“Take your time. I’ll catch the news.”

I ran my hands through my hair and lifted my face into the spray. My forearm throbbed as the hot water hit it. Tomorrow I’d pay for overworking the damaged muscle, but it was worth it if Cain took home proof that Clayton Danvers’s arm was definitely not “fucked up.”

For two years, I’d been so careful in every fight, convinced no one would notice I was favoring my left. I should have known better. Like scavengers, mutts could sense weakness.

I squeezed the water from my hair as I moved out of the spray and looked down at the pitted rut of scar tissue. All these years of fighting without a permanent injury, and what finally does it? One little scratch from a rotting zombie. At the worst of the infection, I’d been in danger of losing my arm, so I couldn’t complain about some muscle damage.

But if rumors were already circulating, I had to squelch them. And maybe even that wouldn’t be enough. Was Theo Cain’s son only the first in a new generation of mutts who’d heard the stories about me and fluffed them off as urban legends or at least ancient history?

I’d first cemented my reputation to protect Jeremy. Now I had fresh concerns-a mate, kids… and a fucked-up arm that was never going to get any better. So how was I going to convince a new generation of mutts that Clayton Danvers really was the raging psychopath their fathers warned them about?

I rubbed the face cloth over my chest, hard and brisk enough to burn. I didn’t want to go through that shit again. What the hell would I do for an encore? What could I do that wouldn’t have Elena bustling the twins off to a motel while she reconsidered whether I was the guy she wanted raising her kids?