Addie looked at them, two little tigers huddled against the older Robbie, the three of them alone and vulnerable.

“Yes,” she found herself babbling. “Yes, I’ll take them.”

“Now,” Kendrick said, cutting through her stammering. “Robbie.”

“I’m on it, Dad.”

Robbie, small himself, picked up the tiger cubs by the scruffs of their necks. He cradled them against his chest and looked up at Addie in total trust.

Addie felt a brush of air, and when she looked back for Kendrick, he was gone, vanishing out the door into the hot night.

*   *   *

Four Shifters had attacked the diner, two of them with guns, the fucking cowards. What Shifters used guns?

Kendrick had taken down the one he’d just sent to dust—a Lupine called Ivan—who’d never been the most obedient to Kendrick but had never outright opposed him before. Kendrick had caught and fought a second Shifter, a Feline, and also sent him to dust with the sword before he’d gone after Ivan.

Kendrick’s heart ached from the deaths, each one a gaping loss for every Shifter.

He changed to his tiger again and found the trails of the two remaining Shifters, who’d fled when he’d attacked. They’d taken to vehicles about a mile away and driven off down a dirt road heading straight west.

Returning to where he’d hidden his clothes and sword on his motorcycle, Kendrick saw Addison come out of the diner’s back door, a big floppy purse at her side. She herded Robbie and the cubs into her car, a well-used Camry that had seen better days.

Kendrick had a momentary flash of anger. This woman should have a bright, beautiful car and be dressed in the finest clothes, not the ill-fitting waitress uniform and the flat, dull-black shoes on her shapely feet.

He’d recognized in Addison, the moment he’d first walked into her diner, a beauty that he’d never before encountered. He’d gone in with the cubs to find them something to eat late one night, choosing an out-of-the-way town where Shifters didn’t go.

One look at her had floored Kendrick, made him want a second look. She’d cheerfully served them pie, the last pieces of the day, confiding to Kendrick that apple with streusel was her favorite as well. She’d spoken without worry to the cubs, gaining smiles from even Robbie, who was slow to trust anyone. She’d won over Brett and Zane by squirting extra whipped cream onto their pies, making a game of swirling it around.

Addison had hair the color of darkest coffee—the way he liked it—and eyes the blue of sudden violets in the snow. She wore her hair in a ponytail, which swung against her back as she ushered the cubs into the backseat.

Kendrick had looked at her and seen a diamond among pebbles, a vivid and striking brightness in a world of grays. Something had awakened in him when he’d heard her voice, seen her smile. He didn’t know what that something was—his mate had been gone since Zane had come into the world, too soon for grief to be over.

But for a brief moment, his life had not been so dark or uncertain. There was Addison, beaming her smile, winking at the cubs, always with a welcome.

That was her job—Kendrick understood that—but in that space of time in her diner, Addison had seen Kendrick as himself. Not a Guardian, a Shifter leader, an errand boy for Dylan Morrissey, or a Shifter trying to draw his clan together again. He’d been Kendrick, father to three cubs, man who ate pie.

When Robbie had asked the next night, “Can we go see Addie again?” Kendrick hadn’t been able to say no.

Addison secured the cubs in the back then slid into the front seat and started the car. She scanned the parking lot, searching the shadows, not seeing Kendrick where he’d parked his bike well back from the lights. Kendrick watched her square her shoulders and drive away.