“Sorry about the boobs. Pretend they aren’t there.” Impossible to do when her nipples were almost stabbing me in the throat. “I had to change to keep up with Cord.” She squeezed me harder. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“No thanks to some people,” I grumbled at Graeson while awkwardly returning Dell’s hug.

Molten-chocolate eyes striated with mossy green ensnared me. “I should have been here waiting for you. I’m sorry that didn’t happen.” He caressed my cheekbone with his thumb. “I planned on meeting you at the airport to avoid a scene like the one you described.” He traced the rigid line of my jaw until his hand slid off my chin. “But you’re still here and not a scratch on you. Looks like you handled yourself.”

The urge to swell under his pride rankled. It must be the warg blood in my system. “Yes, well, I’m not a total damsel.”

“Bessemer—” Dell began in a rush.

I cut her off with a gesture. “Let him speak for himself, Dell.”

“You were worried about me.” His lips hooked to one side in a crooked smile that threatened to disarm me. “Did you think I’d stand you up on purpose?”

“You bamboozled my family into coming to Georgia.” I would not be taken in by an unspoken promise and a nice set of tattoos. The thick black bands wrapping his wrists, cypress forests sprouting up his forearms, was the only ink delineating a canvas I had seen nude almost as often as covered. I barely recognized him in honest-to-goodness clothing. “I ought to wring your neck for putting them in danger.”

I would have too, but Aunt Dot and my cousins could take care of themselves. Unlike me, the weak link, they had honed all their skills to a killing edge. Gemini were peaceful, but we weren’t pushovers. A wanderer’s life meant traveling through hostile fae territory on occasion, and when you’re on the highway alone, you learn to defend yourself, your family and your belongings, or you fast become roadkill.

“Bamboozled,” he echoed.

“You’ve got thirty seconds.” I started tapping my foot to give my nervous energy an outlet. “Give me a reason to stay, or I walk.”

“You’re aware of how the pack bond functions?” Tone light, he nearly succeeded in making me underestimate how critical his connection with the other wargs was to his continued mental health. Without the others sharing his grief over his sister’s death, he would revert to the burned-out shell of a man I’d first met not two miles from here. “Each warg is connected to me through a secondary bond that only the alpha can access outside our group. Sharing headspace with the others keeps me level, functional, but it requires an unobstructed connection to work.” His voice dipped to a rumble. “When we returned to Georgia, our minds were open books.”