The bitch had to be human. No shifter would try a move on a male who was looking so hungrily at another person.

She must have misinterpreted Sebastian's smoldering look my and Dean's way as one of jealousy, and had decided to offer him an alternative. That could be the only explanation for the blonde's suicidal behavior.

Not that my tigress cared at the moment. And when the bitch whispering in Sebastian's ear went as far as to put a hand on his chest, my human half decided explanations didn't matter indeed. Nor did it matter that Sebastian went rigid at the touch and reached to remove the offending hand.

The blonde was in for some pain.

I charged her way to deliver it, ignoring Dean's call after me.

She was so clueless she didn't even see the danger coming, unlike the people on the dance floor who gave me space upon seeing the look on my face.

"No one touches what's mine!" I half shouted, half roared when I reached my target, saying what my inner animal wanted.

I was too pissed to think clearly. More pissed than I had ever been in my life. But I was going to worry about my excessively possessive outburst after I finished giving the blonde a lesson.

"Yours?" She smiled smugly. "If you expected him to be yours only, you shouldn't have been cheating on him, missy. Handsome here is fair game." She underscored the last bit by placing her hand – her soon-to-be-broken hand – on Sebastian's shoulder.

"Mine!" I roared and threw myself at the human. To hell with the law!

I never reached her. Arms of steel wrapped around me from the side, catching me in mid-air.

"Calm down, darlin'," Sebastian ordered, holding me against him.

"She touched you!" I shouted while giving the blonde a murderous glare.

That didn't kill her on the spot, unfortunately. She even dared keep her smug smile on and crossed her arms over her chest to accentuate her scandalously low neckline.

Around us, some pride members were shouting encouragements my way, Isabel and Janine among them, but Sebastian paid them no mind.

"Harming a human will land you in prison, Samantha. That what you want?" he rumbled in my ear.

"Let me at her!"

"No. I'm not allowing you to ruin your future over some shifter fan."

"Agh!"

"Eric, how much longer?"

Eric? I couldn't see him nor hear him; it was a cacophony of sounds around me. But since my galloping heart pounding in my head from the anger began to slow down, he had to be close. His Omega powers were going to ease my mind the way Sebastian was doing to my body... Maybe that was for the better–

Unless the bitch with the death wish did something to rile me up anew. Like direct a slutty smile at someone behind me and say, "Hi, green-eyed Adonis. Wanna take me for a spin?"

"You're so dead!" I screeched and began fighting against Sebastian's hold with renewed fervor. She was going to regret the moment she had laid eyes on my Eric!

"Lovely, please!"

"Sweetie, let's get back to dancing and forget–"

"No!!" I'd finally snapped. Had gone batshit crazy. Whatever! The bitch would pay!

"Fine." Sebastian let go with one of his arms. "We'll have to do it my way, then."

I felt his fingers pressing against the side of my neck.

Déjà vu hit me.

Then darkness.

I opened my eyes to the soft glow of a familiar bedside lamp.

"Sebastian!" I yelled as I sat up in the familiar king-side bed.

The last thing I remembered while losing consciousness had been Eric's, "Not again!" followed by Dean's, "What now? This wasn't part of the plan," and Sebastian's, "It can still work. We'll improvise."

I would give them an improvisation!

But nope, not in the way my tigress was suggesting. As in to punish them with some sweet torture. My inner feline should keep her furry muzzle shut. Particularly after the overreaction at the club.

That shifter fan had been nasty but hadn't deserved what I had intended to do to her. Had she been a shifter, she still wouldn't have deserved claws in the face. Sebastian wasn't truly mine, was he? He wasn't wearing my scent on him to warn females of our kind away. I didn't have his mating mark to show proudly to the world.

He was not mine. Neither was Dean.

Perhaps that was why I had gone ballistic in the club. The blonde had approached what my tigress was yet to claim, which practically made her competition.

"Show your face, sasquatch!" I kept going as I got off the bed. "Don't you hide from me!"

I knew why Sebastian had rendered me unconscious – I had not been myself. I would have done the same had one of the guys been a step away from breaking the top law for shifters: never harm a human. However, why the hell had Sebastian brought me to his home? To his bed?!

I should have woken up in my own bed next to Eric. Which is where I would go once I gave the General a piece of my mind.

I was reaching for the door when it opened. Just enough for a head to appear through the crack.

"Hey, sweetie." Dean gave me a tentative smile. "Bas isn't here. It's just me. Is that okay? Or will I get punched in the nuts?"

I sighed and slapped my hands to my face. So typical. Every time Sebastian reached the limits of my patience, he disappeared and left Dean to sweeten me up.

I needed a vent for my frustration but Dean wouldn't do. He was, of course, part of 'the plan' which 'can still work', but he wasn't the mastermind behind bringing me here without my permission. Mr. Insufferable was. I was sure of it.

Since I couldn't vent, I might as well get some answers. "Where is Eric?"

"Still out with the pride."

"He left me at your hands?" I blurted out, incredulous.

Then again, why was I surprised? Eric was clearly in cahoots with Dean and Sebastian.

"He said to tell you he will pick you up if you call." Dean sounded even more hesitant now and though I couldn't see it due to the door, I was sure he was scratching his chest right now. "Umm... do you want to? I mean... will you call him?"

"No."

Hope filled Dean's gaze. "You'll stay?"

And let the guys' plan run its course? Like hell. "I'll catch a taxi. Let Eric enjoy the rest of his night out. I'll be waiting for him at home."

"Well... About that..." He smiled sheepishly before continuing, "Eric said that if you don't call, he'll be seeing you in the morning... here."

"Here?" Where I would be alone with Dean? Where the last time I had been alone with him had ended with his hand in my panties? "No, I don't think so."

"You think I'm lying?"

I shook my head. "I believe you, Dean. That doesn't mean I'm going to stay." I took hold of the doorknob. "Let the others know you tried your best but the plan failed. Or the improvisation failed. Whatever. I'm going home."

I pulled the doorknob to open the door completely. And froze.

Dean was wearing nothing but a tiny towel. The same blue towel from before, which had also starred in more than one of my wet dreams.

"You... I... home..."

"You're home, sweetie."

"Uhh... Eric..."

He smiled at my brain malfunction. "If you're trying to say home is where your fated mate is, then know Eric is ready to move in this apartment. Should you agree to move in. Or simply stay here tonight."

Between Dean's naked perfection and my tigress roaring, 'Yes!' in my mind, it took me time to process what he was saying.

I was trying to protect Eric from getting hurt, but he was having none of it. He had more or less placed me in Sebastian's bed. He was leaving me alone with Dean all night.

"Sebastian?" The question slipped from my lips while my legs were already moving. Backwards.

"He's on board. Completely." Dean took a step toward me. "So... you'll stay?"

He coupled that question with the second to last weapon he had yet to use tonight. The Dimple.

My ovaries could only take so much.

I moved entirely back into the room.

Dean's eyes flashed amber as he followed me inside and shut the door behind him.