“And how can we be sure he’ll understand whether someone deserves it? Or when that line won’t be clear for him?”

“He knows.” Carly met Liam’s gaze without fear, and she spoke with conviction. “You could trust him, Liam. Let him go. Let him be free.”

Liam let out another long breath. “Love, if the humans find out I’ve lost a Shifter, hell will rain down upon me.”

Carly had no sympathy, not anymore. “Liam,” she said, “suck it up.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Liam stared at Carly in shock, then he started to laugh. “Are you related to my wife, by chance? When Kim knows she’s right, can she ever scold.”

“Are you saying I’m right?”

“I’m saying you can shake your finger in a man’s face and get your point across.” Liam stood up. “Sean,” he called, “bring back the others, will you?”

Sean turned around from the edge of the brush, moonlight shimmering on the sword slung across his back. “Why? Do we know where he’s gone?”

“No, we don’t. Go get Marlo, will you? Pass on the word that we’re going home.”

Sean stopped in surprise. “We are? You didn’t answer me why.”

“We’re letting Tiger go.”

Carly jumped up from her seat, shedding the blanket. “Thank you, Liam.”

“Go?” Spike snarled out of the darkness and then appeared, stark naked from a shift and covered with tattoos. “Are you saying you brought us all the way out here, away from our cubs and mates, to hunt him, and now we’re going to let him go?”

“Yes,” Liam said calmly. He shot Carly an amused glance. “Suck it up, Spike.”

“Shit.” Spike turned around and walked away, his back as covered with tatts as his front. The dragon across his back was impressive.

“I’m thinking Iona won’t be best pleased,” Sean said.

“I know,” Liam answered. “I expect I’ll get more scolding from her. But Carly has shamed me. Tiger needs to be left alone, without interference from any of us, to be his own . . . tiger. Besides, you think we have a snowball’s chance of finding him when he’s alone and not wanting to be found? If any Shifter can take care of himself in the wild, it’s Tiger.”

“Shite,” Sean said softly. “I’m already worried about him.”

“Me too. But I have the feeling that if he wants to be found again, he will be.”

“Damn it.” Sean started to walk away, off to find the others.

“Sean?” Carly called after him. “Rory? Really? He didn’t like the name.”

Sean turned around, walking backward while he spoke. “A bit of a joke.”

Carly held her thumb and forefinger up, half an inch apart. “A little bit.”

“’Twas what Andrea said.” Sean chuckled as he turned around again and vanished into the desert.

* * *

Marlo, a lanky man with thin hair who looked every bit as dangerous as any drug runner, flew them back to an airstrip outside of Austin in his small plane. All except Walker.

“I’m going to keep looking for him,” Walker told Carly in his quiet way before she let the others take her to the plane.

Carly stared at him in dismay and anger. “I just talked Liam into letting him go. Why can’t you leave him alone?”

“Because I need to ask him for his help. If he can give it.”

“Help for what?”

Walker gave her an evasive look. “I have unfinished business. Tiger might be able to help me, I don’t know. Not until I find him.” When Carly continued to glare, Walker spread his hands. “I can’t hurt him, Carly. Not even with this.” He patted the pistol on his belt. “He can kill me a damn sight faster than I could him.”

That was true. Carly dropped her anger, stepped to Walker, and touched a kiss to his hard cheek. “If you find him, tell him I love him.” She sank back and squeezed his hands. “And don’t go AWOL.”

“Hope I don’t have to.”

Walker left her then to start up the SUV. He drove away, the headlights cutting through the darkness. His red taillights grew smaller and smaller, but could be seen for many miles, glowing back at them.

* * *

What was normal? Carly couldn’t find it anymore.

Normal wasn’t waking up alone in her house, brushing her teeth, donning her cute dresses, and driving to work. It wasn’t collecting money for her wrecked car from her insurance company and having Althea help her pick out a new car. It wasn’t pizza after work at what Zoë called the house of the Weird Sisters, or even meeting up with Liam’s mate, Kim, at a coffee house and catching up on how the Shifters were doing.

They’d never heard anything from Tiger. After a week, Walker returned, came to Carly’s house, and told her he’d never found a trace of him. While Carly was glad for Tiger’s sake, her hunger to hear something of him turned to stark sorrow. She knew she’d never see Tiger again.

Walker returned to his unit to be chewed out by his commander, because the tiger-man had disappeared while Walker had been on leave. Liam Morrissey was called in to the Shifter Bureau and questioned, and his house searched, but finally the Bureau concluded that Liam was as stumped as they were. Tiger had vanished, and Liam had no idea how he’d gotten out or where he was now.

That at least was true. Carly heard all this from Kim on one of their coffee visits, but it didn’t make her feel better.

Carly’s heart remained like lead in her chest, and about four weeks after Tiger’s disappearance, her morning sickness started, confirming Tiger’s claim that Carly was pregnant. Her doctor doubly confirmed it, but Carly decided not to announce the pregnancy just yet.

Yvette’s car, fortunately, had still been in the parking lot, intact, when Carly had returned to Austin, and Carly had driven it to Armand’s, leaving before she could do more than give the stunned Yvette the keys. Carly took the car she and Tiger had liberated to the Barton Creek Square mall and left it in a heavily crowded parking lot, walked away from it, and took a taxi home.

She’d thought Yvette would tell Armand to kick Carly out on her ass for taking her car and bolting in the middle of a busy workday, but Yvette never did. Carly didn’t find out why until she went to work one morning about a month after her return, fighting her morning sickness with soda crackers and weak tea. In an hour or two, however, she knew she’d be ravenous.