Mate Claimed

“What?” Graham looked surprised. “Just like that? No I can do it better because I’m the badass Shiftertown leader?”

“I think you’ll scare the piss out of them, which is exactly what we need. Just don’t kill anyone.”

“How about maiming? I’m in the mood for a good maiming.”

“Only if it doesn’t show,” Eric said.

Graham laughed. “You have balls, Warden. For a Feline. I also know you’re sending me in your place because you don’t want to leave your mate. Yeah, I heard she caved and agreed to your new mate-claim, poor woman.”

“About that.” Eric lowered his voice, one eye on the humans working across the street. “Keep your Shifters from spilling that she’s Shifter for now.” He held Graham’s gaze. “I’m asking you as one leader to another.”

Graham looked offended. “You think I’d tell on her and let the humans torture her? I don’t give up Shifters to humans, Warden, and neither do my wolves.”

His outrage that Eric would think so was so strong that Eric believed him. “Good.”

“Now, you, I’d like to see run away whimpering with your tail between your legs. But I won’t betray your mate. Coax her away from you, sure, beat your face in for the fun of it, yeah, but tell humans our secrets? I don’t do that shit.”

On that last word, Graham turned his back on Eric and walked away. The back-turning was another insult, but Eric felt a twinge of relief. Graham’s Shifters wouldn’t disobey him. Iona would be safe.

Graham did like scaring the piss out of humans. The two he faced over a table at the county courthouse later that morning stank of fear.

They were the weakest on the council, he’d figured from their former meetings, and asked to meet with them. He implied that Kellerman would be there, knowing they’d never come alone, and he also implied that they were being asked because Kellerman trusted them the most. Humans so easily fell for flattery. When they arrived, he fed them the bull that Kellerman had been delayed but knew these two could handle the meeting alone.

They had no idea, Graham thought as he eyed the two humans—a thin man in his fifties and a woman ten years younger in a coal black business suit—how easily Graham could kill them. They thought that because he had a Collar and they were in a public building, within shouting distance of a security guard, they were fine.

They were wrong. And some instinct inside them knew it, because their fear smell had Graham nearly gagging.

“When you took my wolves to your facility in the desert,” Graham said, as though the adventure was common knowledge, “did you remember to immunize your humans? If they were messing with Shifter blood, Goddess knows what they might catch.”

The man and woman exchanged an uneasy glance.

“Everything was sterile,” the man said. “Checked. No harm to the Shifters or the human staff.”

God and Goddess, they believed him. Their correct response should have been: What facility? Shifter blood? We have no idea what you’re talking about.

“You’d better double-check,” Graham said. “One of my wolves said she saw a bunch of test tubes just sitting around. Hope they didn’t leave them out there.”

“No, no,” the woman said. “The samples were transferred to the lab, all properly. Wait, how do you know all this?”

Graham gave her an easy smile, making sure he showed a lot of teeth. “Kellerman told me. I wanted to check, for your sake. I hope the tests are a success.”

The woman pressed her lips together as if deciding, belatedly, to clam up.

The man didn’t look as worried. “You’ll know the results in due time. Shifters will have to participate eventually.”

In what? But both council members looked prim and their fear smell receded a little.

They’d been afraid, he realized, that Graham knew the entire truth, and Graham had somehow just revealed he didn’t. The secret, he understood now, was not that the Shifters had been taken, but what would be done with the blood and tissue samples.

Damn it.

But at least he’d gotten that much out of them. He stood up. “Kiss Kellerman for me,” he said. “Or tell him he’s a dickhead. Your choice.”

The woman actually smiled, probably having wanted to tell Kellerman that for years. Her fear came back, though, when Graham winked at her.

He walked out before the two could rise and leave, striding back through the courthouse to the garage where he’d left his bike.

“Oh, hey, Shifter.”

Graham looked around as he came out of the garage stairwell and saw the young woman he’d met at the Shifter bar waiting for the elevator to go down. She wore a fairly plain dress today with low-heeled shoes, had combed her hair into a straight ponytail, and wasn’t wearing much makeup. A far cry from her sexy look the other night—tight shimmering dress and spike heels—but her smile was still the same.

“Remember me?” she said. “I’m Misty. From the bar the other night?”

“Yeah.” Graham leaned against the stone wall next to her. “Yeah, I remember you.”

He looked her up and down, and she glanced self-consciously at her dress. “I have a meeting. Best I look like a Plain Jane for it. In legal-land, girls who wear anything cute are considered trashy.”

“You a lawyer?”

Misty laughed. “No. I run a flower shop. There, it’s good to wear cute clothes. And knowing a lot about flowers doesn’t hurt either. Which I do.”