Shifters Unbound [5] Tiger Magic (15 page)

* * *

“S
hite, I missed the exit again.” Liam stepped on the accelerator and shot down the freeway. He’d have to get off at the next exit, loop around, and try again.

“You should have let me drive,” Spike said from the passenger seat of Dylan’s truck.

Dylan had sent them off four hours ago in the predawn coolness, looking a little satisfied that he wouldn’t be the one dealing with a table of full-of-themselves gobshite Shifter leaders and Dallas roadways.

“No, I need you to navigate,” Liam said to Spike. “You’re a tracker. So track.”

Shifter leaders were allowed one backup person at the meetings, all acknowledging that a roomful of über-alpha Shifter males could grow dangerous very fast. Therefore, each Shifter could bring one bodyguard, and Liam had chosen Spike.

The bodyguard had to be neutral though. Not the same clan, pack, or pride as the leader. The bodyguard also couldn’t be in line to be a Shiftertown leader, so that the bodyguard didn’t get any ideas of taking out the man above him while they were alone. If Spike offed Liam, Spike wouldn’t win by it. Liam wouldn’t win by it either, but Sean would take over the Austin Shiftertown and punish Spike.

Not that Liam had any worries about Spike. The six-foot-six, tattooed biker with the shaved pate was a jaguar who’d recently found out he had a cub. The new dad thought of little else but small Jordan and Myka, Spike’s new mate.

“You missed this exit too,” Spike said in his quiet way.

“Shite.”
Liam had been busy trying to get around a slow cement truck, and the off ramp had whizzed past. “They’ll decide something asinine before I get there, like we all have to wear T-shirts that say ‘My Other Animal is a Penguin.’ And my vote would have been the tiebreaker against.”

Spike didn’t laugh. “Take this one,” he said pointing to the left.

“What one?”

“There!” Spike shouted. “Left exit.
Now.
”

Liam dove across two lanes of traffic, earning honking and lifted fingers, and drove off the ramp. This exit looped them around and poured them back in the opposite direction, where Liam ran into a clump of traffic.

“Damn it.”

“You know, you suck at driving,” Spike said.

“Watch it, jaguar. And it’s not true. I’m a master at handling my Harley.”

Spike grinned. “Yeah, I just bet you are.”

Liam said something in Irish that would have earned him Spike’s fist in his throat if Spike had understood it.

Liam at last got the pickup oriented in the right direction, found the turnoff, and took it. Now it was just a matter of navigating through traffic, stoplights, and clogged one-way streets until they found the bar and pool hall where the Shifters had agreed, this time, to meet.

Never in the same place twice. Good idea from a stealth standpoint, bad for finding the damned place.

Liam parked the pickup behind the bar, approached the back door, and knocked. A greasy-looking man let them in through a tiny hall and a kitchen, pointing through to a large room that smelled of Shifters. Liam hoped the man with the oily hair wasn’t the cook.

“About time,” someone growled.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

T
he voice of the Lupine who’d spoken—Graham McNeil—rumbled in the too-small room. Not enough air in the room either, Liam observed. They’d all soon be gagging on the smell. Alphas feeling competitive had a fine scent.

Eric Warden, a Feline and the leader of the Las Vegas Shiftertown, came forward to greet Liam. Liam pulled the man into a brief, tight hug, and Eric returned it, as strong as ever.

They kept the hug short, greeting only, even though they’d become good friends, so the other Shifter leaders might not think they were forming an alliance. Shifter leaders, as a group, were paranoid.

“Liam,” Graham said behind Eric.

Graham was sort of co-leader with Eric of their Shiftertown. He condescended to return Liam’s greeting embrace, but the hug shouted that Graham would be just as happy to break Liam’s neck in other circumstances.

“What did you bring him for?” Liam asked Eric, jerking his thumb at Graham. “I can’t believe
he’s
your bodyguard.”

Eric and Graham had tangled in the past. Eric’s sister or son didn’t qualify to be Eric’s backup, but Liam was surprised Eric would venture out alone with Graham, who’d made it no secret that he thought he’d be a better Shiftertown leader than Eric. Eric usually brought Nell, a bear Shifter and his neighbor, whose glare could stop the most formidable Shifter in his tracks.

“Didn’t trust him enough to leave him behind,” Eric said. He gave Liam his laid-back smile, but his jade-green eyes were sharp with watchfulness.

“Good thinking,” Graham said, though his body language said,
Fuck you.

“Besides, he’s met Tiger,” Eric said, ignoring Graham. “And Nell’s busy with her new mate. Cormac, you know him. Those are the only reasons I’d bring Graham. Graham’s afraid to fly, and he bitched about it the whole time.”

“Huh,” Graham said. He was a big man with flame tattoos on his arms and buzzed dark hair, his wolf-gray eyes holding more intelligence than he let people see. “If the Goddess wanted me to fly, she’d have made me a bird Shifter. An eagle.”

“Penguin,” Liam said.

Graham frowned at him. “Penguins don’t fly.”

“I know.”

He growled. “Yeah, you’re funny, Irishman.”

“Can we start?” The Shifter who’d called this meeting was a Lupine named Bowman O’Donnell, who ran a Shiftertown in North Carolina. He stood at the head of the table, impatient, his dark eyes fixed on Liam. His bodyguard was a lean, mean-looking Feline, with tattoos of cheetahs chasing themselves around his arms.

Twenty other Shifter leaders and their bodyguards took up the rest of the room. Some slouched in seats as though they’d rather be anywhere doing anything but this; others were alert, eyes on Liam, interested.

Liam hid a sigh, trying to make himself sit down and be calm, but he knew he couldn’t be. Tiger was his responsibility, and the other Shifters could scent Liam’s worry about this meeting. That is, if they could smell anything in a room full of Shifter leaders trying to out-alpha one another.

Liam waved his hand in front of his nose as he took his seat. “Can we open a window?”

Several of the other Shifters chuckled. Bowman didn’t look amused.

“If we do this fast, we can get out of here into fresh air,” he said. “Or polluted air. Cities suck.”

More laughter. Bowman’s Shiftertown was in the middle of tall pine woods in the hills. Liam had visited once and had been impressed by the place’s natural beauty. Bowman had gotten lucky.

“So you have a Shifter living with you who can heal himself from gunshot wounds,” Bowman said. “We heard about the second shooting, and that this tiger Shifter basically grew himself a second skin.”

Goddess, word spread fast. Liam and his family had said nothing, and Glory, as crazy as she was, could be trusted to keep secrets. So could Liam’s trackers.

But Shifters had scent and good hearing, and Liam’s neighbors weren’t all so in love with the Morrisseys that they wouldn’t gossip about them and their households. Shifters didn’t need computers and electronic social networks to spread news far and wide. They only needed a chat on a front porch.

“He didn’t grow a second skin,” Liam said. “He’s still in bed recovering.” And doing other things, with Carly, he’d heard through the walls, but Liam chose to keep that information to himself. If these concerned Shifters thought Tiger was already mating, who the hell knew what they’d do? “He did, though, expel the bullets from his body without trying, and the wounds closed up. But he’s weak and tired, not out tearing apart the world.”

“He’s dangerous,” Bowman said. “We don’t know what he is, or how those humans made him, or what he’ll do. Or what he’ll become.”

“I agree,” Liam said. He leaned back in his chair, hands resting lightly on his abdomen. “But he’s a nice guy. I’m not going to kill him.”

“No, but you need to put a Collar on him.” Bowman didn’t move, but his meaning was evident: Put a Collar on him, or we tell the humans and let them make the decision what to do.

“We talked about that, remember?” Liam said. “After I tried it. I thought the Collar was going to kill him—and he’d have killed me right then if I’d attempted it a second time. Tiger’s not like a normal Shifter. The Collar might hurt him beyond repair, or it might kill him. Or it might do nothing at all.”

“Yes, we
talked
about it,” another of the Shifter leaders said. “Then
you
decided to fake a Collar for him. How’s that working out for you?”

“It’s fine as long as we keep him contained.”

“But you didn’t keep him contained,” Bowman said. “Day before yesterday, he was in the house of a wealthy human man, tearing it up, then he went crazy in the hospital and had to have Shifter Bureau send in goons. I don’t even know what happened yesterday.”

“He and one of my trackers were run off the road,” Liam said. “A man who looked like a Shifter Bureau goon shot him, then walked away.”

“Walked away?” Bowman asked, curious.

“Didn’t stick around to see if he’d made the kill. I was wondering about that.”

Graham broke in. “Probably he figured no one could survive twenty bullets from a machine pistol in the back.”

Bowman shot Graham a look of irritation. “Bodyguards aren’t allowed to talk in Shifter council meetings.”

“Screw you,” Graham said clearly. “What
council
? You never invited me to these meetings when I was leader of my Shiftertown. Shifter leaders getting together to discuss things. That’s fucked up.”

The Feline guarding Bowman leaned forward, slanting Graham a look of challenge. Graham laughed at him. “You want to try it with me? Bring it on, cat.”

The cheetah smiled and rubbed one hand over his arm tattoos. He showed his teeth, eyes turning golden yellow.

“Enough,” Bowman growled. “Can we stay on point? Liam, we need you to Collar the tiger. Keep him controlled and out of trouble.”

“I told you, the Collar might kill him. I can’t do that to another Shifter.”

“If you don’t, we will,” Bowman said, and about half the leaders nodded agreement. “He attracts too much human attention to our business. If he causes more trouble, humans will start poking around to see what’s going on, why he’s not being controlled, why he can’t be controlled. If they find the fake Collar, we’re all screwed. We can’t afford to have humans figuring out too much. Precarious times, Liam.”

Liam sat back, growing uncomfortable. Bowman had a point. Humans thought they had Shifters corralled and tamed. Tiger, uncontrolled, might bring human scrutiny too far into Shiftertowns, where the humans could find all kinds of things Shifters wanted to keep hidden.

“We also need to find out everything we can about this tiger,” Bowman went on. “Hack into the humans’ research, figure out what they were up to. They created him from scratch, but how? Who did they use? The more we know, the more we can contain this. And if the tiger needs to be eliminated . . .” Bowman’s gaze was all for Liam. “Then we eliminate him.”

Goddess, had Dylan had to put up with shite like this? Probably. Liam wished for his father’s strength, a little of his ruthlessness, and most of all, his penetrating stare, the one that could make all other Shifters back down in quiet terror.

The lion inside Liam began to growl, his hackles rising. “You aren’t leader of the leaders, Bowman. Tiger’s in
my
Shiftertown, and I’ll decide when he’s too much of a danger.”

“You feel sorry for him,” Bowman said. “I get that. But it’s clouding your judgment. He should have been taken out right after he was found. There’s no way he can adjust, and there are cubs to think about.”

“Tiger lives in my
house with my cub, and he’s amazing with her,” Liam said. “Watches over her as well as I and her mum do. He’s protective, and the cubs like him.”

“You’d better hope your judgment isn’t misplaced,” Bowman said.

“And I am keeping an eye on him. Or I would be, if I weren’t being dragged out to sit in stinky back rooms in bars with a bunch of Shifters with their knickers in a twist.”

One of the other leaders stood up. “I say we put it to a vote. Liam puts a Collar on the tiger. If Liam can’t handle him, we take the tiger out. All in favor?”

“A vote?” Graham asked, incredulous. “I’ve seen everything now.”

The other Shifters, ignoring him, put up their hands. Almost all of them. Liam got to his feet.

“Screw this. You don’t come into
my
Shiftertown and mess with
my
Shifters.”

“And,” Eric said in his calm way, “there’s the problem of being able to kill Tiger at all. How do you propose to do that? A Shifter who can survive bullet wounds? When I first found him, it took two tranq shots just to make him sit down.”

“Which is why we need to act now,” Bowman said. “Who the hell knows what else he can do, or what he’s become capable of? We need to contain or kill him before he hurts one of us.”

Liam barely held on to his temper. “I agree about finding out all we can about him. But those other decisions are mine.”

“Not anymore, Liam,” Bowman said. “You’re holding a potentially lethal weapon. If it gets out of control, it could spell the end for all Shifters. Living in Shiftertowns was a decision pushed through by advocates for Shifters, if you remember. Humans who didn’t want to see us treated like lab rats or slaughtered outright. But the humans will shove us back into cages and drug us until we die if they think we can turn into whatever this tiger Shifter is. You know it, Liam.”

“Yes,” Liam had to say. The word tasted sour in his mouth. “But it’s still my decision.”

“Like I said, not anymore.” Bowman stood up casually, as though they weren’t talking about the life and death of one of Liam’s friends. “We should go before people start wondering why so many Shifters are in town.”

Meeting adjourned,
in other words. Several of the leaders and their bodyguards got up and exited without saying good-bye. Others lingered, would drift away a little at a time. A mass exodus would be a bad idea.

Bowman had to pass Liam and Eric on his way out. Graham stepped enough in Bowman’s way that Bowman would have to make physical contact to get around him.

“So they let a dickhead like you run a Shiftertown?” Graham said, giving Bowman his gray-eyed stare.

“I’m doing what I have to do to protect my Shifters,” Bowman said, meeting his gaze without flinching. “It’s my job.”

“If Tiger was living in your house you might understand better, I’m thinking,” Liam said.

“If he was living in my house, he’d already have a Collar.” Bowman turned his body to slide past Graham without touching him. “See you, Liam. Eric.”

Eric remained. He was about the same height as Liam, a little leaner, tanned from Las Vegas sunshine. He folded his arms and leaned against the back of a chair. “You can return him to our Shiftertown if you want,” Eric said. “I know I kind of forced him down your throat.”

“You didn’t.” Liam ran a hand through his hair, hoping he could get the smell of angry Shifter out of it when he got home. “I was the one with the arrogance in thinking I could control him, even without putting a Collar on him.”

Eric didn’t argue with him, Liam noticed. Or bother trying to make him feel better. “Want to grab a beer? Lunch?”

“No, I need to be getting back.” Liam sighed and unhooked his sunglasses from his T-shirt. “And I need to think.”

“I’m driving,” Spike said, the first words he’d spoken since they’d walked in. He held out his hand for the keys. “If you’ll be thinking the whole time, I need to do the steering.”

“Call me when you want advice,” Eric said. “You know I’m good at giving it.” He showed his teeth in a grin while Graham rolled his eyes.

Spike, now holding the keys, walked out and had the pickup started by the time Liam finished his parting embraces with Eric, then Graham. Liam got into the truck, Spike navigated through the busy streets back to the freeway, and they headed south, Liam slumped against the door.

“You didn’t mention Carly,” Spike said as they sped down the 35, past downtown and Reunion Arena, and into the southern reaches of the city. “Or that he was shagging her most of the night last night.”