“Sure. Blueberry. Great.”
Liam caressed the back of Kim’s neck and led her to her place at the table. “Sleep well, did you?”
“No.” Kim plopped down, reached for the pitcher of juice in the middle of the table. “But you know that. Sean, Connor, are you trying to comfort me for having to spend the night with Liam?”
Connor hooted with laughter. Even Sean broke out of his sour mood to grin. “Are you in need of comfort, Kim?” Sean asked. “Is he that bad?”
“Shut it,” Liam growled, but he was too full of afterglow to care about their teasing. “They’re acknowledging you as my mate, love. Welcoming you to the family.”
“I forgot. Shifters like to hug. A lot.”
Liam ran his hand up Kim’s arm, her silken skin a joy beneath his fingertips. “Is there something wrong with that? Touching and hugging is a good thing.”
“It’s unusual,” Kim said. “For humans, I mean.”
“Touching is reassurance, keeping the bonds between family intact. It’s more than love; it’s necessary.”
“Humans do it too,” Sean said from the stove. “Except they get embarrassed. So they invent strange rituals, like giving flowers and candy to ladies. Human men punch each other when they like each other. I’ve seen them do it.”
“Sean has made a study of humans and their behavior,” Liam said. “It gives him something to do.”
Kim gave Sean a look of respect. “Well, if you can figure out human behavior, more power to you. Even humans can’t figure it out.”
“But I’m outside looking in,” Sean said. “It’s different.”
“So are Shifters to humans.” Kim accepted her plate of pancakes and dug in. “I know you all don’t want to talk about this, but I don’t want to hear any more discussion about you giving in to Fergus. He’s just trying to sow dissention. I’ve been thinking it over, and I think what y’all really need is a good lawyer, and one just happens to be eating pancakes with you. I’m going to dig into Shifter law and see if Fergus really can tell your dad to step down, or try to find some loophole to keep him from succeeding. So I’ll need to know what rules and customs or whatever aren’t written down. I need to know everything.”
With his mate so near, with her scent and his all over her, Liam didn’t much care about Fergus, Brian, and the screwed-up mess they’d gotten the rest of Shiftertown into. “That’s fine, Kim. I won’t stop you trying. Just don’t be getting your hopes up, love.”
Kim finished the last of her pancakes and got to her feet. “It beats letting Fergus win.”
“He won’t,” Liam said, watching her hips sway as she took her plate to the sink. “I won’t let him.”
Sean gave him a dark look. “I still think my way is best.” He didn’t mean it like he had yesterday, Liam could tell, because Sean’s tension had eased a long way. But Sean was still angry.
“We need you as the Guardian, Sean,” Liam said softly. “Connor’s not yet ready to take up the sword.”
“No-ho,” Connor said, from deep in his car magazine. “Don’t you dare die on me, Sean.”
Kim looked confused again. Liam gestured her out to the back porch and followed her down the steps to the fenceless backyard and the Austin summer sunshine. It would be another hot one, but later tonight, the cool moon would cover the yard in silver light.
“I have to go to work,” Kim said.
“I know.”
“You’ll try to come with me, won’t you?”
“I will be coming with you. I’m not letting you out of my sight, not with Fergus’s thugs wandering about and Fergus mad as hell at the Morrisseys. He’s not above making an example of disobedient clan members.”
“I’m going to fix this, Liam.”
Liam just gave her a nod. “Even so—not out of my sight, love.”
“What’s with Sean?” she asked, glancing back at the house.
It took Kim a while to voice questions, Liam noticed. Must be the lawyer in her, thinking carefully before she pried out the information she wanted.
Liam rubbed his hair, not liking to think about it. “Sean has always blamed himself for Kenny’s death. I blame myself, because I was stupidly obeying orders when I should have been protecting them both. But Sean was right there beside Kenny. Sean fought and survived, but he couldn’t save Kenny. It eats at him, it does.”
Kim gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, please. I know damn well Sean didn’t simply stand aside and watch Kenny get killed. He must have fought.”
“As the Guardian, his first duty is to the sword, and he couldn’t risk letting the feral get it. Kenny knew that. He was fighting to protect the Guardian and the sword.”
Kim gave him a wide-eyed stare. “You mean that piece of metal was more important than your brother?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. But the Guardian has a huge responsibility to the whole clan. He has to survive to keep the sword free in case he needs to use it on one of us. Kenny knew what he was doing.”
He could tell Kim didn’t really understand, but her look softened. “That doesn’t make it any easier, does it?”
“No.”
Kim slid her arms around his waist. “Liam, I’m so sorry.”
He felt her sorrow. Liam melted into her, tears tracking down his face for the brother he’d lost. Being a Shifter was all about sacrifice, and the fact that Kim understood that untwisted something inside him that had been knotted for a decade.
Kim worked through the day in her office, catching up on phone calls and paperwork, preparing for the court case she was determined to have for Brian. The private investigator she’d hired told Kim he’d discovered evidence that Michelle’s ex-boyfriend had burned with plenty of resentment when Michelle had started seeing Brian. Threats had been made, and friends of the ex-boyfriend had been worried. Good. Kim told him to keep searching that angle.
Kim also pulled up every single piece of information she had on Shifter law and went over it again. She’d find something to stop Fergus trying to defeat the Morrisseys, no matter how long it took. The human government didn’t usually interfere with Shifter hierarchy, mostly because they didn’t understand it. But Kim would find some way to solve this, and Liam would figure out why Fergus wanted Brian executed.