“Shit. Let me know when so I can prepare Max and Emma, okay?”

Alex grinned. “Hey, this is what family does, right? We take care of our own.”

Gabe groaned. He’d made the comment more than once that he considered Chloe a little sister. His Aunt Laura had decided that was enough to declare him de facto family.

“I think you should know Tabby’s pregnant.” And if anyone went after her or his cubs, he’d do what he needed to do. If he’d learned nothing else since coming to Halle, Tabby was the only real necessity in his life. He’d do anything to keep her safe. Even let the beast he struggled so hard to contain go.

Gabe blew out a breath. “Got it.” And he knew the Hunter did. Gabe understood what it was to protect and serve those he loved. “Keep an eye on your mate. Do what you have to.”

“And what will you be doing?” He watched Julian enter the tattoo parlor and wondered what the Kermode was up to. Cyn was still giving him a hard time, but she wasn’t nearly as bad as she had been. He hoped his friend would be able to claim his mate soon. The Bear deserved some happiness.

“What I have to.” The phone clicked, disconnecting him from Gabe.

“Goodbye to you too.” Bunny pocketed the cell and crossed the street, following Julian into Living Art. “Tabby?”

Her green hair appeared before she did. A big smile graced those full, pouty lips.

“Hey, sugar.”

Cyn poked her finger into Julian’s chest with a growl. “Goddamn it, Julian! For the last time, I am not going to tattoo “Property of Cyn” on your ass!”

Tabby began to laugh, and just like that his day was looking a whole lot brighter.

He would protect this, what he’d found here, with every fiber of his being. God have mercy on anyone who tried to take this away from him. Because this?

This was home.

About the Author

Dana Marie Bell wrote her first short story when she was thirteen-years-old. She attended the High School for Creative and Performing Arts for creative writing, where freedom of expression was the order of the day. When her parents moved out of the city and placed her in a Catholic high school for her senior year, she tried desperately to get away, but the nuns held fast, and she graduated with honors despite herself.

Dana has lived primarily in the Northeast (Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, to be precise), with a brief stint on the US Virgin Island of St. Croix.

She lives with her soul mate and husband Dusty, their two maniacal children, an evil, ice-cream stealing cat and a bull terrier that thinks it’s a Pekinese.

You can learn more about Dana at: www.danamariebell.com