned up,” he said. “You’re lucky I didn’t find you first.”

Gunn said, “I’m sure I am.” He didn’t really think Mikey’s dad was going to try to tear him a new one in front of his men, but he could feel Connors’ wolf—wild and impulsive, like Mikey’s. There was no doubt he was a dangerous man.

Connors said, “At least you had the sense to finally mate with my daughter.”

Gunn said wryly, “I’m not sure you’d call it ‘sense.’”

Connors narrowed his eyes, and for a minute Gunn thought he’d gone too far. Then Rafe started laughing. “You got that right. My little ninja wolf is going to make your life hell now, instead of mine.” He ruffled her hair. “In the best possible way.”

“Don’t be a dick, Dad.” Mikey looped one arm through Rafe’s and the other through Gunn’s, and started back down the hill.

“Can’t help myself,” Rafe said. “Now somebody get me a beer, and let’s get this party started.”

Chapter 38

Much later, after the pig roast was over and the visitors had gone back through their magical gates, after Gunn had taken Mikey to bed and made love to her, the two of them lay naked on the bed in his room in the bunker.

Mikey said, “We need a skylight. Remember in our vision, when you claimed me, how we could see the stars over the bed? That was cool. We should have that.”

“Yeah,” Gunn said. “The pack should have a lot of things. I hate to tell you, but a skylight for the bunker is not going to be first on the list. Not least because if it has a skylight, it ceases to be a bunker.”

“Point taken.” Mikey snuggled down next to him. “But even without a skylight, it was a good day.”

“Yeah.” Even though he’d had the weirdest meet-the-family encounter ever, and they’d eaten a pig that had been used in a catapult.

Reading his mind as she often did, Mikey said, “That pig didn’t turn out to be too bad. If you don’t mind grit in your teeth. And I think I swallowed a splinter.”

“Hope it doesn’t rip you a new one coming out the other end.”

She punched him lightly. “Ha ha.”