Kim’s eyes sparkled. “What does he call you?”

“Cat shit.”

She burst into nervous laughter. “I thought it would be ‘Hairball.’ ”

“Glory calls us that sometimes. That or ‘Cock-sucking Feline Irish bastards’.”

Her brows rose. “And your father sleeps with this woman?”

The relationship between Glory and Dylan was unexplainable. “I’m glad to see him take an interest,” Liam said. “I give him a break. He lost his mate.”

“Your mom.”

“Yes.” Liam didn’t fight his memories of his mother anymore. He had for a long time, not wanting to examine the hole in his heart. Dylan’s taking off for a year had, in retrospect, been a good thing, even though at the time Liam had been furious with his father. But he realized now that Dylan had needed room to grieve, and Sean, Liam, and Kenny had needed to figure out how to live without a guiding hand.

“She was a fine woman,” Liam said softly. “Beautiful, with green eyes and red hair. The wildcat she turned into was amazing—graceful and deadly—you didn’t mess with her. She and Dad loved each other so much, it got embarrassing sometimes. You’d walk into a room, and they’d be kissing, with their hands all over each other. Imagine. At their age.”

“I have a hard time thinking of your dad as old. Yes, I know you told me he’s like two hundred. Do all Shifters age so well?”

“If they don’t die young, yes.”

“Do many die young?”

She was asking painful questions again. “They do. Or at least they did.”

“Another reason you took the Collar.”

Three people sat down in the booth behind them, humans, who must have been used to Shifters, because they didn’t look too nervous. Liam changed the subject. “I should talk to Sandra on my own.”

“Want me to drive you? Before I head back to my office?”

“Not now. After you get off work tonight.” Liam pushed aside his coffee cup and stood, reaching to help her to her feet. “And after we stop by your house and get the things you want.”

“You expect me to spend the night with you again?”

Kim said it a little too loudly. The diners in the next booth looked around, startled, curious, knowing.

“I meant at your house,” Kim amended. “I don’t need to stay there. I have my own house.”

“But my nephew will be heartbroken if you don’t come.”

She gave him her annoyed look. “We’ll talk about it later.” She spun on her high heels and marched to the door, her sexy ass moving provocatively.

Liam took money from his pocket and dropped it on the table, thinking he could watch Kim’s fine backside all day and never get tired of it. And after the day was done, he could lie next to her and her fine backside all night. He’d not get tired of that, either.

Kim decided she’d never have let Liam win the argument of her returning with him to Shiftertown that evening if she hadn’t spied the shaved-headed Shifter from San Antonio sitting at a bus stop outside her house. He wore a turtleneck to cover his Collar—in this heat, what an idiot—but she recognized him and knew he wasn’t waiting for any bus.

The thought of Liam leaving her alone in the house while Fergus’s Thug Number One lurked outside made her cold with worry. Ironic, Kim thought as she drove through the city, heading back toward Shiftertown, that she felt safer in a house full of Shifters with a crazed woman next door than in her own neighborhood. Everything about her life since she’d met Liam was upside down.

Shiftertown was as lively as ever as she followed Liam on his bike through it. Kids were being called in from playing to have dinner. Kim smelled barbeques firing up and burgers on the grill. Men and women alike looked up as Kim’s Mustang rolled past. Liam, ahead of her, sexy on his Harley, lifted his hand in greeting time and again.

Liam’s yard was quiet, no barbeque going here. Kim wondered whose turn it was to cook and hoped the men inside hadn’t decided it was hers. But something seemed wrong; the door was shut too tightly, the windows too dark.

Liam sensed it too, stepping silently in front of her as they went up the porch steps. He opened the door to reveal Dylan and Sean in the living room, facing each other in livid anger, their eyes feral white. Connor huddled in the kitchen, as far away from the other two as he could get and still be downstairs.

Liam’s voice was very quiet as he asked, “What’s the trouble, Sean?”

Sean swung from Dylan, his body so tight with rage Kim wondered that he didn’t flow into his wildcat form. Claws extended from his fingers as he grabbed a paper from the table and shoved it in Liam’s face.

“That’s the trouble.”

It was a printed e-mail. Kim rose on tiptoe to read it with Liam.

After the mate-bonding at the full moon, it has been decided by clan council that Dylan Morrissey shall step down as leader of the East Austin Shiftertown and another Feline of the council’s choosing be put into his place. Authorized by Fergus Leary, leader of the South Texas Feline clan.

Chapter Sixteen

Kim had never seen Liam less than completely self-assured, never at a loss for words. Not her Irish Shifter with his gift of blarney.

Now Liam stared at the paper while his face flooded with color and his eyes changed to white-blue.

“I told Dad”—Sean’s voice was strained—“that he needs to confront Fergus and get it over with. Dad refused.”

Kim folded chilled fingers into her palms, deciding for once to keep silent. She remembered Liam telling her that he didn’t know why Dylan never fought Fergus for dominance, but that he thought it was so the Shifters could live in peace.

“Son of a bitch,” Liam said. “Dad, why?”

Dylan’s voice was tight, his hands clenched. His fingers had changed to claws, and blood smeared his fists. “Leave it alone, Liam.”

“I can’t. Fergus wants you to step down? To put one of his lackeys in your place? Our lives won’t be worth shite if that happens. He’s undercutting your position in your own pride, not to mention the clan.”

“I said, leave it alone!”

Liam didn’t flinch. “Dad, this is a blatant smack in the face, an invitation to challenge him.”

Dylan’s eyes were red with rage, but Kim saw anguish behind the animal fury. “Don’t you think I know that? But I won’t. Not now.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I have my f**king reasons!” Dylan roared.

If he’d directed that anger at Kim, she knew she’d run like hell. Liam stood his ground, his own hands showing claws. “If you think you’re giving in for the good of Shiftertown, you’re crazy. This will be his first step to drive us out of here. He’ll make sure we end up in a Shiftertown far from here, where we’re clanless and at the bottom of the pile. Kim will have to abandon Brian, and Brian will go down for the murder.”

Kim noted Liam’s big assumption—that if the Morrisseys had to go, she’d go with them—but she decided this was not the time to bring it up.

Dylan’s eyes were bleak. “I know.”

Liam’s claws shredded the paper, which fell to the floor. “I can’t go after Fergus myself. You know that.”

“Yes,” Dylan said quietly. “I do.”

“Then why…”

His words trailed off as the back door banged open and hot wind flooded past them. Glory charged in, dressed in hot pink with silver sandals, her finger-and toenails painted in matching pink. “Dylan, what the hell is going on?”

Dylan gave her a weary look. “Glory. Not now.”

“Fergus wants Grandda’ to step down from leading Shiftertown,” Connor babbled from the kitchen.

Glory’s mouth opened in shock. “What? We won’t stand for that. The ass**le.”

“You said it,” Kim agreed.

The males in the room, except Connor, ignored both women. Sean met Dylan’s gaze, his face quiet. “I’ll do it. I’ll fight Fergus.”

A chorus of shouting drowned him out. Liam huffed a bitter laugh. “What, Sean, you’ll kill me, then Dad, then go after Fergus?”

“No.” Sean’s face was white. “I’ll just kill the gob-shite. I can shoot him, can’t I, and then stick him with the sword. Fergus is dust, no more problem.”

“And then by Shifter law I’ll have to take you out,” Liam said in a hard voice. “Bad plan.”

“What does it matter?” Sean asked.

The others fell silent, and Kim couldn’t contain herself. “Are you all crazy? Why would you let Sean even think of that?”

“Stay out of this, Kim,” Dylan said without looking at her.

“No, Kim has a point.” Glory folded her arms, her perfect br**sts straining against her pink shirt. “Sean, why should you sacrifice yourself?”

“To keep the peace,” Sean said in a tired voice. “I would be the logical choice to be the assassin and pay the price. Because I’m mateless.” Sean shot Liam a hard look, and Liam, surprisingly, dropped his gaze.

Glory said, “Listen to the human girl. If anyone should pay for this, it’s Fergus himself. Let him be the sacrifice.”

“Good idea,” Connor echoed.

Dylan let his voice roar through. “There will be no argument. We do what Fergus says.”

Kim opened her mouth to protest, and so did Glory, but suddenly Glory shut hers, as though she understood something. Dylan was staring hard at Liam, those nonverbal cues flying between them. Dylan’s eyes were feral white, Liam’s not much better.

Liam dropped his gaze and turned. Dylan gave him a look of almost disappointment, then swung away and slammed himself out the back door. Glory took a deep breath, but to Kim’s surprise, she didn’t follow Dylan.

“I really don’t understand,” Kim said into the silence. “Why would your dad stand back and let Fergus win?”

Liam shot her a quick look. He was worried. “I don’t know.”

“Because Dylan isn’t ready to die,” Glory said. “He’s not that old, and he’s completely virile. Besides, he has me.”

Her smug statement broke the tension a little. Connor even gave a nervous laugh. “Sure, that would be worth living for,” he said.

“You’re a cub, youngling,” Glory said. “You’ll learn.”

Liam remained silent, the smiling, damn-your-eyes man Kim had come to know fading into a bleak, angry Shifter. When he looked like this he was scary as hell, but Kim walked to him and ducked under his arm. The others had backed off, and for the first time since she’d met this group, they were giving another Shifter space.

Kim sensed that Liam didn’t need space right now; he needed touch, reassurance. She melded to his side, and Liam finally looked down at her, the feral white-blue of his eyes darkening to human blue once again.

“We’ll fix this somehow,” Kim dared to say. “Without anyone dying or Sean shooting Fergus in the back. Although I wouldn’t mind doing that—after I give him a piece of my mind.”

“Don’t you dare,” Liam said, lips flat. “Or I’ll chain you up in the basement.”

“Are there spiders down there?”

“Possibly.”

Kim lifted her hand. “All right, I’ll try to be sensible. I see that I need to speed up my campaign to free Brian, and I have a few ideas about that.”

Liam’s gaze flickered, as though suspicious about her ideas, but his fangs and claws had retreated.

Glory snorted. “The little kitten has teeth, Liam. Watch that when she goes down on you.”

Connor laughed out loud. Liam gave Kim a little smile. “I’m willing to risk it.”