It took a lot to get a shifter drunk, but Daunte was doing his best to try, pouring one Brandy after the next. He needed it, if only for a night. Maybe then, he’d manage to stop thinking. About her.

There was a very, very good chance that nothing had changed. She was just a normal, human girl, and she would remain so. But telling himself that, repeating it, almost chanting it, didn’t change what he and his cat wanted.

Until then, they’d both been reasonable. They wanted her, but it was just a passing fancy he could get over with. Relationships between humans and shifters could work, but not when the male was as dominant as he was. He needed a female strong enough to push back, or a submissive who understood the rules enough to fold under his demands; humans didn’t get what their animal counterparts demanded; they could push, and push, ignoring the dominance, and end up getting hurt in the process. Daunte didn’t think he was able to ever lay a hand on a woman, but he wasn’t about to question facts that had defined his race for hundreds of years. Their animals could burst to the surface in anger, when provoked.

Now that she’d been bitten, there was a possibility, a minuscule, quasi nonexistent possibility, that she might have been turned and he entertained the idea. Clari in his arms. Clari’s hand in his. Clari smiling up at him. Clari panting underneath him.

So, yeah. He fully intended to get drunk until it passed.

He genuinely didn’t think anything could improve his sour mood until the phone in his pocket beeped. Pulling it, he frowned at the unknown number, until he read the text.

Nice day in Mexico.

That managed to get a smile out of him. Emily. It had to be Emily, telling him she was safe - or at least, alive. If she was smart, and he was pretty sure she was, she wasn’t anywhere near Mexico. But she was well enough to send him a message, and that was what mattered. He hadn’t abandoned her to her death.

“Wow. Daunte Cross smiling. I didn’t think that was possible.”

If he hadn’t imbibed a dozen brandies, he would have heard and smelled her before she could get too close.

Daunte put the phone back in his pocket, and turned to face Clari.

Fucking hell!

“What are you wearing?”

She looked down at herself, before rolling her eyes.

“They’re called PJs, Cross. Can’t be the first set you’ve seen.”

It wasn’t. But Clari generally wore jeans and blouses, or pretty, conservative dresses that didn’t show too much skin, reaching one inch below the knee. Her PJs were micro-mini stripped shorts, and a tight tank top that she wore without a damn bra.

Fuck.

“I had to borrow it from Ola,” she admitted. “We’ll stop at home tomorrow, after my aunt and uncle go to work.”

He smirked; sure, the outfit wasn’t as revealing as what most of the pride females wore, but it still wasn’t her, and he’d been able to tell.

“You totally wear long pants. With giraffes on them.”

“Pigs, I’ll have you know,” she replied good humouredly.

He hadn’t spoken to her until the previous week, yet he knew her. How fucking weird was that?

“You live with your aunt and uncle?” he pried.

“Yep. My mother is a career woman. She got her big sister to raise me until I was in my teens; by then, I figured out I preferred my aunt’s home. She’s awesome - and her husband rocks. You’ve met them, I’m sure. He’s the mayor.”

That rang a bell.

“The guy who got this place built for his daughter? But then she went and married someone in the city, I think.”

“Yes, Lana. She was never going to stay, but they did their best to make Lakesides appealing to her.”

She said it without even a little bit of bitterness, but he read between the lines. Lana, the golden daughter they wanted, while she was just the niece, the guest. That explained a lot. He’d seen that she hadn’t seemed to have much of a life outside of running the bakery, and she hadn’t seemed to want to go home right away. Daunte had cursed her for coming to his home every day, taunting him; now he felt like an ass.

“You came home when she wouldn’t. You moved back so they aren’t alone.”

She bit her lower lip and looked away, uncomfortable.

“Maybe. Is there anything to drink? Tea, coffee?”

“Caffeine? It’s two in the morning.”

She shrugged, making her breasts rise and fall in a way that was all too distracting.

“Can’t sleep. I do have the whole you may very well cease to be human in a couple of days thing hanging over my head, you know.”

The girl had a point. He lifted his glass.

“Brandy?”