“Eric, stop.” Her hands moved to his chest covered with leopard fur, which had split open his shirt. Her fingers stroked, soothed.

Eric’s Collar remained silent but the pain ground on, so much pain. It was killing him.

Graham was right—he was dying, but Eric would kill him first. He’d not leave his family at the mercy of Graham. The first thing the Lupine would do would be to kill off Eric’s pride, especially his son, so that son didn’t challenge for leadership.

“Eric.”

Iona had her arms all the way around him. Cassidy and Jace stood to either side of him. Eric sensed and smelled them, though he couldn’t turn to look at them.

Graham had backed all the way off to the middle of the open yard. Shifters were coming out of houses to see what was going on—the bears from next door, the wildcat Shifters on the other side.

They sensed a dominance battle. Eric felt their curious excitement, the underlying tension that could explode into war at any excuse.

Graham, though, had his hands up. “Not the time and place. Let your mate take you inside. We figure out this human thing first, then we fight. All right?”

Eric lunged at him. Cassidy, Jace, and Iona tried to hold him back, but Eric topped all three in strength, even in this kind of pain. He threw them off and charged Graham.

Every inch of body language Graham threw out told Eric he didn’t want to fight right now, but too bad. Graham was finished.

Eric heard a muffled shot and then he couldn’t feel his leg. He stumbled as the rest of his body went numb, then a blackness rushed through him.

He looked over his shoulder to see Diego Escobar regarding him sternly over the barrel of a tranquilizer rifle.

“Sorry, Eric,” Diego said.

The world went dark as Eric hit the ground.

“Do you know what’s wrong with him?” Iona’s voice cut through the darkness a long time later.

Iona’s beautiful, dusky voice. Eric swam toward it, his need for her scattering the pain.

“Well, I’m no medic, lass. He told me he thinks it’s to do with the Collars, but I can’t be certain. I could dissect him and find out, but that would be a bit of an inconvenience for him, eh?”

Eric knew the voice—he’d met the Shifter a few times, but for the moment, the name wouldn’t come. No one from this Shiftertown. The man smelled Feline, lion probably. He was very strong, a clan leader at the least.

“No dissecting,” Iona said in a hard voice.

“I’m teasing you, lass. Sorry.”

“He does that,” another voice came, the crisp, clear one of a human woman. “He tries to be funny at all times.”

“It eases the tension,” the Irish voice said.

Irish. Eric remembered now. The Austin Shiftertown was run by a family of Irishmen. Their last name still swam out of his memory, but he recalled the brothers, one the Shiftertown leader, the other their Guardian.

“Liam,” he croaked.

“Ah, he’s still with us, is he? How’re you feeling, lad?”

Eric tried to wet his lips and found no moisture in his mouth. “What are you doing here?”

“You sent for me, didn’t you? Said you had a ceremony to perform, and oh, by the way, having a bit of trouble with your Collar.”

Eric pried open his eyes and looked into the very blue ones of the dark-haired Liam Morrissey. Liam wore a smile, as he often did, and his eyes held humor. But behind the man’s bonhomie lay a sharp mind and a powerful will.

Eric seemed to be lying in bed in Jace’s bedroom—what had been Jace’s bedroom. Covers were bunched over him and bright sunlight poured through the window, not helping his headache.

A phone call Eric had made this morning—no, yesterday morning—came back to him. Eric rubbed a weak hand through his hair. “I remember now.”

His entire being relaxed as Iona climbed onto the bed with him and sat cross-legged by Eric’s side. He reached for her hand, and she held his between hers.

Liam touched Eric’s Collar. “Looks intact. You try to take it off?”

“Take it off?” Iona asked at the same time Eric shook his head. “The Collars come off?”

“Carefully, slowly, painfully, and sometimes, disastrously,” Liam said. “Trust me on this. And that information goes no further than this room.”

“She’s my mate,” Eric said.

“I’m seeing that. You’re going to trust her with all things, are you?”

“I’ve already started.” Eric showing Iona their strong room was the first step. “She’ll be leader’s mate. I have to.”

“Aye, I know what you mean.”

The crisp female voice came again. “Leader’s mates are better at keeping secrets than any Shifters I know.”

“Iona,” Liam said. “This is Kim. The love of my life.”

“We met in the hall,” Iona said.

Eric remembered meeting Liam’s mate the last time he’d gone out to Austin, the short young human woman with the dark hair and no-nonsense attitude. Kim had been a defense lawyer, and now she ran a law firm that specialized in helping Shifters.

“No, I didn’t try to take off my Collar,” Eric said, strength beginning to return. “I’ve been able to keep it from going off when I fight, but not for long, and that’s about it.”

“And these attacks come when?”

“Seem to be all over the place. After I fight, yes, but other times too. Last night, on the porch with Graham. He wasn’t being aggressive, just his usual shithead self.”