They decided to send Sana to one of the Everglades pack's safe-houses and Porter told her in no uncertain terms that if she destroyed the safe-house in a fit of anger she better take herself to the ocean because he would have her ass otherwise. She haughtily told him she would do no such thing, he just snorted and ignored her while she went to gather up the clothes and supplies Harper had bought her.

They'd just started discussing their course of action when Porter's phone rang.

"Yeah?" Porter answered. "Well, isn't that interesting? Thanks, keep an eye on her."

"So, our little mama stopped off at the beach on her way home, seems she found a pad of paper that was stashed in the saw grass and tore a page out of it before she went home." Porter reported.

"She taught him to read and write, impressive," Harper said.

"I'm going to be very disappointed in her if she doesn't call us and tell us what he told her," Celie said. "You know it's probably a meeting arrangement, where and when. We'll definitely need to follow her to that; I can't imagine he won't ask her about the baby."

"He will become very angry when he learns where the child is," Ara said. "She will be in great danger if she meets him."

Celie's phone rang.

"Hello," Celie quickly pointed to her phone and mouthed 'Jenny' to the others. "Really? You're not thinking of going are you? Jenny that's so dangerous, he'll ask you about Levi...but...you can't just..."

Celie listened for a few minutes, frowning, as she closed her eyes, and pressed her fingers to her forehead.

"Can you put it off until tomorrow night? We won't be here tonight, there's no way we can follow you and make sure he doesn't hurt you," Celie told her, not mentioning that they actually could send a few wolf warriors if they needed to. "We have a...thing...we can't reschedule. You don't have to go see him; you'll be leaving town soon...just..."

Celie listened again and sighed.

"Then just leave him a note telling him your parents need to borrow your car or they won't let you leave, or you have to babysit your little brother and sisters...just some excuse for you not being able to come tonight. Then you can make arrangements for tomorrow night when we'll be there to watch over you." Celie suggested, listened for a moment. "Ok, good, that will give us some time to think about what we're going to do. Please, Please, Jenny, don't go meet him alone, it's not safe. Alright, keep us in the loop...ok...I'll give him a big hug from you...ok...bye."

Celie turned back to the group that was watching her closely.

"Ok, well, as you probably heard, that was Jenny," Celie said. "She said she went to the beach and picked up a note from him, he wants her to meet him at the beach tonight but I, hopefully, talked her out of going and she agreed to just put him off until tomorrow night. That'll give us today and tomorrow to plan what we're going to do."

"At least she called us," Porter said, relieved. "If she hadn't I was going to lose my faith in humanity."

"I do not want her meeting with that animal," Eden said, frowning. "He will not hesitate to kill her if he finds out she gave us his young."

"If we can't talk her out of meeting him, I think we should have her tell him the baby died," Harper said. "He would have died after another day in that stagnant water she had him in, so if she hadn't brought him here it would be true."

"That may set him off as much as finding out we have him," Matt said.

"Well, he's the one who refused to take the baby out in the ocean and take care of him," Celie said.

"He will not see it that way, he will see it as her failure," Eva said, joining the conversation.

The others nodded.

"I guess we'll just have to plan for every scenario and hope we can somehow keep him from killing her," Porter said. "But for right now, we have to start getting ready to head out to the pack for your initiation. Does everyone have their party clothes?" He looked toward the visiting sirens, who glanced at each other then shook their heads.

"I got that covered," Matt smiled. "I bought a dozen extra suits when we went to that tailor because I thought this might happen. All of these guys are almost my size, so they should at least be able to fit a pair of dress pants and a button up shirt.

"I've got plenty of dresses that will fit Eva, she's a little taller than me, but I have some mid length dresses that would look fabulous on her," Harped smiled.

"I am afraid I will have to decline the invitation," Eva smiled, a little sadly, at them. "If the stories I have heard of werewolf parties are even a little true, I'm afraid I will not have the fortitude to survive one."

All the wolves in the room laughed heartily at this.

"I can assure you, the stories are not exaggerated," Reese laughed.

"Someone will need to stay with the child," Charo said, then he put his arm around Eva affectionately. "We are happy to watch over him, we have raised nine young of our own, so we have much experience with babies."

"Nine babies? Holy Moly!" Celie gasped, then turned to Eden. "I'm not giving birth to nine babies! If that's normal you can forget it. Two or three at most!"

"That's all?" Eden asked, faking a shocked look.

"Maybe four, but that's a hard stop, buddy!" Celie shook her finger at Eden, who couldn't hold his grin any longer.

"We'll discuss it," Eden said, hugging her to him.

"No, we won't," Celie returned, before turning to run up the stairs. "I'll go get our dresses!"

Reese put a comforting hand on Adam's shoulder when he looked away with a clenched jaw.

Everyone went their separate ways to get ready to leave for the party, Matt took the siren warriors upstairs to see if they could all fit in the clothes he had, Porter went into the kitchen to dig around for snacks, Reese, Callum, Adam, and Alpha Lucas went back to the hotel to pick up their suits. Almost everyone was gone from the rec room when Celie got back downstairs with her garment bag, makeup case, and duffle bag of shoes and beauty supplies. She was passing by the patio doors when she heard a high pitched scream from outside in the direction of the spring.

Celie didn't hesitate for a second, she screamed up the stairs for help as she dropped her bags and yanked the door open, she shifted as she ran for the spring. Porter had been walking back into the room when Celie yanked open the door and he quickly followed her out, he could hear the shouts of the others behind him as he ran.

Celie neared the clearing around the spring and saw three tritons in human form attacking Sana, who had apparently gone out for a walk while everyone was occupied. But Celie didn't hesitate for one second, with a flying leap she attacked one of the tritons clawing at Sana, the force of her lunge brought it to the ground where she landed on top of it. Porter was right beside her, bringing down another triton with a similar leap, as Sana tried to fight off the third.

Sira clawed and bit and tore into the triton with all her strength, it writhed and twisted beneath her trying to buck her off, but she stayed on top of it and managed to get her jaws around its throat. It viciously clawed her shoulder, but she held on and shook her head with all her might. Determined that she would either rip out it's throat, suffocate it, or break it's neck. It held onto her, digging it's claws into her shoulder and foreleg but she didn't ease up in the slightest, she finally heard a loud snap, and it went limp as she finally succeeded in breaking its neck.

Porter had easily shredded the triton he went after then swiftly tore the throat out of the one fighting Sana, then he rushed to help Celie, but as he approached he saw her drop the limp triton to the ground. Porter looked Celie over with pride and Madden dipped his head in respect to her for her accomplishment then rubbed against her flank to show her affection.

They turned their attention to Sana who had fallen to the ground when the tritons had been knocked off of her. She lay on her side, clutching her torn throat, her whole body covered in bloody claw marks. When she coughed, blood gushed out of her mouth and Celie realized her throat was torn out, she knew Sana probably wouldn't survive such a wound. Sana apparently reached that conclusion as well and she looked up at Celie with tears in her eyes, she mouthed the words, 'I'm sorry' as she choked on her own blood.

Sira stared down at her for a second before she dipped her head down in acknowledgement of the apology.

The others had arrived on the scene and Porter directed his wolves to search the area for more tritons and the wolves took off in all directions to follow his orders. Matt and Harper knelt beside Sana, but she was already gone by the time they tried to lift her up to take her inside.

Celie limped over to them, blood coated her blonde fur and ran down her shoulder and leg to puddle on the ground.

"Oh my god, Celie!" Harper screamed just realizing how badly hurt her friend was. She'd been so preoccupied with checking Sana that she hadn't noticed Celie's injuries.

Porter had gone to the bin near the spring and grabbed two towels, he tossed one to Harper who laid it over Celie so she could shift, and as soon as she was back in her human form Eden scooped her up in his arms and turned and ran to the house. Matt split off from them and sprinted to the tank room and wheeled the carts with Harper's medical supplies down the hall toward the rec room where Eden had sat Celie in a chair for Harper to examine.

Three of the siren warriors had dove into the spring to search for more tritons, but the others had followed them back to the house and stood in the rec room watching, exchanging shocked looks with each other. For three tritons to attack someone in daylight was beyond anything they had imagined, even after hearing the news of what had been going on up to now.

"Port, could you hand me that bottle of vodka over there?" Celie said, grinding her teeth against the pain in her neck and shoulder.

Porter went and grabbed the bottle off the counter behind the bar and brought it to her, he snorted a little laugh when she tipped the bottle with her right hand and chugged it for a good six or seven seconds.

"That's better," Celie croaked, after the took a deep breath.

Harper checked her supplies and pulled out a bottle and syringe, she quickly measured out the amount and turned back to Celie.

"This is lidocaine," Harper told Celie, "I'm going to inject it in and around the scratches to numb you up, then I'm going to stitch you up, ok?"

"Go for it," Celie said, and tipped the bottle and chugged again. "I'm totally getting ready."

"Geez Cel," Porter chuckled. "Can you really make jokes after you had half your shoulder ripped off?"

"Apparently," Celie rolled her eyes, then hissed when Harper began the injections into her torn flesh.

The triton had gotten her good, there were four perfect claw marks that went from low on her neck, over her collarbone, and down the entire length of her shoulder to her upper arm.

"I'm going to need you to assist here, Mattie," Harper said, positioning the cart next to her and laying out her instruments. "When I ask for something, I need you to pass it to me immediately, ok?"

"Yeah, whatever you need me to do," Matt said, perching on the edge of a chair he'd dragged over.

The lidocaine and the vodka had kicked in a little and Celie had sagged back into the chair, but Harper had to admonish her.

"I need you to sit up straight, Cel, and don't move." Harper said, eyeing her sternly. "I'm trying my best to minimize the scarring, and this will scar, these are very deep. It will be a couple of days before they're healed up."

"Great, just what I needed, I'll never be able to wear a strapless dress again!" Celie sighed, dramatically.

"They'll just be little white lines, silly," Harper chuckled as she got to work. "I'm just saying, they won't heal completely up without leaving a mark."

"What the hell happened?!" Adam shouted when he saw Celie sitting in a chair covered in blood as everyone hovered around her. He tried to go to her, but Eden put a big hand in the middle of his chest and stopped him cold.

"Sana went for a walk, three tritons attacked her near the spring, Celie and I came to the rescue, one clawed Cel as she killed it, I killed the other two, Sana died," Porter said succinctly.

"They attacked in broad daylight one hundred yards from the house?" Reese asked, incredulously.

"Yeah," Matt said, raising his eyebrows. "They're getting bolder, that's for sure. Seems like they were waiting in the spring pool and when they saw her alone, they took the opportunity to attack her."

"Everyone was upstairs getting their shit together to go to the party. Cel was near the door and I was in the kitchen when we heard her scream. Cel took one, I took the others, it was all over by the time everyone else got down there." Porter added.

"You attacked a fucking triton by yourself?" Adam shouted at Celie, trying to step forward again. "What the hell were you thinking? You could have been killed!"

"Oh, calm the fuck down," Celie waved him off with her good hand holding the vodka bottle, which she promptly drank from.

"Back!" Eden growled and shoved Adam with enough force to send him flying across the room.

Callum and Reese quickly grabbed Adam and held him back.

"Keep him under control or I will!" Eden snapped at them.

Callum, Reese, and Alpha Lucas pulled Adam to the corner of the room, speaking quietly and urgently to him to calm down. Reminding him that Celie had survived, and he shouldn't upset her while Harper was sewing her up. Hearing that, Adam settled a bit, he didn't want to make Harper hurt Celie or jeopardize her recovery. But he glared in fury at Eden, who he felt was standing in his rightful place by Celie's side. He'd been hurting since this all started, but now anger was starting to replace his pain, and his wolf paced inside him.

Ara had stayed behind by the spring pool while the warriors searched, and she watched as they had rolled Sana and the tritons up in tarps. She returned to the house with a slightly surprised, yet proud look on her face as she entered the room. She went to Celie's side, crouched next to her chair, and laid a hand on her uninjured shoulder.

"You took out a powerful warrior, little one, you have done well!" Ara smiled proudly at her.

"Woooo-oooo! That's why you don't fuck with a werewolf," Celie snickered, her words slightly slurred as she had been chugging vodka every few seconds since she got back to the house. "Because even the little ones are mean!"

"Let me take that bottle back to the bar for you, Cel, I think you've had enough pain killer for a few minutes," Porter said, snatching the bottle out of Celie's hand.

"Hey! I'm not done with that!" Celie argued and went to sit up, but Harper and Eden's hands stopped her.

"Yes, you are," Porter replied, sitting the bottle back down on the counter behind the bar.

-

The elder and warrior sirens gathered outside on the patio as Harper finished the extensive sewing of Celie's arm and shoulder.

"The triton threat is greater than we imagined," Charo said, his face grim.

"Much greater," Eva agreed.

"Perhaps they are just becoming desperate," Ara said. "Their attacks have all failed so far, they know they need to accomplish their goal before the end of mating season, so they are taking unprecedented risks."

"Perhaps," Charo said.

"The wolves are far more dangerous than I let myself believe," Winter said, glancing at the house. "I would never have believed a seemingly weak female could so easily kill a triton warrior, or that a boy could easily kill two."

"They are much bigger than I expected," Mica said. "The boy was far more impressive than I thought he'd be."

"Yes," Benis agreed turning toward Ara. "From your familiarity and fondness for them, I did not believe they could be much of a threat despite your warnings of their fierce nature. I will not underestimate them again."

"Oh, they are certainly a threat," Ara said, somewhat miffed that they did not take her words more seriously. "They do nothing but train their bodies and minds for war, and there are great numbers of them, they could make their calls and within hours there would be hundreds here ready to fight."

"That is a terrifying thought," Eva shook her head. "I cannot imagine hundreds of them doing battle at once."

"It happens all the time," Adam said, startling them. "Our world is a dangerous place; wars are fought between packs every day. That's why you don't see very many elderly wolves, we have long life spans, but that's only if we survive the attacks. Just for future reference, since you apparently didn't know, we have very acute senses of hearing and smell. If you want to have a conversation we can't hear, you need to go a lot further away and talk much quieter. We can all hear you in there, just thought I'd warn you before you say something you shouldn't."

"Thank you for the warning," Charo said, glancing at the others.

"No problem," Adam chuckled.

"We were not going to say anything insulting about your kind," Ara smiled. "I knew you could hear me."

"They didn't," Adam shrugged. "Sana has started you guys off on shaky ground with us. There is one sin you do not commit in our world, one thing that will get you killed faster than anything else, one transgression that is unforgivable...Messing with someone's mate. I thought I'd warn you before we go to the party tonight, you guys need to be very careful out there. I'm sure Porter will explain it to you before you get there."

"You'll want to pay close attention to Porter's instructions," Reese said, as he and Callum stepped out of the doorway, startling them again. "You're the Everglades guests, and Porter, Alpha Alexander, and Luna Penny will watch your back and make sure you're safe in their territory. But the one thing they won't defend you from, is a challenge if you hit on a mated wolf. So make sure you check a wolf's neck for a bite mark. If there is one, steer clear, that's one fight you don't want to start, no matter how pretty the girl, or guy, is."

"We do not violate mate bonds," Mica snapped, somewhat offended.

"Really? Someone should have told Sana that, she didn't seem to get the message and now she's dead." Adam scoffed. "All because she couldn't respect it, I doubt she would have been out there wandering around alone if she hadn't just gotten herself banished for her behavior."

"You wanted her dead, and now she's dead, aren't you going to celebrate?" Tene said snidely.

"We actually are about to go to a big party," Adam smirked. "It's not for that specifically, but we can add that in."

"We wanted her punished for the crime she committed, not torn apart by tritons," Reese said, shooting Adam a look. "There is a difference, when we carry out a death sentence we do it quickly and humanely."

"How do you kill another being humanely?" Charo asked.