“How do you think we live, sweetheart?” he asked her, keeping his voice down. “We’re only allowed low-wage jobs, and yet we’re expected to feed our families, pay the rent. You don’t think I live on what I make as a part-time bar manager, do you?”

“I did notice you had a casual attitude about going to work. As in, you never go.”

“But I have the job. So the human committees can mark down on their sheets that I have employment and be happy that they’ve done well by me.”

“So you do have money?”

“Now then, Kim, a man would think you didn’t want him for his looks and his fine personality.”

Kim flushed again. “You obviously don’t want me prying, but you expect me to be your mate—for life—without explaining what’s really going on with you.”

Liam laid his hand lightly over hers. “I was teasing. Let’s just say my family is provided for. As will be my mate and my offspring.”

“Offspring. Now we’re back in dangerous territory.”

“I thought all women would want to know that their mate can take care of the cubs. But all right.” Liam withdrew his hands. “Let’s talk about Brian.”

Kim looked surprised at the change of subject. “All right, let’s talk about why Fergus doesn’t want me to save him. Why he wants Brian to plead guilty.”

“I wish I knew, love. Brian’s no threat to Fergus, nowhere near challenging for leadership. Fergus has helped Brian and his family in the past. They aren’t close, but not enemies.”

“Maybe Brian pissed him off somehow.”

“If he did, I never heard about it. I would have heard.” It bothered him that he knew little of what had gone on between Brian and Fergus. Liam had always thought he had his finger firmly on the pulse of Shiftertown. He knew everyone, and they knew him. If a Shifter were in trouble, someone would tell him or Sean. That was the way it worked. In Brian’s case, it hadn’t.

Kim said, “When I first came to see you, you told me you didn’t know much about Brian.”

“I was trying to put you off. A human poking around in Shiftertown is dangerous.”

“But you took me to see his mother.”

“I liked you.” That liking was growing into something far deeper, perilously deeper. The joy that flashed through him every time he saw Kim’s beautiful eyes and sassy smile grew stronger each day. The thought should dismay him, yet it didn’t.

Mating could start off as nothing more than a drive to reproduce, and some Shifters never moved beyond that. But others, like his father and mother, his brother Kenny and mate Sinead, had developed a relationship that went beyond mating, even beyond love. It was a bond humans couldn’t understand, and Liam felt it forging between himself and Kim.

It was a heady feeling, and one he feared would turn into worse pain than any he’d ever experienced. The Collar’s torture would be nothing compared to Kim breaking his heart.

Kim frowned at her coffee. “I can’t believe that now that I have good questions to ask Brian, you won’t let me near him. You’re not making my job easy.” She looked up, an idea lighting her eyes. “But wait a sec, I can’t believe Fergus wouldn’t let Brian’s mother talk to him.”

“Possibly. Clan rules are one thing; maternal ties are another. Sacred, you could say.”

“The same way Fergus can’t mess with me if I’m your mate.”

Liam nodded. “He can’t unless I let him.”

“Let him? What’s all this ‘let’ shit? Shifters don’t understand the term ‘feminism,’ do they?”

“I wouldn’t say that, love. Shifter females are no pushovers. But realize that Shifters have lived in small groups for thousands of years, the males protecting the females and the cubs. It’s instinctive for us. This is the first time we’ve dwelled in close communities—we still had the clans, but we rarely saw others in our clan. It’s taking us a little bit of time to adjust.”

She watched him in curiosity, one finger still rubbing the rim of her cup. Liam thought about her sweeping the same finger over his c**k and instantly got hard again.

“Where did you live before?” she asked. “I mean in Ireland, before you came to Shiftertown? You told Abel you had a castle.”

“A castle. That we did.”

“With battlements and everything?”

“It was mostly a ruin by the time we moved in, but we fixed it up and made it livable.”

“What did the Irish think of you? This was before Shifters came out, right?”

“Oh, they had all kinds of explanations for us. The ones inclined to believe in ghost stories thought we were the Fae, and that wasn’t far off. Lucky for them, Shifters are ten times kinder than the Fae. Others thought we were former IRA come to hide out. The more skeptical just said we were crazy. But everyone knew we kept the village protected, so no one tried to drive us out.”

Kim was watching him now, a bit like her office colleagues had, but Liam didn’t mind so much being subjected to her blue-eyed scrutiny. “Why did you come to Austin if you had a fine castle in Ireland, and everyone loved you?”

Liam shrugged. “Once the traitorous bastard Shifter in England sold his story and demonstrated that he could shape-shift, Ireland got a little dangerous for us. People who needed money started taking bounties on Shifters, dead or alive. Kenny’s mate, Sinead, was pregnant, and we couldn’t risk her getting hunted. We heard that in this country, Shifters were being herded into camps rather than exterminated, but allowed to live in safety. So we packed up, and here we are.”