“Your place, your son, your voice,” Dad murmured, stepping back to her side.

Fabulous.

Jian-Li looked to Abel. “You know I’m no fool.”

“Sweetheart—” Abel started.

“Those I spoke with yesterday shared openly that one of the vampires was the mightiest of their kind, and one of the wolves the same,” she said. “Think for one moment, Abel, that the threat you sensed was just a threat, not to you, but instead it could be the threat at your side fighting your enemies.”

“And what else did they tell you?” Abel asked. “Did they share what the fuck is going on?”

“No, they said they could only tell you and Delilah that,” Jian-Li replied, and I looked to Dad but my eyes went quickly to Abel at hearing his nonverbal snarl.

Jian-Li kept speaking.

“They also shared with me precisely why you’re behaving the way you’re behaving right now. That you are wolf and the wolf is about his pack. A werewolf exists to protect his mate, his family. It was impressed upon me that he doesn’t do this simply as instinct. It’s his reason for existence.”

My eyes got big at this total awesomeness. I looked to Abel to see him staring at Jian-Li with a weird look on his face that made my heart clutch at the same time I wanted to jump with glee.

“If we can perhaps arrange a meeting that you would be comfortable with, one of theirs alone but all of yours with you. Or perhaps one of their females—” Jian-Li started to suggest.

But I interrupted her. “Females?”

“One human who is bride to a vampire. One female werewolf who is queen to the werewolf king,” Jian-Li explained.

“Holy shitoly,” I breathed.

Vampire brides?

Girl werewolves?

Wow.

“The nonthreatening one,” Abel whispered, and we all looked to him.

“What?” I called.

He focused on me. “I smelled another wolf who was nonthreatening. I didn’t get it. Now I know it’s female.”

I wanted to roll my eyes before suggesting maybe it’s the queen who kicks ass and takes names, but I decided that was probably not wise at that moment.

“Put your coffee down.”

I focused when this order came to me from Abel and saw him heading my way.

Snake and Jabber didn’t seem all fired up about this, but Abel clearly didn’t care and I didn’t have time to deal with it as I asked, “What? Why?”

He made it to me through the stiff bodies of my dad’s friends and didn’t answer. He also didn’t wait for me to comply. He took the coffee out of my hand and set it on the table, doing this looking to Dad.