Page 8 of Gavin

“I think I’d like to lay down for a bit if that’s okay?”

“You bet. Make yourself at home. Mi casa es su casa. Did you want me to reach out to Adam and Cinder?”

Sadie rose to her feet and looked down at the fallen angel. It was hard to believe she was talking to someone who at one time had walked among the saints in the heavens. “Yeah. I think I’d like to see how they feel about me. If they don’t mind that I’m albino, then I’d like to run with them. I think…it would be good for me.”

“You got it.”

Sadie’s eyes closed the moment she stretched out on the comfortable bed in the spare bedroom. She thought she’d have trouble shutting down her brain to rest, but she was so tired from the long drive and occasional bouts of panic that had followed her from Michigan that she fell right to sleep, the full moon on her mind.

Chapter

Four

Friday night, Gavin picked up Devon, a fellow security officer and someone he’d grown up with in the pride, in a black SUV that he borrowed from Ryan. His own truck wasn’t big enough for four people unless the girls wanted to be squished on the bench seat between him and Devon, so he opted for the big SUV instead.

“This is nice,” Devon said as he slid into the passenger seat and buckled up.

“Right? I should get one of these. Maybe after I find my truemate and start a family.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“Any prospects on the horizon?” Gavin pulled away from Devon’s house and headed down the road to pick up Lena and her friend Ava.

“Nah. You?”

“Nope. My tiger is feeling pretty hopeful. I can’t really figure out why.”

“Maybe your mate is at the club.”

He doubted it. What were the odds that he’d be tasked with escorting two pride females to a shifter club and happen to meethis truemate there? It seemed the kind of twist of fate in a romance novel or the sappy movies his mom liked to watch.

“That would be cool if it happened.”

He stopped in front of Lena’s house and honked twice. The front door opened a few moments later and the two females walked out dressed to kill in short skirts and skin-baring tops.

Devon stared out the window in silence as they walked toward the vehicle. He opened his door and said with a low voice, “I think about asking Midas to arrange a mating for me sometimes. Then I think that there are beautiful females in the pride that I’d love to hang out with, but I don’t know if I could just fall in love with them, you know? What if you get arranged to be mated but never really, truly fall in love with the one you’re set up with? That would be a fucking rough life.”

“I never thought about it that way.”

Devon grinned. “I’ve got lots of time on my hands since I’m single.”

He opened the passenger door as the girls drew close. “Evening, ladies. You look ready to have fun.”

“We are!” Lena said. She slid into the bench seat of the second row and smiled at Gavin. “Thanks so much for driving us to Lykos. Normally Ryan would, but he said he had to catch up on paperwork.”

“No problem,” Gavin said. He put the SUV into gear and pulled away from the curb, accelerating toward the stop sign at the end of the street. “We’ll be there in about an hour, so make yourselves comfy.”

The drive was uneventful but certainly not quiet as the females chattered excitedly about who they might run into at the club and how attractive a certain fallen angel bartender was.

When they got to the club, Gavin parked in the lot and got out. “Hold up, ladies.”

The girls stopped and faced him and Devon.

“A couple ground rules,” Devon said. “First, don’t leave the club, period. If you need to come out to the SUV, get me or Gavin.”

Gavin nodded. “Second, we’re not bringing any males back to Whisper Creek, so don’t ask. If you want to take phone numbers and make plans for another night, that’s fine, but only four people are getting into the SUV at the end of the night and it’s the four of us.”

“Got it,” Lena said. “Anything else?”