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walking to his wife, Tanya, who stood in the clearing with their infant son in her arms. Tanya was a lovely brunette, a woman with smiling eyes and pink cheeks, her softness a contrast to Gabe’s tawny ferocity. Gabe put a paternal hand on Connor’s head and pressed a kiss to Tanya’s lips. She beamed up at him, the love between them comfortable and obvious.
    Jeff found Fallon, Gabriel’s younger sister. They’d been on-again, off-again for a time, but considering the warmth of their embrace, I guessed they’d made “on” a little more permanent. Fallon was petite, with a sturdy, athletic body and wavy hair the same sun-kissed color as Gabe’s. She preferred black clothing and tonight wore knee-high motorcycle-style boots, a short skirt, and an NAC leather jacket.
    I didn’t know Fallon very well, but I knew Jeff, and there weren’t many I respected as much as him. If he loved her—and the look in his eyes made clear that he did—then she was good people.
    “Ready?” Catcher asked.
    “Now or never,” Ethan said, taking my hand as we stepped forward into the meadow and into the fray.
    Shifters chatted in camp chairs, watching cautiously as we passed. Others hurried around us with steaming food or boxes of gear. Someone nudged my elbow, and I turned to find a squatty woman with freshly bleached hair standing behind me, a foil-wrapped bundle in her hands. It was as large as a newborn baby and smelled of meat and chilies.
    She looked me over, shook her head in disappointment, and thrust the package at me.
    I nearly grunted under the weight. It was as heavy as a newborn baby, too.
    “Hello, Berna,” I said.
    Berna was a shifter, a relative of the Keene family, and the bartender at Little Red, the Pack watering hole in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village neighborhood. She was convinced I didn’t eat enough and enjoyed plying me with food. Since I enjoyed eating, we’d managed to stay friends of a sort.
    She looked at Ethan and winged up her pencil-drawn eyebrows suggestively. “Hello, man,” she said in her sturdy Eastern European accent.
    “Berna,” Ethan said politely, eyeing what I guessed was a baby-sized burrito. “Nothing for me?”
    Without even blinking, Berna yanked the package from my hands and offered it to Ethan.
    “Is family recipe. You will eat. You”—she looked him over, from blond hair to booted feet—“should remain strong. Handsome.”
    I think I just won Berna,
he silently said, and nodded gravely at her. “Thank you, Berna. I’m sure this will be delicious.”
    She sniffed, as if offended by the mere possibility it wouldn’t be delicious, but her eyelashes stayed batty, and her gaze didn’t stray much from his face.
    “I guess we aren’t getting anything,” Catcher muttered behind us.
    “So these are the vampires?”
    A shifter stepped beside Berna—a woman who was taller and thinner, with a short shock of platinum blond hair. She was muscled and rugged, her features better described as handsome than pretty. And she all but vibrated with irritated magic.
    “Twilight,”
Berna confirmed, pointing at me and Ethan. “Grumpy,” she said, pointing around me at Catcher.
    She looked at Mallory for a few seconds before offering judgment. “Magic,” she finally said with the smallest of smiles, and it was obvious she meant the word as a compliment.
    Mallory beamed, but Berna’s friend was not impressed.
    “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, pointing at each of us in turn and flinging magic with each movement. It left a sting like tiny insects. “This isn’t any of your business, and it isn’t for you.” She stuck her nose into the air, slid Berna a narrowed look. “And you shouldn’t carouse with them.”
    “We were invited here,” Mallory said. I think she might have put an arm around Berna, except that Berna had already puffed out her chest and was nearly buzzing with irritation.
    “Go,” she said, flicking her hands at the woman. “Go elsewhere. Too