“The ref blew the whistle and the pack took off. The “jostling” from earlier had turned into a “melee” Sun Tzu would have been afraid of.”

“Jack linked her arm with Irene’s. “Good. You deserve to be happy, sweetie. Now what about his Pack?” “They look frightened and I have absolutely no idea why. I’m nothing but appropriately pleasant.” “Price you pay as the new Alpha Female.” “I understand all that, but running from the room every time I walk in seems a tad harsh, wouldn’t you say?” “You do have a point.”

“Wow,” the bobcat muttered from his desk. “Your sister’s right. Your legs really are skinny.”Toni briefly thought about swiping all the cat’s crap off his desk, but that wasn’t something she’d do to anyone who wasn’t one of her siblings. But that was the beauty of being one of the Jean-Louis Parker clan . . . sometimes you didn’t have to do anything at all, because there was a sibling there to take care of it for you.“It must be hard,” Kyle mused to the bobcat. “One of the superior cats. Revered and adored throughout history as far back as the ancient Egyptians. And yet here you sit. At a desk. A common drone. Taking orders from lowly canines and bears. Do your ancestors call to you from the great beyond, hissing their disappointment to you? Do they cry out in despair at where you’ve ended up despite such a lofty bloodline? Or does your hatred spring from the feline misery of always being alone? Skulking along, wishing you had a mate or a pack or pride to call your own? But all you have is you . . . and your pathetic job as a drone? Does it break your feline heart to be so . . . average? So common? So . . . human?”Toni cringed, which helped her not laugh.”

“Not that he had anything to worry about. Personally, Sissy would like to avoid having acid thrown in her face. She was wacky that way.”

“Brendon’s big hands slid under her skirt and took hold of the plain white cotton panties she had to dig through her entire suitcase to find.”

“Miki held up a tennis ball, looked at Sara’s new Pack, and tossed it out into the forest away from the ongoing rave. They all watched it go, then they turned back to Miki.“Okay. Go…”Sara and Angelina slapped their hands over their friend’s mouth before the word “fetch” could come out of it.They pulled her over to one of the food tables.“Are you out of your ever-loving mind?! Everyone here but us is like Sara.” Angelina snapped. “And after seeing them in action I’d rather not fuck with them!”Miki gave that innocent smile. “It was just a little experiment.”

“This conversation" - Dez rapped her knuckles against the Formica table- "is over.""Be careful, Dez," Jimmy stated earnestly."And don't sleep with him the first night," Vinny warned. "We know what a slut you can be."Dez turned to Sal. "Do you have anything to add to this bullshit?""Yeah." Sal looked down from the ceiling he'd been staring at. "Based on the structure of this building, if we removed that pillar back there, we could take out this whole block."Dez sighed.”