Paul had remained by the door, his back to it. He looked uneasy but not surprised that Ben was asking about Graham.
“McNeil is in a lot of trouble,” Ben said. “You know that. He’s dying. And you can save him, if you want to. Do you want to save him, Misty?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The last Shifter leader meeting Graham had attended had been in Dallas, and he’d had to fly. Graham hated flying. An airplane was a machine, and machines could break. Vehicles on the ground were dangerous enough, but what if one broke twenty-thousand feet in the air? Humans were crazy.
This time, Graham wouldn’t have to fly, to his relief. The meeting was in Laughlin.
Good choice, Graham thought as he headed out of town with Eric—on Dougal’s Harley because his own still needed repairs.
A lot of bikers went to Laughlin, a town about an hour or so south of Vegas on the Nevada-Arizona border, the motorcycle riders mixing in with retirees who came for cheap food, cheap rooms, and cheap slots. A score of Shifters could blend in with the human bikers easily, and the human government never had to know Shifters had gathered there. Shifters weren’t allowed to cross state lines without special permission, so the fewer humans who knew Shifters were traveling today, the better.
Only Shifter leaders and a backup were allowed to attend the meetings. No others. Backup tended to be trackers—those who ran errands for or guarded the leader. Graham wanted to argue that both he and Eric could bring one backup, because they were joint leaders, but no. Eric was considered the official Shiftertown leader, with Graham as his muscle. Stupid idea, because if Graham decided to, he could take out Eric quietly on this road trip and then make a play to rule Shiftertown himself.
Except, Graham wasn’t sure how much he wanted to rule it anymore. Cassidy and Jace—Eric’s second and third in command—would argue, probably with violence. Cassidy was a sweet-looking woman but one hell of a fighter. Jace had a mate of his own now, and neither were slouches in the fighting area.
The rest of Eric’s Shifters would also instantly rebel against being led by Graham if he tried to take over. And Graham had Dougal and two little cubs to worry about. If he got himself killed trying to take over Shiftertown those three would suffer, and so would any other Lupines who’d backed him.
Responsibility. Graham was plagued with it.
The fact that Eric rode confidently along, letting Graham stick close to his back, was meant to show how much Eric had grown to trust Graham in the last year. Eric wasn’t an idiot—he knew he was safe with Graham now, and he was right.
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.”