Glory waited until the sound of the truck had faded into the distance, then she walked upstairs, entered her bedroom that still smelled of him, and pulled down the shades. Only then did she let herself fall across the bed and weep until she had no tears left.
“So what did you think of my dad?” Andrea asked as Sean drove rapidly down Thirty-Fifth. “My stepdad, I mean.”
Sean glanced at her, his eyes still holding the fires they had last night and this morning, and again when he came to tell her that Liam wanted them to go back to the bar in north Austin. The throbbing of the bond hadn’t gone away. She felt it wrapping around her heart, squeezing tight.
“I liked him,” Sean was saying. “You said he was a good man, and he is, I could see that.”
“I miss him.” Andrea sighed.
“I can try to have him transferred here, if you want. And if he’d be wanting that. It would mean leaving his pack.”
“You can do that? The humans told him he couldn’t come with me, and then a pack here would have to let him in ...”
“You let me and Liam worry about that.”
He had such power and spoke about it so casually, hands resting lightly on the wheel. His generosity touched her.
She grinned at him. “If you’re this nice to all the girls you get into your bed, I’m surprised you don’t have a line at your door. Maybe stretching all the way down the street.”
Sean glanced at her, fire dancing between them. “Only ones I want for my mate, love.”
“So the rest of them must just be after your fine ass.”
“No woman’s ever bought me underwear for my ass, that’s for certain. But what can I do? Lupines like to play. You throw a stick, they race after it. Cats wouldn’t dream of doing that.”
Andrea drew her finger across her lip, wetting it. “But you give cats a little ... nip and they go insane.”
Sean stared at her a moment longer before traffic on the curving road dragged his attention back to it. He moved in the seat, as though something in his pants had tightened. “And now, it’s the tease.”
“I don’t have much else to do. Teasing you fills the time.”
Another sideways glance, the sparkle in his eyes stoking the fire high. “Would you be willing to fill it with something else?”
“Not right now,” Andrea said. “You’re driving, and we’re on a mission.”
“Mmm, I’m thinking some Shifters are going to be damn sorry they’re pulling me away from the mating frenzy.”
“Maybe it’s why Liam wanted you to do this instead of him.”
“Could be. If they take too much time messing with me, I might tear them up for interrupting us.”
“Don’t get too carried away. Your Collar will go off, and they’ll just laugh at you.”
“Don’t worry about that, love. I’ll time it just right.”
Andrea wasn’t certain what he meant by that, and by the way he stopped talking, he didn’t want her to ask. Andrea shrugged to herself and looked out the window as they turned and wound northward through town.
Bronco’s, the bar where she’d found Glory yesterday, sat back from the road in a littered parking lot. Behind it, an old wooden fence separated the property from a creek, and beyond that lay suburban houses. To either side of the bar were one-story shops. A vacuum repair store occupied one of the buildings; the other held an antique store and a tobacconist. All closed for the day, Sunday.
The bar was also closed, but a few vehicles were parked around it. From the age of the cars and trucks plus the fact that they’d been kept well, Andrea could tell that they belonged to Shifters.
Sean smiled in anticipation. “Let’s see what they’re up to in there, shall we, love?” The sun gleamed off the sword on his back, and Sean’s smile added to the deadly picture he made. No wonder Liam had sent him as liaison.
The door to the bar was locked. No grate had been pulled across the door, and it was fastened with a simple dead bolt. Sean wrapped his fingers around the door handle, let his hand become his powerful lion’s paw, and yanked. The lock splintered, and the door opened.
“Nice trick,” Andrea said. “Wish I was a big, bad Feline.”
“I’ll teach you someday, if you’re good.”
“Mmm, I’ll never learn it, then.”
Sean’s answering grin stoked the heat already burning in her, and then she fell in behind him as he strode inside.
“Hey, we’re closed,” someone yelled.
Sean didn’t stop. The bar was thick with cigarette smoke, which meant humans. Shifters didn’t smoke. A knot of people sat around a table in the back, and a human worked behind the bar, likely prepping to open the place later that afternoon. The bartender had been the one who’d yelled.
From the scent beneath the gagging smoke, three of the men at the table were human. They wore jeans and biker vests, their guns in shoulder or belt holsters evident. But it wasn’t just their scent that betrayed them as the ones who’d been responsible for all the shootings. One human rose as Sean came in and pointed a black pistol at him.
Sean drew his sword, the silver glittering, the blade ringing as it swept out of its sheath. The human laughed, but one of the Shifters knocked the gun from his hand with the swipe of a claw.
“He’s a Guardian,” the Shifter snarled.
The human opened his mouth to jeer, looked at the Shifter faces gone hard and cold, and sat back down. He retrieved his pistol from where it had landed on the other side of the table and shoved it into a shoulder holster.
Sean brought the sword around and rested the point of it on the table, the hilt rising like a cross. He scanned the faces that turned to him, Sean quiet and unafraid, the Shifters tense and worried. Sean’s gaze stopped as he picked out a Shifter to address, and that Shifter shrank back in his chair, looking like he wanted to wet himself.
“So tell me, Ben O’Callaghan, of me own clan,” Sean said to him. “What exactly have you been up to?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sean smelled Ben’s fear even before the man spoke. “You should leave, Sean.”
Sean rested his hands on his sword hilt, driving the point a little way into the table. “Now, why would I be wanting to do that? We had some humans shooting at Shifters, and then I walk in here and find humans with pistols sitting at this very table. A suspicious man might make a connection.”
Ben’s blue eyes clouded with worry. “You really need to go. Pretend you never walked in.”