“Tell her thank you,” Misty said.
“I will.” Kevin gave her another smile. He was cute, really. A normal guy. “You start your cleanup,” Kevin said. “I can recommend a service to help you, if you want.”
“I’ll let you know. Thanks for coming.”
Kevin gave her a final smile and departed. Misty followed him out of the store and watched him get into a conservative four-door car. He started up, backed carefully out of his space, and used his turn signal when he left the parking lot. A guy who played by the rules.
Paul was sweeping the floor inside the store again, and a few men from DX Security were helping scoop up and throw away the glass and petals. When Misty tried to help with the manual labor, Xavier told her not to—she might cut herself on the shards, he said. They’d take care of everything.
Shifters were amazing, Misty thought as she went back into her office. They banded together when any of their own were in trouble and worked to solve their problems. Cassidy’s mate, Diego, had come to Graham’s rescue in the desert; Diego had made sure his security company and Xav helped and protected Misty afterward. Iona had driven across town this morning to urge the insurance adjuster to start on Misty’s store right away. Misty wasn’t even Shifter—she was Graham’s girlfriend, and she wasn’t even sure of that status. But the Shifters had sent resources to help her, even when Misty knew Eric and Graham didn’t get along much of the time. They pulled together as a community. It warmed her that they considered her part of it.
Misty spent the rest of the morning canceling orders, e-mailing or calling customers, and apologizing until she was breathless. This was so wrong. Flores had broken into her store and wrecked her business, and she had to apologize.
By lunch, she needed a break. Paul and the security guys had done a great job sweeping everything up and salvaging what they could. The refrigeration room and the watering system still worked, which was a blessing, but she’d need to replace all the glass doors, her counters, shelving, and the front door and window, which would be expensive, and who knew how much insurance would cover?
Depressed, she told Xav she was heading a few doors down to get herself an enchilada at the little café that served New Mexico–style Mexican food. Paul had already gone down there, Xav said and offered to walk with her.
Xav was another nice guy, Misty decided. He wore the same black T-shirt as the rest of the security men, the tight fabric showing off every muscle beneath it. Diego and Xav had probably decided on the shirts to reassure clients that DX Security hired only strong guys.
Misty focused on the DX men in an effort to not dwell on a Shifter who also looked hot in a tight T-shirt. Even hotter without it.
Graham hadn’t called Misty all morning, hadn’t said a word. Stay away, he’d told her forcefully. Misty thought she understood why—now that she’d broken free of the thirst spell, he didn’t want her near him to get caught in danger again. He was hurting, vulnerable, and didn’t want to drag her into his problems.
Well, she’d dragged him into hers first. They should work on this together.
But who was she kidding? Graham had never indicated he wanted anything more from Misty than dating, and not even serious dating. Even if they figured out a way to get Graham free from the Fae spell, Graham might tell Misty he wanted to call it quits. She’d already laid the groundwork by getting mad at him and asking him not to call her.
And look how long that had lasted. Graham had come charging to her house only a few hours later. And now he was deciding they should stay apart. He drove her insane, and she was never going to win a control battle with him.
She needed to forget about Graham, Misty decided. There were plenty of other men around—for instance, Xav, or Kevin the insurance guy.
But Graham wasn’t someone she could easily forget, and Misty knew it. He lingered, like the taste of the best wine—or something with a little harsher bite, like the tequila last night.
You are so beautiful. The words had softened Graham’s rough-edged voice. The tequila talking, Misty guessed. But the phrase had shot straight to her heart and lodged there. She had no illusions about what she looked like, but Graham had been talking about how he saw her. Misty would treasure his words for a long time.
Misty and Xav reached the restaurant. It was crowded, this place popular. Paul had already snagged a table. Misty ordered herself an enchilada with spinach and white cheese topped with green chile sauce, her favorite. Paul went for a chimi, and Xav had the carnitas, the restaurant’s specialty.
Halfway through the meal, which Misty was too distracted to appreciate, Paul excused himself and went into the back. When Misty glanced at him in the rear hall of the restaurant, he beckoned to her.
He wanted to talk to her alone. Paul wasn’t entirely comfortable in social atmospheres yet, and he often asked Misty to step aside with him while he worked out his nerves.
“What is it?” she asked quietly as she joined him. The restaurant’s crowd was noisy today, Xav answering his phone and not watching them, but Misty didn’t want anyone overhearing. Paul was easily embarrassed these days.
“A friend of mine wants to talk to you,” Paul said. “Think we can ditch our bodyguards?”
Misty’s alarm grew again. “What friend?”
“Don’t worry, he’s not from one of the prison gangs I had to sell my soul to.” Paul made a face. “I met him after I got out. He knows my parole officer, actually. Probably wants to talk to you about keeping me out of trouble.”
Misty let out her breath. “All right. Have him come by the store after lunch, and we can talk in my office. I’m sure Xav will let us have a private conversation.”
“He’s here now. Wants to talk right away. He’s busy.”
“Here?” Misty scanned the small restaurant. Xav glanced their way but looked unworried, still on his phone. “Where? Why doesn’t he come and have lunch with us?”
“He’s in the alley. He only has a few minutes.”
Misty stepped in front of Paul as he started for the restaurant’s rear door. “Oh, right. Because that doesn’t sound suspicious at all. Who is this guy? If he wants to talk to me so much, he can come to the store. It’s only three doors down.”
Paul looked suddenly afraid, which rang even more alarms. “Misty, please.”
“No,” Misty said firmly. “I’m not stupid enough to meet some guy I don’t know in a back alley, even in broad daylight. If he’s legit, he’ll come to my office.”
Paul opened his mouth to argue more, but Misty broke away from him. “Let’s go finish lunch. We’ll talk about him later.”
To her relief, Paul followed her instead of charging out after this person. Paul pulled out his phone and was texting, probably canceling the back-alley appointment.
Xav gave the two of them a sharp look when they returned to the table, but he didn’t ask. Paul finished his meal without speaking, and Misty picked at hers, wishing she could enjoy it.
Back at the store, Paul followed Misty into her office. “He’s legit, Misty,” he said. He looked angry now instead of afraid. “He’s on his way.”
“Fine, then.” Misty sat at her desk, turned to her computer, and pulled up her never-ending e-mail.
Paul stepped out and returned in a few minutes with a man who was on the short side, but broad-shouldered and buff, without an ounce of fat on him. In his thirties, Misty guessed as she looked up from her terminal. He had very short black hair and tatts that proclaimed he’d been in prison at least once.
“Hi,” the man said, stopping on the other side of her desk. His voice was gruff, a little bit like Graham’s, but he gave her a little smile and sounded apologetic. “I’m Ben. Sorry about that. Paul didn’t think you’d want me coming here or even talking to you in the restaurant. I’m so obviously an ex-con.”
Which meant Paul wasn’t supposed to be talking to him. A fr
iend of his parole officer? Really?
“What can I do for you, Ben?” Misty asked.
“It’s not what you can do for me.” Ben leaned on his hands on the desk, which made every muscle press against his sun-worn skin. “It’s what you can do for your boyfriend, Graham McNeil.”
“What?” Misty came alert, not pretending to give Ben anything other than her full attention. The man looked fairly harmless—well, as harmless as a tough man with prison tatts could look—but his brown eyes held only friendliness. He certainly wasn’t a Fae, at least, Misty didn’t think so. Did they all look like the hiker?
Paul had remained by the door, his back to it. He looked uneasy but not surprised that Ben was asking about Graham.
“McNeil is in a lot of trouble,” Ben said. “You know that. He’s dying. And you can save him, if you want to. Do you want to save him, Misty?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The last Shifter leader meeting Graham had attended had been in Dallas, and he’d had to fly. Graham hated flying. An airplane was a machine, and machines could break. Vehicles on the ground were dangerous enough, but what if one broke twenty-thousand feet in the air? Humans were crazy.
This time, Graham wouldn’t have to fly, to his relief. The meeting was in Laughlin.
Good choice, Graham thought as he headed out of town with Eric—on Dougal’s Harley because his own still needed repairs.
A lot of bikers went to Laughlin, a town about an hour or so south of Vegas on the Nevada-Arizona border, the motorcycle riders mixing in with retirees who came for cheap food, cheap rooms, and cheap slots. A score of Shifters could blend in with the human bikers easily, and the human government never had to know Shifters had gathered there. Shifters weren’t allowed to cross state lines without special permission, so the fewer humans who knew Shifters were traveling today, the better.
Only Shifter leaders and a backup were allowed to attend the meetings. No others. Backup tended to be trackers—those who ran errands for or guarded the leader. Graham wanted to argue that both he and Eric could bring one backup, because they were joint leaders, but no. Eric was considered the official Shiftertown leader, with Graham as his muscle. Stupid idea, because if Graham decided to, he could take out Eric quietly on this road trip and then make a play to rule Shiftertown himself.
Except, Graham wasn’t sure how much he wanted to rule it anymore. Cassidy and Jace—Eric’s second and third in command—would argue, probably with violence. Cassidy was a sweet-looking woman but one hell of a fighter. Jace had a mate of his own now, and neither were slouches in the fighting area.
The rest of Eric’s Shifters would also instantly rebel against being led by Graham if he tried to take over. And Graham had Dougal and two little cubs to worry about. If he got himself killed trying to take over Shiftertown those three would suffer, and so would any other Lupines who’d backed him.
Responsibility. Graham was plagued with it.
The fact that Eric rode confidently along, letting Graham stick close to his back, was meant to show how much Eric had grown to trust Graham in the last year. Eric wasn’t an idiot—he knew he was safe with Graham now, and he was right.
The town of Laughlin hugged the Colorado River, the bridge across it about fifteen feet above the water, in contrast to the giant bridge that crossed many miles north at Hoover Dam, where the river flowed through a huge gorge. Large hotels lined Laughlin’s mini Strip, with buses disgorging tourists up and down the street. Men on Harleys shot around the buses with a roar of engines.
Shifters drifted into the bar at the far end of the main drag gradually, the agreement being that all of them didn’t descend on a place at once. The bar’s owner was known to Eric, and had agreed to let them meet there, the deal sweetened with a little cash. Graham had to concede that Eric had better connections on this end of the state than Graham could ever cultivate. Eric was a slick talker. Graham just commanded.
By four that afternoon, the room had filled with Shifters; or at least, with as many as could get here on short notice. That was still a lot—Shifters even from the other side of the country could move fast if they needed to, including Bowman O’Donnell, a Lupine from North Carolina; Aaron Mitchell, bear Shifter from the Canadian Rockies; and Eoin Lyall, a Feline from western Montana.
Most came from Shiftertowns located outside cities—as Graham’s Elko Shiftertown had been—easier for them to disappear for a time without humans noticing. The city Shifters had a harder task moving around undetected. Of course, the smug Irishman, Liam Morrissey, and his terrifying tracker, Tiger, had managed to get here from Austin.
The meeting started by Eric standing up and saying, “Graham has something to tell you.”
All eyes moved to Graham, and most of the stares weren’t friendly. A lot of these Shifters were barely on this side of feral, in spite of the Collars, in spite of the rigid hierarchy of Shifters. Eoin Lyall, Graham knew, hadn’t agreed to take the Collar until his entire clan had been threatened with execution. Twenty years later, he was still pissed off about it.
Graham told his story. He left out the part about drinking Fae water and being under the spell, but he saw the Shifters fill in those blanks on their own. They weren’t fools. They might not guess exactly how Graham had come under a Fae’s thrall, but they knew the Fae wouldn’t have been able to make Graham dream about him otherwise.
Bowman said, “I agree. We find the Fae-get who makes the Collars and ask him a few questions.”
“That supposes we know where he is,” Eric said.
Liam Morrissey cast his blue gaze over Graham and rested it on Eric. “We know.”
“Do you?” Aaron asked in his bear rumble. “And how do you?”
Liam shrugged. “I’ve made it my business to keep tabs on him all these years. I’ll send someone to round him up.”
The other Shifters muttered or growled. Only Eoin didn’t look surprised. “You shouldn’t keep information like that to yourself, lad,” Eoin said in his Scottish accent. “But no matter—we’ll not have to waste time on a search. The question is, where are we going to keep him for interrogation once we extract him from wherever the humans have stashed him?”
Graham liked how Eoin thought. “The Vegas Shiftertown, of course,” Graham said. “I’m the one who wants the answers.”
Bowman spoke up. “And have the humans find him? They keep a close eye on city Shiftertowns. And your Shifters aren’t exactly tame, McNeil. They might rip him apart if they know he’s there.”
“Aw, wouldn’t that be sad?” Graham shook his head in mock sorrow. “Don’t worry; I’ll make sure we get some answers first.”
“No ripping,” Eric said. “Morrissey, you bring him, we’ll question, and then we’ll return him.”
“And keep him from running back to the humans and telling them all he knows, how?” Eoin asked.
Liam gave everyone his self-assured, shithead grin. “You let me worry about that.”
“Have the Tiger talk to him,” Graham said. “If the Collar maker is sane enough to remember his own name after that, he’ll be braver than I thought.”
Tiger hadn’t said a word—backup wasn’t supposed to talk unless asked a direct question. Graham always ignored that rule himself, but Tiger obeyed it. Graham knew damn well that was because Tiger didn’t feel like talking, not because he followed any rules but his own.
Tiger was gigantic, with black and orange hair and yellow eyes. He wasn’t quite right in the head, having been created in a laboratory instead of being born in the wild. Tiger was one of a kind, and growing up in a cage hadn’t exactly made him sane.
Most Shifters were wary of him, even though Liam vouched for him. Tiger had calmed a lot, Graham had noticed, since taking a mate.
The mention of Tiger moved attention from Graham to Tiger, which had been Graham’s intent. The other Shifters had been studying Graham a little too closely.
A Shifter’s natural instinct when near anything Fae-spelled was to kill it.
“It’s settled then,” Eric said. “Morrissey will put his hands on the Collar-making Fae and bring him out here—subtly. I know a place near Las Vegas we can keep him. McNeil is right that we need him near us, but Bowman’s right that we need it to be far from Shifters with a grudge plus prying human eyes. We’ll let you know.”
“And you need to let us talk to the human woman,” Bowman said. “Her name is Misty, right?”
Silence. Graham stood up, growling as he went. Tiger rose with him, but moved to Graham’s shoulder, as though backing him up, not stopping him.
“Why do you want to talk to Misty?” Graham asked, his voice soft but savage.
Bowman kept his seat, not looking intimidated. “This woman has seen the Fae, in the real world, twice. You’ve only met him in a dream. I want to know why this Oison singled her out.”
“She has no idea,” Graham said, a snarl in his throat. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“I want to judge for myself,” Bowman said. “If she shared the dream with you, and the Fae contacted her, she must be important somehow.”
“Doesn’t mean she needs to stand in front of a bunch of Shifters and explain herself,” Graham said, his growl more pronounced. “She’s an innocent bystander. Leave her alone.”
Eric could jump in anytime and help out, couldn’t he? But Eric sat back, looking as lazy as ever, and let Graham talk. Only Tiger had come to stand at Graham’s side.
“My mate is human,” Tiger said now, his voice like broken gravel. “Our mates should not be made to face other Shifters.”
“But the woman Misty is nae his mate,” Eoin pointed out in his Scottish lilt. “Is she?”
“Not yet,” Graham said.
Bowman said, “I hear your Lupines are pressuring you into taking a Lupine mate. So the human woman must be a passing thing. Yet she already knows Shifter secrets, such as our connection with the Fae.”
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