When they’d left the club and walked some distance towards the car in tense silence, Phair pivoted around, grabbed Cad by the front of his jacket and slammed him against the stone wall that flanked the sidewalk. He didn’t give a toss if he wrecked the other shifter’s tuxedo—or his own, for that matter.

“What’s the problem, mate?” Cad asked, an annoying-as-all-hell smile on his face that told Phair he wasn’t sufficiently concerned that he was about to be killed by a very large, very angry bear.

“The problem is you, mate. What the fuck were you up to back there, taking advantage of her like that?”

“I was fucking doing my job, that’s what the fuck I was up to. Getting answers. Besides, do I really need to remind you that you literally pinned her against the wall, sort of like you’re doing to me right now? You want to talk about taking advantage, how about not grabbing hold of a woman who’s probably about a third of your weight?”

Phair released him, but not before shoving him one more time. Cad brushed himself off, a low, annoyed growl vibrating its way into his chest.

“Well done with your tactics, then,” Phair said sarcastically. “Really, I mean it. We now have all the information we could possibly want. Oh, and in addition to that, you managed to man-handle a woman who could have ended up trusting us if we’d treated her like a real human being instead of a mere object put in front of you for your horny fingers’ amusement.”

“I wasn’t treating her like an object.”

“No?” Phair spat. “Then tell me—did it occur to you for even a moment that she didn’t want to be touched like that? That maybe we should have given her a sodding break from living a life of whatever sort of twisted prostitution Barton probably forces on her?”

A look of remorse settled over Cad’s features, but Phair wasn’t about to let him off that easy. There was no way he was letting the bastard off the hook until he admitted that he’d been irresponsible, idiotic, cruel. Any of them would do.

“You’re right,” Cad said finally, his eyes moving to the ground in a gesture of submission. “I shouldn’t have touched her.”

The Béorn shifter finally stepped backwards. “No,” he said, “you shouldn’t have.”

Cad drooped back against the wall. “To be honest, I don’t actually know what came over me,” he said. “I know you think I’m a right arse, but I just…something in me clicked. You might see me as a womanizing shite, but I wasn’t trying to be, not with her. I was drawn to her, Phair.” He lifted his eyes to look into the other shifter’s, his irises glowing blue. Phair knew what that meant—that Cad’s Wolf was near the surface.

It meant he was telling the truth.

A shifter in human form could lie, but his déor couldn’t. Animals never lied. “I feel something for her. Something big.” Cad drew a hand through his hair. “It’s mad, I get that. I don’t know her at all. Not to mention that I know the rules. I’m not supposed to become so immediately, so deeply attracted to a human, especially one who works for Barton. But I don’t think she’s our enemy. She’s not under his thumb. I think she despises him.”

Phair let out a slow breath. “I think so, too,” he said.

“Well…good.” Cad pulled himself away from the wall. “But just so you know, I wasn’t merely acting on some horny impulse. It was something more.”

Phair swallowed hard. He didn’t want to admit that he understood what Cad was talking about, but the fact was that he knew all too well. “You felt something for her. Something you haven’t felt before. Your déor, too.”

Cad nodded. “I wanted to claim her. My Wolf wanted her. It was almost as though something took over my mind, something external. Like my déor was sending me a message, asking me to mark her—to take possession of her, before it’s too late.”

Phair stiffened at the words. “Yeah, well,” he said, “maybe your Wolf needs to learn to control himself. Because we’re going back there tomorrow. We’ll talk to her again, and this time, no touching. No fingering. No anything but talking, at least not until we get what we need from her. Do you understand me?” He stepped forward, aware that he towered over the other man. Cad wasn’t small by any standards, but he was no match for the hulking Béorn shifter.

Phair didn’t tell his companion what was in his own mind. Didn’t admit that some transcendent force had reached out and grabbed him, pulled him towards Mir. He’d wanted to bury his nose between her legs, to inhale her scent, to taste her. He’d craved her as though he’d developed an instant chemical addiction to her skin.

Perhaps this was what shifters talked about when they told stories about fate, destiny—about the moment when they first set eyes on their mate.

The thing was, Mir couldn’t be his destined mate. Because that would mean Cad was the other in their threesome. How could his fate possibly include such a man? The thought made him want to chuckle and gag at once.

Maybe one day he could learn to tolerate the wanker, but right now, it seemed like a stretch.

“Come on, you fucker,” he grunted as he started walking towards the car. “I’ll call the club and set up another date, then let’s go home. We’ll start fresh tomorrow.”