Wild Wolf

The town of Laughlin hugged the Colorado River, the bridge across it about fifteen feet above the water, in contrast to the giant bridge that crossed many miles north at Hoover Dam, where the river flowed through a huge gorge. Large hotels lined Laughlin’s mini Strip, with buses disgorging tourists up and down the street. Men on Harleys shot around the buses with a roar of engines.

Shifters drifted into the bar at the far end of the main drag gradually, the agreement being that all of them didn’t descend on a place at once. The bar’s owner was known to Eric, and had agreed to let them meet there, the deal sweetened with a little cash. Graham had to concede that Eric had better connections on this end of the state than Graham could ever cultivate. Eric was a slick talker. Graham just commanded.

By four that afternoon, the room had filled with Shifters; or at least, with as many as could get here on short notice. That was still a lot—Shifters even from the other side of the country could move fast if they needed to, including Bowman O’Donnell, a Lupine from North Carolina; Aaron Mitchell, bear Shifter from the Canadian Rockies; and Eoin Lyall, a Feline from western Montana.

Most came from Shiftertowns located outside cities—as Graham’s Elko Shiftertown had been—easier for them to disappear for a time without humans noticing. The city Shifters had a harder task moving around undetected. Of course, the smug Irishman, Liam Morrissey, and his terrifying tracker, Tiger, had managed to get here from Austin.

The meeting started by Eric standing up and saying, “Graham has something to tell you.”

All eyes moved to Graham, and most of the stares weren’t friendly. A lot of these Shifters were barely on this side of feral, in spite of the Collars, in spite of the rigid hierarchy of Shifters. Eoin Lyall, Graham knew, hadn’t agreed to take the Collar until his entire clan had been threatened with execution. Twenty years later, he was still pissed off about it.

Graham told his story. He left out the part about drinking Fae water and being under the spell, but he saw the Shifters fill in those blanks on their own. They weren’t fools. They might not guess exactly how Graham had come under a Fae’s thrall, but they knew the Fae wouldn’t have been able to make Graham dream about him otherwise.

Bowman said, “I agree. We find the Fae-get who makes the Collars and ask him a few questions.”

“That supposes we know where he is,” Eric said.

Liam Morrissey cast his blue gaze over Graham and rested it on Eric. “We know.”

“Do you?” Aaron asked in his bear rumble. “And how do you?”

Liam shrugged. “I’ve made it my business to keep tabs on him all these years. I’ll send someone to round him up.”

The other Shifters muttered or growled. Only Eoin didn’t look surprised. “You shouldn’t keep information like that to yourself, lad,” Eoin said in his Scottish accent. “But no matter—we’ll not have to waste time on a search. The question is, where are we going to keep him for interrogation once we extract him from wherever the humans have stashed him?”

Graham liked how Eoin thought. “The Vegas Shiftertown, of course,” Graham said. “I’m the one who wants the answers.”

Bowman spoke up. “And have the humans find him? They keep a close eye on city Shiftertowns. And your Shifters aren’t exactly tame, McNeil. They might rip him apart if they know he’s there.”

“Aw, wouldn’t that be sad?” Graham shook his head in mock sorrow. “Don’t worry; I’ll make sure we get some answers first.”

“No ripping,” Eric said. “Morrissey, you bring him, we’ll question, and then we’ll return him.”

“And keep him from running back to the humans and telling them all he knows, how?” Eoin asked.

Liam gave everyone his self-assured, shithead grin. “You let me worry about that.”

“Have the Tiger talk to him,” Graham said. “If the Collar maker is sane enough to remember his own name after that, he’ll be braver than I thought.”

Tiger hadn’t said a word—backup wasn’t supposed to talk unless asked a direct question. Graham always ignored that rule himself, but Tiger obeyed it. Graham knew damn well that was because Tiger didn’t feel like talking, not because he followed any rules but his own.

Tiger was gigantic, with black and orange hair and yellow eyes. He wasn’t quite right in the head, having been created in a laboratory instead of being born in the wild. Tiger was one of a kind, and growing up in a cage hadn’t exactly made him sane.

Most Shifters were wary of him, even though Liam vouched for him. Tiger had calmed a lot, Graham had noticed, since taking a mate.

The mention of Tiger moved attention from Graham to Tiger, which had been Graham’s intent. The other Shifters had been studying Graham a little too closely. A Shifter’s natural instinct when near anything Fae-spelled was to kill it.

“It’s settled then,” Eric said. “Morrissey will put his hands on the Collar-making Fae and bring him out here—subtly. I know a place near Las Vegas we can keep him. McNeil is right that we need him near us, but Bowman’s right that we need it to be far from Shifters with a grudge plus prying human eyes. We’ll let you know.”

“And you need to let us talk to the human woman,” Bowman said. “Her name is Misty, right?”

Silence. Graham stood up, growling as he went. Tiger rose with him, but moved to Graham’s shoulder, as though backing him up, not stopping him.