“Nope, we shouldn’t.” I speared a ham slab. “This afternoon then?”

She grinned. “Perfect.”

When you resort to everyday activities on your honeymoon, you know it’s not going well. Planning our second run already meant Elena was bored and trying very hard not to let me know it.

The first couple of days had been great. With two-year-old twins at home, the only time we normally got away was when our Alpha, Jeremy, sent us to track down a misbehaving mutt. Being on a mission doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves. There’s nothing like celebrating a successful hunt with sex. Or working out the frustration of a failed hunt with sex. Or dulling that edge of pre-hunt excitement with sex.

But there was also something to be said for skipping the whole “track, capture and maim” part and being able to go straight to a hotel room and lock the door. Still, we could only stay in there for so long before we got restless, and when we came out, we’d discovered a problem with our honeymoon destination: There wasn’t a helluva lot to do.

Back at the hotel, we called home and talked to the kids. Or they listened as we talked and had their answers interpreted by Jeremy. As much as we loved our daily call, we spent most of it braced for the inevitable “Momma? Daddy? Home?” or, in Kate’s case, “Mommy! Daddy! Home!” Jeremy managed to spare us this time, stopping as soon as Logan asked, “Momma where?” and bustling them off with his visiting girlfriend, Jaime.

Next Jeremy and Elena would talk about the kids and discuss any new Pack or council business that had arisen. Normally, I’d listen in and offer my opinion-whether they wanted it or not-but today I told Elena I was going downstairs to grab a map and a bottle of water, then took off.

I was reasonably sure the mutt hadn’t followed us from the restaurant, but I wanted to scout to be sure. We planned to walk back to the hotel, which would give him the opportunity to follow. A cab would have solved that, but if I’d voluntarily offered to spend time trapped in a vehicle with a stranger, Elena would have been on the phone to Jeremy, panicked that my arm was reinfected and I was sliding into delirium.