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after them now!” Sarah Anne’s order carried clearly.
    If she was intimidated by facing down her Alpha, she was hiding it well. In another second, Garrett expected her to release her wolf and, at the very least, lash out with her claws. That wouldn’t do. Attacking the Alpha incurred severe consequences.
    “You forget yourself.” And from the snarl that punctuated that statement, Donovan had reached the end of his patience.
    Sarah Anne was anything but cowed. “I haven’t forgotten a thing. Not about how my son is out there at the mercy of any rogue who finds him. Or how my friend, who’s with him, is just as de fenseless, and most especially as to how you took your own sweet time showing up with our protection.”
    “You were told to continue to lie low until we could get here and provide escort ”
    “We couldn’t.”
    “You disobeyed a direct order.”
    Sarah’s hands fisted at her sides. “The rogues came for Teri.”
    “That wasn’t your problem.”
    “Like hell. She’s my friend. She was in trouble.”
    Donovan raked his fingers through his hair. “She’s in even more trouble now.”
    “And whose fault is that?”
    “Whose do you think?”
    She came up on her toes in a direct challenge “Yours!”
    Behind Sarah Anne, Meg whimpered and hunched back against the rock. Garrett told himself this wasn’t any of his business. Sarah had, for all intents and purposes, rejected him. Her fear and her daughter’s fear were not his to soothe, but he might as well have been talking to the wind when Meg’s lip quivered and she looked at him.
    Help me.
    She might as well have screamed the words, they bored into his brain so hard. He blinked. She was telepathic?
    He held out his arms. Come.
    She didn’t just come; she ran across the dirt floor, long hair flying, tears streaming.
    Sarah’s “Meg, get back here!” was pointless, as the little girl was clinging to his neck before the last syllable got out.
    Instinct had his arms wrapping around her tiny torso as her legs wrapped around his waist. He braced himself to be repelled by her scent, but all he felt was a cataclysmic urge to protect.
    “Don’t let him hurt my mommy.”
    He knew, from Donovan’s start, that he heard. And Sarah, too, from her gasp of “Meg!”
    He ignored them both. “Donovan is your mommy’s Protector. He would never hurt her.”
    “What’s a Protector?”
    What was the human equivalent? “You know the police in your town?” She nodded. He moved to put her down, but she clung tightly. Not sure what to do with his free hand, he cupped her head as Sarah Anne had. Megan sniffed. Was she getting snot all over his neck?
    “They’re good guys,” she said.
    “Well, Donovan is like a super good guy.”
    “He yelled.”
    He shot Donavon a glare. “A super good guy with a big voice.”
    Apparently that didn’t soothe her because when Garrett started to put her down again, she clung tighter. And from the way her nose slid against his skin, she was getting snot all over his neck.
    Donovan touched his finger to her arm. Meg whimpered. Garrett’s lip curled in warning.
    “I would never hurt your mother, little one.”
    Meg froze. Garrett snarled.
    “Or you,” Donovan added calmly.
    Meg rubbed her nose on the back of her hand. Her lashes ticked Garrett’s collarbone. Just a foot away, Sarah Anne fussed, her arms crossed over her chest, her fingers biting into the puff of her jacket sleeves, betraying the tenuous hold she had on her control. In another minute, she’d rip her daughter out of his arms.
    “You’re one of them,” Meg accused the big Protector, in a tiny voice.
    Donovan’s tone gentled to an impossible level. “One of who?”
    “The bad ones who hurt Auntie T.”
    Donovan ignored Garrett’s warning and placed his hand on Meg’s back. “No, little one. I’m the good one who’s going to kill the ones who hurt your auntie T.”
    That got her nose out of Garrett’s neck. Cold air rushed over the spot.