Without Reservations

his throat. “Yeah, well, I doubt seriously Bit, er, Keaton is going to let me have a wife.” He chuckled nervously. “I hope you aren’t expecting kids or anything. I mean—”
    John laughed. “No, no, not at all. I was only pointing out that there are other wolves who have male mates. That just happens to be how Emilio and Michael deal with it. They’ve been together for over forty-some-odd years. Since they were children. Sarah has been with them for over thirty. I also know of another couple, though I don’t know them as well. It’s only the two of them. Devlin is Alpha of their pack, and Laine is actually his Omega.”
    Feeling better, Chay nodded. It was nice to know they weren’t expecting him to chase after women even though he was mated. Because it wasn’t happening. He wasn’t sharing his Bit and he knew darn well how Bit would feel about sharing him, especially with a female. Even if Bit were attracted to women, he had never gotten past the “girls have cooties” stage. “Would the two of you like something to drink?”
    www.samhainpublishing.com 171
    J.L. Langley
    Mary made swishing motions with her hands. “Oh no, we aren’t staying long. We’re on our way to a dinner party. We just wanted to congratulate you and throw in our support.”
    Chay smiled. “It means a lot to me, thank you.”
    Grabbing Mary’s hand, John pulled her to his side. “You let me know if you find out anything else about who is trying to hurt Keaton. I have Jake Romero looking into it and watching Keaton while he’s at work.”
    “I appreciate that. Keaton met Jake today. He invited him to dinner tomorrow evening, so I’m going to go over some things with him and see if between the two of us we can’t get Keaton thinking. He has to know who’s doing this. I’m betting it’s someone from his old pack.”
    John nodded. “I’m betting you’re right. Is he okay? Doc Baker called us last night to let us know what was going on. I’d already decided to assign Jake to watch his back when your dad called and asked me to make the arrangements.”
    “I appreciate it, John.”
    “We take care of our own, Chay. You know that. I expect to be kept up-to-date and if you need anything, I expect to know about it.” He offered his hand and Chay shook it.
    “Yes, sir. Thank you again. For everything.”
    He saw them to the door. John stopped him again, waving Mary on to the car. Waiting till she was out of hearing, he took an envelope from of his pocket and tucked it into Chay’s hand. “Sorry about the girly towels and stuff. Here’s a gift certificate to the mall. You boys go get something you want, something fun.” He winked and strolled to the car to open his mate’s door.
    Well, son of a gun. Didn’t that beat all? Chay stood there flabbergasted as John and Mary both waved and pulled away from the curb. Chay smiled and shut the door.
    He glanced at the clock on his way to the phone. Where was Bit? He wasn’t too late, but Chay was already paranoid with the recent attempts 172 www.samhainpublishing.com

    Without Reservations
    on his life. He’d driven Keaton up the wall with his phone calls today, but that was tough. He wasn’t going to stop worrying until they found out who wanted to kill Bit. He picked up the phone and began dialing Keaton’s cell number when someone knocked on the door.
    Chay frowned and sniffed the air as he headed to the door. Whoever it was, was a wolf and didn’t smell familiar.
    Pita ran through the doggy door barking and beat Chay to the front.
    He immediately started growling.
    Chay blinked. Pita growled a lot, but it was usually the hey-play-with-me-aren’t-I-cute growl. This growl was mean, cute—because Pita was too little to be vicious—but mean. Chay picked him up and peeked out the peep hole. “Shh. Quit growling, pest.”
    Chay didn’t recognize the man, but he looked harmless enough. He looked like… Chay opened the door. “Hello?”
    “Hi, is Keaton here?”
    www.samhainpublishing.com 173
    J.L. Langley

Chapter Seventeen
    “Wilma. I’m home!” Keaton giggled as he set the bags of food on the counter. Ha. Chay hadn’t gotten dinner. Which meant tomorrow was Chay’s turn. Yes. Keaton grinned. Why hadn’t Chay and Pita come to greet him at the back door like they usually did? Surely they’d heard his car pulling up and him opening and shutting the garage door.
    Ooh, what’s that? There was a box on the table. He breathed in. A cake? He strolled over and