"You can call her if you don't want to go to Shiftertown," Ronan said. "Her card's in my front pocket."

Ronan's hands were locked behind his back and staying there. Elizabeth took a step forward. The female cop didn't say or do anything, just watched, ready to take down both of them if they tried anything stupid.

Elizabeth's hair smelled good. So did the rest of her. Ronan scented Elizabeth's residual fear from the robbery, overlaid with the warm goodness of her, and behind that, concern for someone else. Layers of scent that told him all about her.

He liked how she'd put the red streaks in her hair. Defiance--that's what it meant. Elizabeth seemed like a good businesswoman, following the rules, but those little streaks said she could be bad if she wanted to be. Or maybe they were a reminder of a time when she hadn't walked the straight and narrow. Ronan thought he wouldn't mind a glimpse of the bad-ass Elizabeth.

Elizabeth dipped her fingers into Ronan's front pocket. She did it quickly and competently, not touching Ronan at all as she plucked out Kim's business card. The move was practiced, as though she'd gotten good at taking things out of people's pockets. Skill was the word. Interesting.

"I'll call her," Elizabeth said, palming the card. "But I'm coming down to the station with you," she said to the cop. "He helped me, and it's not fair he's getting arrested when some gang kid tried to kill me."

The female cop shrugged. "Suit yourself. Come on, Shifter."

Ronan winked as the cop took his arm in a practiced grip and shoved him out the door. "I like you, human woman," he said to Elizabeth. "See you downtown."

*** *** ***

Elizabeth called Mabel, reassuring her sister that everything was all right, then reached Kim Fraser on the phone and told her what had happened. Elizabeth drove her small pickup downtown, following the cops to the jail and courthouse. She found it ironic that she had to leave her truck in a crappy lot with a sign saying Park at your own risk, while the arrests for the night were taken safely around to the front door.

Inside the station, Elizabeth gave her official statement to the female cop, then was told to stay in the waiting room until someone came to take her to Ronan's hearing. She hadn't thought the hearing would be tonight, not this late, but apparently Shifter Division processed Shifters as swiftly as possible.

So Elizabeth waited. Around her, arrests for the night were brought in, anything from indecent exposure to grand theft auto to assault with a deadly weapon. This was the heart of Texas, in a well-populated county, and the arrestees ranged from men with shaggy hair, baseball caps, and strong South Texas accents; to Spanish-speaking kids who glared in fearful defiance; to brightly dressed prostitutes with hair of every shade and shorts cut high up their butts.

Elizabeth had never been in this particular police station, but they all gave her the creeps. The smell was the same--burned coffee, body odor, and floor cleaner overlaid with stale cigarette smoke. Smoking was no longer permitted inside, but the smoke clung to the clothes of people who went in and out.

Never again, she'd vowed. For Mabel's sake. Elizabeth had half-feared that the female cop would run a check on Elizabeth's name, but then, even if she had, the woman would have found nothing. Elizabeth Chapman had no criminal record, and no connection to anyone with a criminal record. Elizabeth had made sure of that.

After a long time, a tall black bailiff stopped in front of Elizabeth and said in a booming voice, "Ms. Chapman? Come with me."

Elizabeth sprang up and followed the man, half-running to keep up with his long-legged stride. "Where are we going?"

"The Shifter's hearing," was all he would say.

The bailiff led Elizabeth through a door and down a hall that was eerily deserted. At the end of this, he unbolted and unlocked a steel door that had to be a foot thick. He took Elizabeth into a short hall, maybe five feet in length, which had no other door but the one at its far end.

Why was Elizabeth reminded of zoo cages? The kind with two doors and a space in between, where an animal could be trapped if it tried to escape. The bailiff unlocked the second door, also of foot-thick steel, and ushered Elizabeth into a long, narrow courtroom.

It was a courtroom unlike any Elizabeth had seen, and unfortunately she'd seen quite a few during her colorful adolescence. The judge's bench, at the far end, was raised six feet off the floor and caged in front by floor-to-ceiling iron bars. A woman in judge's robes was just coming through a door right behind the bench. Bench, door, and judge were unreachable by anyone on the courtroom floor.

Ronan sat in a large metal chair below the bench, at a right angle to the rest of the room. His hands were now shackled in front of him; a chain between the shackles hooked them to a ring on the heavy chair, which in turn was bolted to the floor.

The courtroom was unadorned, no paneling on the walls, no heavy wooden tables or carved benches, just a generic linoleum floor, white walls, and two plain metal benches in the front of the room. A nervous man in a suit, probably the prosecutor, occupied the right bench. A man and woman sat together on the bench on the left.

The woman was human, with short dark hair, a business jacket and skirt, and a briefcase. Her buttoned-up look screamed lawyer, though she wore sandals on bare feet instead of hose and shoes.

The man next to her was a Shifter, no doubt about it. He had dark hair, eyes of incredible blue, and a Collar around his neck. He lounged on the bench, watching everyone in the room, including the judge, with an air of command.

Most people believed that Shifters posed a threat to humans, and looking at this man, Elizabeth finally understood why. Ronan was huge and full of muscle, but this Shifter, while nowhere near as big as Ronan, exuded a strength of presence that spoke of power. No matter that he wore a Collar, he could be deadly, and he wanted everyone around him to remember that.

Ronan saw Elizabeth and lifted his shackled hands in greeting. He looked the calmest of anyone in the room, no matter that they were treating him like a dangerous animal.

Granted, Elizabeth had seen Ronan as a big, scary bear, and even now, with his buzzed hair, glittering eyes, and muscles bulging out the Red-Hot Lover T-shirt, he still looked frightening. But he gave her a nod--in thanks, she guessed, for calling Kim and then showing up herself.

The tall bailiff locked the door, the clang of the keys loud. The judge hammered once with her gavel. "Counsels approach the bench."