Kim gaped. “Wait, I heard about the Shifter woman dying. I thought she and her kids were killed in a car accident on a back highway in Hill Country. Weren’t they?”

“No, lass.” Liam looked so sad. Sean stood apart, incongruous in jeans and T-shirt with the medieval-looking sword. “She was murdered. Sean and me, we put her body in her car and pushed it into that ditch and set it alight.”

“Why?” Kim got off the bed. She realized all she wore was a short, silky baby-doll, and she grabbed for the robe she’d tossed to a chair. “Why not report the crime and have the Shifter brought in?”

“Because it’s our responsibility.” Liam’s gaze took in her body as she hastily shrugged on the robe, but his voice rang with anger. Sean gave a nod of agreement.

“No, it isn’t,” Kim said. “Shifters live in the human world now—that means human law prevails. You signed the agreement. The Shifter should have been arrested and tried like anyone else, not killed vigilante-style by you and Sean.”

She ran out of breath. The two men weren’t listening to her but looking at each other, still talking without talking. The weight of the Shifter’s death pressed on the room.

Finally Sean shook his head and slid his sword into a leather sheath. “You’re effing crazy, Liam, you know? You do what you have to, I’m reporting in to Dad.”

“Do that. Take my bike.”

“What, you think I’d be hitching a ride with a sword strapped to my back? I’ll see you at home.”

With a final scowl, Sean turned and left the room, carrying the sword by its sheathed blade. Kim heard him on the stairs, and then the back door slammed beneath them, shaking the house.

“Come on.” Liam got up, still naked and unembarrassed about it. “Get dressed and go downstairs. I’ll cook you some dinner—you look peaky.”

“The Shifter—he’s…” Kim swallowed. “All over my carpet.” Gray dust coated the rug she’d bought at an antique store out in Fredericksburg. “Ew.”

Liam enfolded her in his arms and kissed her neck, his warmth like a blanket on her cold skin. “I’ll take care of this, love. Go on downstairs and wait for me.”

Kim didn’t want to. She wanted to stay here for a while and run her hands along Liam’s broad, strong shoulders. His body was solid and reassuring, and so was his smile. She could stand here in his arms all damned night.

Liam kissed her neck again. “You’ll be all right. Go on, now.”

Kim was never sure how she made herself back away, grab her clothes, and scoot across the hall to her guest bedroom to change. As she made her way downstairs, she strained to hear what Liam did in her bedroom, but all was silent.

Liam found his clothes where he’d thrown them off in Kim’s kitchen and slid them on. His adrenaline was still high, his heart pumping hard and fast. He wanted to run, hunt, grab Kim and have unbridled sex with her. Containing himself wasn’t easy, but his body running so hot would continue to stave off the pain that was coming. And then he’d pay. Damn, would he pay.

Kim hunched on a sofa on the other side of the breakfast bar. She had no kitchen table and chairs; instead, a couple of stools stood at the counter, and she’d filled the rest of the room with a couch and two comfortable-looking chairs.

Her loose hair straggled over the blouse she’d put on, her blue eyes enormous as she watched Liam dress. He’d cleaned himself up in her bathroom after he’d vacuumed what was left of the feral Shifter from the rug. The bugger wouldn’t come out all the way out, though.

“You’ll have to send that carpet out for cleaning,” he said.

Kim whitened. “Oh, God.”

“I’ll do it for you. It’s my fault the shite came here at all.”

“Why do you keep saying it’s your fault? Not everything is your responsibility. You live in the human world now.”

She was trying to hold on to what she knew, what she’d been told. Humans liked to comfort themselves like that.

“It’s my responsibility because I let you come to Shiftertown. The feral smelled your scent on me and decided to hurt me by hurting you. That way, even if he died, he’d know I’d be grieving. It’s the feral way—take vengeance on your enemy even while they’re killing you.” Liam shook his head as he moved to the refrigerator. “I’ve never seen a Shifter move that fast, or be able to track that quickly. There was something wrong with him.”

That bothered him more than he cared to admit. Ferals, ironically, were weaker than Shifters with Collars, because Collared Shifters were well fed, well rested, and had plenty of time to exercise. But this feral had been fast and had brushed off Sean’s first sword thrust as though it were an insect bite.

Kim shivered. “Are there any more of them out there?”

Liam didn’t know, and that bothered him more than he cared to let on, but he made his tone reassuring. “Shouldn’t be. We keep track of the ferals pretty well.” Or so Fergus claimed. The refrigerator’s shelves were bare except for a few containers of yogurt and a rubber-banded bunch of greens. “You have no food, woman.”

“It’s in the freezer.”

That compartment revealed stacks of boxed frozen meals, all with “Lite” or “Low-calorie” written on them. “This isn’t food,” Liam said. “It’s a travesty.”