“Good.” Plastic crinkled again as she stored the candy and retrieved her phone. “I need to call Sera, then. If I were with anyone other than you, she’d have tattled on me already.”
He believed it. The young coyote tended to think every human belonged to the strongest shapeshifter with a claim. “Who would she tattle to? Julio?”
Kat actually laughed. “Hell, no. She wouldn’t go within ten feet of Julio if you paid her. She’d tell her dad, who would tell Alec, who would fly down here just to call us idiots to our faces.”
Maybe he would have, once upon a time. But now he had the Conclave to deal with, a million problems more pressing than Andrew and Kat getting themselves offed on a fool’s errand. “She could always call Derek, I guess.”
“I think I’ll keep her updated and happy.” Kat started to dial, then froze with her thumb hovering over the screen. “Unless you think she’s not safe in my apartment. They have to know where I live.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to get her out,” he admitted.
“Okay. Shit.” Guilt laced the words. “Damn it, after everything she’s been through… I was supposed to give her somewhere safe to crash. This went so wrong, so fast.”
Andrew could think of only one good option. “Send her to Anna.”
Kat stiffened, enough to be telling. “Yeah, you’re right. Anna’s tough. She can take care of anyone who needs help.”
Shit. “You said she wouldn’t go near Julio. What about Miguel?”
“Anna,” Kat said, her voice careful and precise. “Sera needs a break from male shifters bossing her around. Anna makes sense, and my tender little feelings don’t get a vote.”
“I’ll call her.” He reached for his phone without taking his eyes off the road. “Want to give Sera the heads-up, maybe get her out to the bar?”
She made the call and laid out the situation for Sera in a calm, clear voice. Judging by the coyote’s reaction, Kat’s previous updates had glossed over all of the details involving danger and violence.
The conversation lasted through Montgomery and another ten miles past, both sides clearly audible in the silence of the car.
Kat hung up looking ragged around the edges. “Wow. Shapeshifters don’t like it when people shoot at their friends.”
“That can’t be news, sweetheart.”
“Maybe you’re throwing off the curve. You kept it together okay.”
She never seemed to understand how hard he worked not to freak out at the slightest hint of danger to her. “Still a work in progress, but I figure you should have one alpha bastard in your life who doesn’t flip his shit every time you get a paper cut.”
Kat swallowed and looked away from him. “You haven’t been in my life much lately. I kind of figured you weren’t comfortable there.”
The bare truth, Callaghan. Too late for anything else. “I haven’t been comfortable much of anywhere lately.”
“Is it the wolf stuff? I thought—I mean, when you joined the council with Julio and Alec, I thought you had a place.”
“They made a place, Kat. There’s a difference.” An uncomfortable one.
“I suppose there is. Prejudices don’t change overnight.” She sighed softly. “I remember, from when Derek was turned.”
“Yeah, Derek’s smart.” He’d done what he had to for Nick and her family, and then he’d walked away.
“Andrew?”
“What?”
“Do you want to be on the council?”
Want had never much figured in to it. “I’m needed. Before Alec brought me on, I had no idea things were as fucked up as they are. I barely believed it.”
“Does helping out at least make you happy?”
He had to think about that for a moment. “Not happy, not exactly. Content.” Satisfied in a way he still didn’t entirely understand.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her staring at him. Studying him. “Instinct,” she offered after a moment. “Taking care of people. If I thought the shifters could help it, I never would have put up with it all these years. But it was something I could give them, something that made them feel content.”
“I need it,” he confirmed. “I never understood that. Before, I mean.”
She wet her lips, a gesture as nervous as her sudden quickened heartbeat. “You can take care of me, if it helps. I mean—if you want to.”
Of all the things she’d never wanted, that was king. The ultimate cap on her own self-sufficiency. “I know how much it means to you to stand on your own, Kat. I get it.”
“I wanted to stand on my own.” She hesitated, and her breathing sounded too loud, raspy and hoarse. “I didn’t want to be alone.”
He didn’t take his eyes off the road, but he held out his hand. “You’re not alone.”
“I know.” Her fingers trembled as she curled them around his.
Part of him wished they were in New Orleans already, locked away in the confines of his home, safe and untouchable. The rest of him was glad for the drive and grateful for the tentative truce they’d reached.
Chapter Seven
Andrew stopped at her apartment long enough for her to pack some clothes and trade her netbook in for a more powerful laptop. Sera had already cleared out, but she’d left a plate of freshly baked cookies and a note with her work schedule for the next week.
Kat tucked the folded paper into her jeans pocket and let Andrew wrestle her bags down the stairs. The drive to the new headquarters was short, and soon they parked beside the old building in the Warehouse District. It looked like it had once been a factory, and even the service-style elevator remained, though Kat had always taken the stairs.
Andrew slid shut the metal grate behind them and pushed the button for the third floor. “I haven’t done much decorating at my place. I spend most of my time now traveling or fixing up the other units.”
Decorating had never been her priority. Her apartment had been disorganized college-geek-chic at best before Sera, who did domestic, grown-up things like sew curtains and pick color schemes for the bathrooms and kitchen.
Even her efforts at chaotic comfort seemed impressive compared to the stark emptiness of Andrew’s loft. A small kitchen sat to the left, separated from the rest of the room by bar counters. The closest thing to decoration was the fact that he had punching bags hanging from the ceiling. An open door showed an equally Spartan bedroom.
Kat swallowed and glanced toward the television stand. Game consoles were stacked neatly, cords organized instead of tangled like they were at her apartment. “I guess if I can’t sleep, I can catch up on my gaming.” The lamest joke she’d ever made, but it helped cut the miserable sadness of imagining Andrew living every day in an empty, lonely loft.
“Feel free.” He dropped her bags by the couch. “There should be stuff in the fridge.”
He didn’t sound sure, and she didn’t want to look. It wasn’t like she could cook worth a damn anyway.
“I’ve still got gas-station junk food. And the cookies Sera made.”
“I can cook later, if you stick around. We could even go downstairs and make a family-style meal, hope Julio shows up. Right now…” He swayed. “I think I should take a nap.”
As far as she knew, he hadn’t slept much in forty-eight hours. Not impossible for a shapeshifter—but not comfortable, either. “Get some rest. I need to catch up on my mail anyway.”
He kicked off his shoes. After a moment, he pulled off his shirt, as well. “Can you stay close? I think it might be the only way I can sleep.”
Her heart ached so much that not even miles of naked skin could stir lust in her. Just sadness, and protective anger simmering at a low boil. People had known. Alec, Julio—they’d known that Andrew was living some empty shadow of a life, and they’d left him to stew in it for God only knew what reason.