“No, I need you to navigate,” Liam said to Spike. “You’re a tracker. So track.”
Shifter leaders were allowed one backup person at the meetings, all acknowledging that a roomful of über-alpha Shifter males could grow dangerous very fast. Therefore, each Shifter could bring one bodyguard, and Liam had chosen Spike.
The bodyguard had to be neutral though. Not the same clan, pack, or pride as the leader. The bodyguard also couldn’t be in line to be a Shiftertown leader, so that the bodyguard didn’t get any ideas of taking out the man above him while they were alone. If Spike offed Liam, Spike wouldn’t win by it. Liam wouldn’t win by it either, but Sean would take over the Austin Shiftertown and punish Spike.
Not that Liam had any worries about Spike. The six-foot-six, tattooed biker with the shaved pate was a jaguar who’d recently found out he had a cub. The new dad thought of little else but small Jordan and Myka, Spike’s new mate.
“You missed this exit too,” Spike said in his quiet way.
“Shite.” Liam had been busy trying to get around a slow cement truck, and the off ramp had whizzed past. “They’ll decide something asinine before I get there, like we all have to wear T-shirts that say ‘My Other Animal is a Penguin.’ And my vote would have been the tiebreaker against.”
Spike didn’t laugh. “Take this one,” he said pointing to the left.
“What one?”
“There!” Spike shouted. “Left exit. Now.”
Liam dove across two lanes of traffic, earning honking and lifted fingers, and drove off the ramp. This exit looped them around and poured them back in the opposite direction, where Liam ran into a clump of traffic.
“Damn it.”
“You know, you suck at driving,” Spike said.
“Watch it, jaguar. And it’s not true. I’m a master at handling my Harley.”
Spike grinned. “Yeah, I just bet you are.”
Liam said something in Irish that would have earned him Spike’s fist in his throat if Spike had understood it.
Liam at last got the pickup oriented in the right direction, found the turnoff, and took it. Now it was just a matter of navigating through traffic, stoplights, and clogged one-way streets until they found the bar and pool hall where the Shifters had agreed, this time, to meet.
Never in the same place twice. Good idea from a stealth standpoint, bad for finding the damned place.
Liam parked the pickup behind the bar, approached the back door, and knocked. A greasy-looking man let them in through a tiny hall and a kitchen, pointing through to a large room that smelled of Shifters. Liam hoped the man with the oily hair wasn’t the cook.
“About time,” someone growled.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The voice of the Lupine who’d spoken—Graham McNeil—rumbled in the too-small room. Not enough air in the room either, Liam observed. They’d all soon be gagging on the smell. Alphas feeling competitive had a fine scent.
Eric Warden, a Feline and the leader of the Las Vegas Shiftertown, came forward to greet Liam. Liam pulled the man into a brief, tight hug, and Eric returned it, as strong as ever.
They kept the hug short, greeting only, even though they’d become good friends, so the other Shifter leaders might not think they were forming an alliance. Shifter leaders, as a group, were paranoid.
“Liam,” Graham said behind Eric.
Graham was sort of co-leader with Eric of their Shiftertown. He condescended to return Liam’s greeting embrace, but the hug shouted that Graham would be just as happy to break Liam’s neck in other circumstances.
“What did you bring him for?” Liam asked Eric, jerking his thumb at Graham. “I can’t believe he’s your bodyguard.”
Eric and Graham had tangled in the past. Eric’s sister or son didn’t qualify to be Eric’s backup, but Liam was surprised Eric would venture out alone with Graham, who’d made it no secret that he thought he’d be a better Shiftertown leader than Eric. Eric usually brought Nell, a bear Shifter and his neighbor, whose glare could stop the most formidable Shifter in his tracks.
“Didn’t trust him enough to leave him behind,” Eric said. He gave Liam his laid-back smile, but his jade-green eyes were sharp with watchfulness.
“Good thinking,” Graham said, though his body language said, Fuck you.
“Besides, he’s met Tiger,” Eric said, ignoring Graham. “And Nell’s busy with her new mate. Cormac, you know him. Those are the only reasons I’d bring Graham. Graham’s afraid to fly, and he bitched about it the whole time.”
“Huh,” Graham said. He was a big man with flame tattoos on his arms and buzzed dark hair, his wolf-gray eyes holding more intelligence than he let people see. “If the Goddess wanted me to fly, she’d have made me a bird Shifter. An eagle.”
“Penguin,” Liam said.
Graham frowned at him. “Penguins don’t fly.”
“I know.”
He growled. “Yeah, you’re funny, Irishman.”
“Can we start?” The Shifter who’d called this meeting was a Lupine named Bowman O’Donnell, who ran a Shiftertown in North Carolina. He stood at the head of the table, impatient, his dark eyes fixed on Liam. His bodyguard was a lean, mean-looking Feline, with tattoos of cheetahs chasing themselves around his arms.
Twenty other Shifter leaders and their bodyguards took up the rest of the room. Some slouched in seats as though they’d rather be anywhere doing anything but this; others were alert, eyes on Liam, interested.
Liam hid a sigh, trying to make himself sit down and be calm, but he knew he couldn’t be. Tiger was his responsibility, and the other Shifters could scent Liam’s worry about this meeting. That is, if they could smell anything in a room full of Shifter leaders trying to out-alpha one another.
Liam waved his hand in front of his nose as he took his seat. “Can we open a window?”
Several of the other Shifters chuckled. Bowman didn’t look amused.
“If we do this fast, we can get out of here into fresh air,” he said. “Or polluted air. Cities suck.”
More laughter. Bowman’s Shiftertown was in the middle of tall pine woods in the hills. Liam had visited once and had been impressed by the place’s natural beauty. Bowman had gotten lucky.
“So you have a Shifter living with you who can heal himself from gunshot wounds,” Bowman said. “We heard about the second shooting, and that this tiger Shifter basically grew himself a second skin.”
Goddess, word spread fast. Liam and his family had said nothing, and Glory, as crazy as she was, could be trusted to keep secrets. So could Liam’s trackers.
But Shifters had scent and good hearing, and Liam’s neighbors weren’t all so in love with the Morrisseys that they wouldn’t gossip about them and their households. Shifters didn’t need computers and electronic social networks to spread news far and wide. They only needed a chat on a front porch.
“He didn’t grow a second skin,” Liam said. “He’s still in bed recovering.” And doing other things, with Carly, he’d heard through the walls, but Liam chose to keep that information to himself. If these concerned Shifters thought Tiger was already mating, who the hell knew what they’d do? “He did, though, expel the bullets from his body without trying, and the wounds closed up. But he’s weak and tired, not out tearing apart the world.”
“He’s dangerous,” Bowman said. “We don’t know what he is, or how those humans made him, or what he’ll do. Or what he’ll become.”
“I agree,” Liam said. He leaned back in his chair, hands resting lightly on his abdomen. “But he’s a nice guy. I’m not going to kill him.”
“No, but you need to put a Collar on him.” Bowman didn’t move, but his meaning was evident: Put a Collar on him, or we tell the humans and let them make the decision what to do.