Midnight Hour (Shadow Falls: After Dark #4)(57)

nodded, thoroughly unimpressed.

Perry checked their patterns. Charles’s pattern showed mixed blood, part were and shape-shifter. The other was all shape-shifter. Their

glassy-eyed expressions said most of the empty glasses belonged to them.

“What happened to your eye?” his mom asked. She grinned as if a black eye made him a more deserving son.

“I ran into a fist,” he said.

“Whose fist?” she asked. “Your girlfriend’s?”

“No.”

“He can’t be your son,” Charles said, his green gaze raking over his mom. “You’re not old enough to have a boy that old.”

“Well, aren’t you a prince. Prince Charles.” She leaned down and kissed the guy. Just on the cheek, but Prince Charles gaped at his mom’s

cleavage. Obviously liking what he saw, he fit his palm on Perry’s mom’s ass.

An unnamed emotion swelled inside him. Then he recognized it: shame.

Not for his mom.

For his dad.

Perry considered grabbing the guy’s hand and breaking a few fingers. But if she didn’t want the guy fondling her ass, shouldn’t she stop it?

Yet, unable to stop himself, he cleared his throat in warning. Charles lifted his eyes and his hand from Perry’s mom’s butt.

Standing, she inched in as if to sit down in the chair beside the horny prince. Perry flopped his ass down first. She cut him a that-was-rude

frown.

He smiled. “I’m sure you want to sit next to your husband.”

Her lips tightened.

The shape-shifter, Mark, took a sip of his beer. “If your girl’s here, why didn’t you bring her with you?” The question, suspicious in

tone, had Perry mentally backtracking. He’d thought these two men were just bar patrons. Had he thought wrong?

Could they be mixed up with Jax? The suspect behind the robberies and possibly even the drug house?

He took another look at Prince Charles, recalling the interrogation with Lily Chambers. Yup, the dark-haired, green-eyed mixed-blood with loose

hands looked more like a Chuckie than a prince.

Right then Perry realized a potential disaster. What if the shape-shifter he’d fought with at the hospital had shown up, too? He glanced at

Mark’s and Chuckie’s faces, searching for bruises.

Perry had hit that guy as hard if not harder than he’d been hit. They were bruise-free. And their stature didn’t match, either.

Then it hit Perry. Caleb was about the right size.

Holy shit! Had he fought Caleb?

“His dad thinks he’s keeping her away because he’s ashamed of us,” his mom added.

“Go figure,” Mark said.

“Now why would I be ashamed of you?” Sarcasm dripped from Perry’s words. If anything, his mom’s behavior just gave him a good defense for

not bringing a girlfriend.

“Well if it isn’t the prodigal son?” A voice rang out behind him. Palms came down on each of his shoulders and squeezed. Hard.

He didn’t have to look back to know who stood behind him.

Caleb’s voice struck all kinds of nerves. But more important than his voice was his face. Was the lowlife sporting a bruise?

Perry’s instinct to shift pulsed through his blood. He fought it.

Reaching back with one hand, he caught one of Caleb’s wrists.

“Enough,” Perry ground out.

His skin around his eyes tightened, his natural instinct, begging to morph. If it was Caleb who Perry fought, Caleb would see the bruise and

know. Or maybe Caleb already knew.

Deciding better sooner than later, he looked back, checking Caleb’s face for bruises.

None.

“Can’t handle a little pressure, kid?” Caleb pulled away, but his bullying tone scraped across Perry’s nerves. He hated bullies.

Caleb looked at his mom. “Someone hit your boy, mama.”

Perry inhaled through his nose, bringing air in only through his right nostril, and out his left, a trick he’d learned in Paris to help garner

control. Why had his father forgotten to tell him his friends would be joining them tonight? He wasn’t prepared for this. Wasn’t completely

sure what his dad had told Caleb about his leaving this morning.

Or had his dad told him what these goons thought. That he’d come to Houston to see a girl?

To use one of Miranda’s sayings, mother cracker. He’d better be ready to up his game.

His father moved in. Perry saw his father’s tight stare go to Caleb, who was still standing behind him.

“Looks like daddy wants to protect you,” Caleb said.

His father dropped the two glasses of whiskey down, his eyes glowing yellow. “I don’t have to protect him.”

Caleb laughed, not believing it. “I’ve seen your boy shift, ol’ man. He’s not that fast.”

The speed of a shape-shifter’s shift generally marked their power. During shifts, both in and out, was the most vulnerable time for a shifter.

Even a shifter’s human strength was compromised.

Perry would admit that Caleb’s powers were impressive. What Caleb didn’t know was Perry had never shown his cards. Not that it made Perry

invincible, but a hell of a lot less invincible than Caleb assumed.