Chapter Nine
Luna
“Jason!” Her voice was loud. Louder than she intended it to be. She raced across the parking lot of the Lusty Leopard and didn’t even notice the attention she gathered.
Jason was already mid-leap over the bar. “What?” Panic lit his brown eyes, and she skidded to a stop.
Glancing wildly around, all she could do was grunt and point to her phone.
“What? What is it?”
Everly, one of the waitresses at the Lusty Leopard, took her phone out of Luna’s hands. Luna held her thumb over the lock and opened it. She still couldn’t quite seem to catch her breath after racing into the bar at two o’clock on Monday afternoon.
“Holy Moses,” Everly exclaimed. Words failed the young waitress, too, so she held it up for Jason to see.
“You’ve had ten million views on your blog?” Jason clarified. “That’s a lot, right?”
“Oh, that’s more than just a lot,” Everly said. “She’s got Senators and Congressmen commenting on this.” Everly looked up, her youthful face bright with excitement. “You made the shifters of Silver Fells go viral!”
A dark-haired man turned from his spot at the bar. “Shifters make good copy,” he said with a derisive twist to his lips.
Luna blinked and pulled Everly aside. “Is that Zane Dixon? The retired champ from the Bear Knuckled Brawlers?”
Everly’s eyes glowed a bit, and she blushed. “Yes,” she whispered.
Luna smiled. Someone had a crush on the BKB fighter.
“We can hear you, ya’ know,” Jason teased, touching the side of his ear.
She rolled her eyes. “Bear hearing is kind of a pain,” she muttered.
“It can be,” Everly agreed before going off to wait on a customer.
Luna watched with curious eyes as Zane’s gaze followed the young waitress wherever she went. This was definitely a couple in the making.
Just then Lacey and Quinn walked in, excitement in every step. “Oh good, you’re here,” Lacey said rushing into Luna and hugging her tightly. “You won’t believe this! Father says donations have been flooding into his PAC.”
“We’re doing this, aren’t we?” Luna asked, her eyes bright with tears. “We’re actually going to change the way the world looks at shifters.”
Jason returned to his spot behind the bar and Quinn looked away.
“What? You don’t think this will help?” Luna felt the adrenaline rush out of her in the face of their disinterest.
“It isn’t that,” Lacey said. “And maybe you’re right. Maybe this will get people talking. But remember, the more people talk, the more sides they’ll take.”
“We get called animals every day. Maybe not to our faces but we do. The fact the government doesn’t even think we can have our own children,” Quinn spat.
Lacey cringed and looked away.
“But we’ll fix all that,” Luna said, eyes imploring. She looked over her shoulder to seek out Jason’s comfort. “Right?”
“That’s not how people work,” Cree said as he entered the conversation.
“You think Rafe has the right idea,” Quinn said.”
“I do. I’ve never made any bones about that. If you want to marry, just. Do it. So, what if they say it can’t be done?”
Lacey slid her hand into Quinn’s. “Some of us want to do it right. With the church and the flowers and Father walking his daughter down the aisle.”
“Is that what you want?” Luna asked, treading a little nervously. She was a blogger, not a reporter. She didn’t shy away from personal questions, but this one seemed more intimate than the others.
Luna eyed him up a little nervously. They’d made up, but there was still something unsettling about the mountain lion shifter. “What do you mean?”
“People are essentially tribal in nature. They’re suspicious of others. You even see that in jail.”
“Military, too,” Jason agreed. “People might hang out by job and school, but you see who they take mess with. It’s almost always someone they see as part of their tribe.”
“Well, we’ll just have to get people to see you as part of their tribe, too. Most of you are vets! You’re just men and women trying to live their lives. Not hurt anyone. Not doing anything wrong.”
“They’re afraid of us,” Cree argued. “Tamara’s mother hates that she’s with me. Disowned her.”
Luna waved her hand. “Well, she has no room to talk. She’s a terrible human being from what Tamara has told me.”
“She is,” Cree agreed easily. “But she still represents the majority opinion.
Luna set her chin. “I refuse to believe that. And just to prove you wrong, I talked to a friend of mine from college. She’s a computer programmer, and we’re going to start a new dating service. For shifters.”
Jason snorted. “Maul left for love.”
Luna narrowed her eyes at her mate. “Maybe Plenty of Bears.”
Cree bristled. “Why do the bears get all the love? There are plenty of cats and birds.” He nodded to Quinn. “Even a dog or two.”
“Well, I’ll think of something,” Luna said, still annoyed with their pessimism. “Plenty of Paws maybe. That will get all the mammal shifters at any rate. But of course, I’ll have a section for any kind of shifters.” She frowned as she considered how they were going to set up the website.
“You’ll do whatever you set your mind to,” Lacey said loyally.
Her phone chirped. “Oh. Oh!” Lacey said. She raised her eyes. “Father wants to have a conference call. Stat! Can someone call the guys? We’ll have it in the back.
Jason
Thirty minutes later, Jason sat around a table along with Dan, DeShawn, Quinn, Hunter, Cree, Zane, and several other shifters and mates. A tablet was set up so everyone could see Charles St. Claire as he spoke over the video conference call.
“Mr. St. Claire, thank you for doing this,” Quinn opened up the meeting.
“I’m still waiting on you to call me Father,” Charles St. Claire responded coolly. Quinn and Lacey exchanged a long look.
Jason wasn’t sure why Quinn was holding back getting his mate down the aisle. He paused to glance at Luna. She was bent over the table, brow furrowed, frantically taking notes. His blogger was so intense when she was working.
“Yes, Sir,” Quinn responded. “Now, what do you want from us?”
“Donofrio,” Charles barked.
Dan looked up. “Yes?”
“You’re the one with the eye patch, right?”
Dan visibly bristled at the other man’s words. “Kind of hard to miss, Sir.”
“I have two state senators and two representatives ready to sponsor the bill we’ve put together. I’m setting up appointments for you all to meet with them, shake some hands, prove you’re fine upstanding young men.”
“Anyone else, Father?” Lacey asked.
“Well, definitely Quinn. You have any other non-apex predator shifters there in the mountain?”
“Most of the men who survived are apex predators,” Quinn pointed out. “You could even make an argument for Dan. The hawk may not be an apex, but it’s definitely a predator.”
Charles waved his hand to dismiss Quinn’s words. “We don’t want these folks afraid. Look at the tall one back there.”
Jason raised his eyebrows. “Me?”
“Yes, you. You’d intimidate people. What kind of shifter are you?”
“Father!” Lacey scolded. “It’s rude to ask them that.”
“I don’t have time for manners,” Charles retorted. “I’m trying to get a bill passed.”
“I’m a brown bear,” Jason said. “And a damn good bartender. I have no problems talking to people. Getting them to feel relaxed.” He held up his hand to cut Mr. St. Claire off. “With or without alcohol.”
The older man grumbled. “I’ll think about it. But for right now, I think we need Quinn, Dan, and the realtor one.”
“Rafael,” Quinn supplied. “And he’s a jaguar. They certainly qualify as deadly.”
“Yes, but the man is one of the most successful realtors in that part of the state. That means he knows how to schmooze people.”
Jason opened his mouth to protest Mr. St. Claire’s abrasive comments but then he saw his mate smile at him and blow him a kiss.
Screw it, Jason decided. If Lacey’s father in law didn’t want him to talk to anyone in Raleigh, so be it.
“I think Zane would be a good representative,” Cree said. He approached the camera so Charles could see him. “As a premier member of the Bear Knuckle Brawlers, he has a lot of name recognition in the community. A lot of contacts he can call on.”
Zane looked up from where he was nursing a cup of coffee. He nodded once, not seeming to crave the spotlight at all.
“Let me see him,” Charles ordered.
Zane stood with animalistic grace. He was a bear, but he was all smooth lines and easy rolling shoulders. “Right here, Mr. St. Claire,” he greeted with his usual indolent grin.
“Hmm. You look big.”
“I am a fighter. I am big.”
“Do you own a suit?”
Lacey’s head hit the table with embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed to all the shifters.
Zane’s eyes opened wide. “Sir, I know you don’t mean to be offensive, but yes. I’m a man. I’ve fought everywhere from Atlantic City to Nevada. I have given countless interviews with the movers and shakers that make the North Carolina General Assembly look like absolute pikers. I own a suit.”
Jason grinned, hoping the older man would feel the sting of Zane’s comeuppance. If he did, he didn’t let on.
“Good. Bring it with you. And a few ties. My secretary will help you pick out the appropriate one.”
“With all due respect, I can pick out my own tie.” Zane turned his back on Lacey’s father and returned to his now-cool cup of coffee.
Everly peaked in and poured him a new cup.
Interesting, Jason thought. Was there something going on between his waitress and his coach?
The conversation went on a few more minutes with everyone becoming increasingly annoyed with Charles’ vulgarity. The man was through and through southern but somehow, Jason decided, when his mama signed him up for gentility classes, Charles must have skipped a few.
Jason wanted to say something to Luna before she left but all he got was a wistful smile over her shoulder before she headed back up to Little Yellow.
That’s okay, Jason decided, already planning his visit to the small yellow cabin up on Maxwell Mountain. One night with her in his arms was not enough. Who knew? Maybe even a lifetime wouldn’t be enough.
But he damn sure intended to start with a lifetime and negotiate from there.