“Why do you want to talk to Misty?” Graham asked, his voice soft but savage.

Bowman kept his seat, not looking intimidated. “This woman has seen the Fae, in the real world, twice. You’ve only met him in a dream. I want to know why this Oison singled her out.”

“She has no idea,” Graham said, a snarl in his throat. “She has nothing to do with this.”

“I want to judge for myself,” Bowman said. “If she shared the dream with you, and the Fae contacted her, she must be important somehow.”

“Doesn’t mean she needs to stand in front of a bunch of Shifters and explain herself,” Graham said, his growl more pronounced. “She’s an innocent bystander. Leave her alone.”

Eric could jump in anytime and help out, couldn’t he? But Eric sat back, looking as lazy as ever, and let Graham talk. Only Tiger had come to stand at Graham’s side.

“My mate is human,” Tiger said now, his voice like broken gravel. “Our mates should not be made to face other Shifters.”

“But the woman Misty is nae his mate,” Eoin pointed out in his Scottish lilt. “Is she?”

“Not yet,” Graham said.

Bowman said, “I hear your Lupines are pressuring you into taking a Lupine mate. So the human woman must be a passing thing. Yet she already knows Shifter secrets, such as our connection with the Fae.”

“Hell, I don’t even know much about our connection with the Fae,” Graham snapped. “But I wouldn’t care whether Misty was a groupie I shagged once and dumped—I’m not forcing her to face a Shifter interrogation squad.”

“Neither will I,” Eric said mildly. He hadn’t risen, but such was the other Shifters’ respect for him that they all went quiet and let him speak. “I’ll monitor Misty. I too think she’s significant if the Fae sought her, even if only to ensnare Graham and the rest of us. But leave it to me. If she knows nothing, she should be left alone.”

Bowman considered a long time, but he nodded in the end. The others seemed to conclude that what was good enough for Bowman was good enough for them.

“I’ll find the Collar maker then,” Liam said. “And get him to Eric in Las Vegas. We all should be able to have access to him.”

“Agreed,” Eric said. He stood up.

And that was it. Meeting adjourned. A few Shifters walked out right away, but the others took their time. A few went into the bar for a refreshing beer. Thinking about cold beer made Graham’s unnatural thirst kick in, and he fought it by marching out the door into the bright heat of the parking lot.

“We rode all the way down here for that?” Graham asked Eric as they went to their motorcycles. The sun was hammering down, this stretch of the river racking up the hottest summer temperatures in the country. Not helping with the thirst.

“Phones aren’t secure,” Eric said, mounting his bike. “Neither is e-mail. The Guardian network is secure, but this isn’t Guardian business.”

“Yeah, well, if I don’t find some way out from under this spell, it might become Guardian business,” Graham said darkly. “As in Guardian’s sword, inside me.”

“Spell, is it?” Liam had materialized out of nowhere, or so it seemed, and now he studied Graham with his too-knowing blue eyes. “You’re ensorcelled still, aren’t you? Don’t worry; I’ll keep it to myself. You think the Collar-making Fae can help un-ensorcell you?”

“I haven’t the faintest f**king idea,” Graham said. “I’m more worried about what the Fae bastards are up to with our Collars. They need to be stopped. If I die in the process, then I do.”

Liam’s Feline eyes narrowed as his gaze fixed hard on Graham. “Huh,” he said finally. Nothing more.

Graham looked behind Liam at Tiger. “Hey, crazy. How are you?”

Tiger took a moment to consider. “I’m well,” he said. He put a lot of conviction into the short answer.

Eric laughed. “Glad to hear it. Having a cub on the way changes a Shifter, doesn’t it?”

Tiger nodded once and gave Eric a faint smile. Scary, watching that big man smile. Graham had seen Tiger tear apart a human man without even trying—Graham had shot Tiger with two heavy bursts from a tranq rifle before Tiger even slowed down.

Having a cub on the way changes a Shifter, doesn’t it? Eric’s question hit Graham as Liam and Tiger moved off, and Graham and Eric started their bikes.

Graham remembered sharply how proud he’d been back in the day to have gotten his mate belly-full. He’d been so protective of Rita, and both had been happy and excited. I was so young, Graham thought. Sure the world would do anything I wanted it to.

He and Eric rode out of Laughlin, heading for the rugged hills that lined the river. On the other side of those would be Searchlight and a flat, almost alien-looking desert landscape that stretched for miles. Down on that desert floor, it was hard to guess that a glittering city full of people craving entertainment existed less than a hundred miles away.

The ride gave Graham plenty of time to remember Rita, how into her Graham had been, how proud of his unborn cub. Graham’s father had been clan leader then—seventy-five years ago. The old man had been hard-bitten and quick to punish, but he’d held the wolf pack—the extended clan—together. Out in the wilderness of Montana, that had been important. Graham, as his second, had been wild and untamable. Rita had been just as wild as Graham.