Wild Wolf (Shifters Unbound, #6)(67)

“He’s not a dickhead,” Misty said hotly. “If he wasn’t like he is, he’d have lost everybody in his life, more than he already has. He doesn’t say that out loud, but I know it. Dougal would have been killed in the wild a long time ago—I understand that now—and the Shifters in his Shiftertown wouldn’t have survived. Graham fought to keep them all alive.”

“You’re not telling me anything I don’t know,” Eric said. “He kept those Shifters together up in Elko, when all of them could have easily gone feral. One hell of a task. I commend him for it.”

“And so you want me to cause more trouble by staying with him?”

Eric leaned back in the seat and rested his arm along the window. “They’ll come around. Shifters are all about what’s for the good of the pack, or clan, or whatever community they’re in. Might not seem like it most of the time, but they are. The only reason Shiftertowns work is that we’ve dedicated ourselves to making them work. We want survival, and we want our cubs to grow up safe and happy. We took the Collars, instead of letting ourselves get wiped out, for the sake of the cubs. Graham’s Shifters will understand, in time, that Graham having you is the best thing that can happen for them. All the crap about hierarchy and Shifters breeding with Shifters for strength is bullshit.”


“I see.” Misty drove in silence for a time. She turned onto a main street, heading for her store. “You know, you’ve never once asked me what I wanted.”

Eric made a lazy gesture with the hand along the window. “I don’t have to. You want to mate with Graham.”

Misty shot him a look. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve been watching you too.” Eric leaned even farther back in the seat and rested one motorcycle-booted foot on the dashboard. “You’re a sweet young woman, and when you’re around Graham, you’re happier, stronger. More self-assured. And I see the way you look at him. Trust me, no one else in Shiftertown looks at Graham as though they want him to stay exactly the way he is.”

“Really? That’s kind of sad.”

“It means he needs you, and you need him. End of problem.”

Misty turned down another street, navigating heavier traffic. “Was it that simple when you were going after Iona?” She sent him a sweet smile. “Graham told me you looked like you’d been hit with an anvil.”

Eric didn’t take offense. “True, I denied my need to be with Iona for a long time. I’d been grieving my mate for so many years I didn’t know how to fall in love again. Iona taught me. Besides I had to save Iona from . . . other Shifters who considered her fair game.”

Misty’s smile widened. “Don’t worry, I know Graham tried to Challenge you for her, so you don’t have to spare my feelings. For a man who doesn’t like to talk about personal things, Graham has told me a lot. I met him the night you two fought, and you lost.”

“I didn’t lose,” Eric said indignantly. “I was incapacitated by something else. It was a draw.”

“Graham tried to claim it was a draw too. But you both lost, didn’t you?”

Eric sat up. “Hey, this is supposed to be your kidnapping. Me telling you what you should do.”

“I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, I need to return this car and make sure the rest of my life is all right. Including my brother.”

“Paul’s a good kid. He’ll be fine.”

“You have a lot of optimism, Eric.”

“I’ve been around a while,” Eric said. “It’s experience, not optimism.”

“Do you want me to drop you off somewhere?”

“No.” Eric laced his hands behind his head. “I should check up on what the Shifters are doing at your store. Shane can drive me back.”

? ? ?

"We’re doing this, with or without my dad,” Jace Warden said.

Jace, Eric’s son, stood straight and tall, looking much like his absent father with his dark hair and green eyes, but more alert, more present than Eric ever let himself seem. Since Jace’s mating—he’d recently taken a mate from the Austin Shiftertown—he’d stood even straighter, with more authority than ever.

Graham stood with Jace, facing the Shifters who were annoyed that Eric hadn’t showed yet. Eric wasn’t coming, Graham realized. He’d sent Jace to do this, letting his son take authority. Talking to Misty had been an excuse. Eric had made sure Graham was here to back up Jace if necessary. Cagey Feline.

The Shifters stood in an old airplane hanger forty miles from town, in remote desert, where a human called Marlo kept his planes. The former drug runner now made his money carrying Shifters where they wanted to go. Shifters couldn’t travel outside a state without special permission, but as usual, Shifters had learned how to get around the rules. Marlo did a brisk business hauling Shifters back and forth. He was discreet, reliable, and knew how to avoid problems.

The Fae-blood human who’d been captured sat in a straight-backed chair at the end of the hanger. He’d been bound in chains of silver, spelled, Graham guessed. Sean Morrissey stood with him, the Sword of the Guardian on his back, his father, Dylan Morrissey, at Sean’s side.

Couldn’t be easy for the Fae-blood, facing a roomful of grim-faced Shifters who’d figured out he’d helped screw them in more ways than one. Couldn’t be easy sitting in a room with Dylan either, one of the most formidable Shifters ever born. No one could predict what Dylan would do.