Maria, Ellison’s mate, had glared at Liam in pure fury at the accident scene, as though he ought to have prevented Ellison from getting shot. The shot had gone into Ellison’s leg, missing anything vital. If the assassin had planned it that way, he was a hell of a marksman.

Eric hadn’t been happy at the news of the second shooting, and finished by saying that the other leaders wanted a talk as soon as possible. They’d picked Dallas as the meeting place, because it had no Shiftertown but was close enough to Austin that Liam could get back quickly if needed.

“So the shites are wanting me to leave Tiger in this state and trek up to Dallas so we can sit around a table and talk about him? I don’t have any idea what’s going on with him. Tiger’s insisting Carly is his mate—what’s going to happen when she says no, and he won’t take that for an answer?”

“We’ll deal with it when the time comes,” Dylan, ever practical, said. “You can’t miss the meeting, son. They’ll send trackers down here to drag you there if necessary. You can’t blame them for worrying about Tiger.”

“I’m worried about Tiger. You think I’m not? How in the hell did he survive that, and then start to cure himself? What the f**k did those humans pump into him?”

“It’s getting on for time to find out.”

Liam shook his head. “Eric blew the lab to smithereens. We’ll never find anything in it now.”

“But people will remember.” Dylan touched his forehead. “It will be inside their heads. We find out who worked on the Tiger project, and we ask them.”

“Revealing his whereabouts and putting him in more danger.”

“We’ll just have to ask in a way they can’t refuse.”

Liam wasn’t sure what his father had in mind. Dylan had a ruthless streak that Liam had never found in himself—maybe Liam’s mum, Niamh, a mischievous lady but one with a heart of gold, had bred it out of him. But then, Dylan had had to hold the family together through good times and times of peril, times of near starvation and grief, and then bring them to America to take the Collar and live in a Shiftertown. The decisions Dylan had made would put ruthlessness into anyone.

At least Liam’s dad had found happiness again with Glory. Glory was a strong woman who didn’t mind sharing her opinions, but Dylan needed someone who wouldn’t take any shit from him. A lesser woman would be crushed by him, and Dylan knew that. They were happy together, which made Liam happy. His dad had gone through too much.

“Go to the meeting, son,” Dylan said. “Sean and I can hold the fort.”

“But can you hold Tiger?”

“Can you?” Dylan met Liam’s gaze with his, not looking away. Dylan might not be Shiftertown leader or leader of the Morrissey clan anymore, but that didn’t mean he’d weakened.

Liam scrubbed his hand over his face. “I don’t know, Dad. He does what I ask him, but I know it’s not because he’s submissive to me. He obeys because he chooses. The day he chooses not to, I won’t be able to stop him.”

“Then we’d better find out everything we can. Find out how to stop him, if that’s even possible.”

Liam punched his fists into the counter. He wished Kim were home, but his wife had a job that was important to her, and he didn’t want to pull her back home every time he needed a hug. He’d save up the need for when they were alone tonight, when he’d open her businesslike blouse button by button, slide off her skirt, indulge himself in the scent of her . . .

“I hope we don’t have to stop him permanently,” Liam made himself say. “I like Tiger, and he’s good with the cubs.”

“He is, aye,” Dylan said. “But he’s something we don’t understand. And if it happens one day that he’s not good with the cubs . . .”

“We’ll deal with it when the time comes,” Liam said, echoing his father’s words. He bent his head and studied the patterns on the counter, the old wooden surface stained with generations of coffee mugs and his daughter’s juice from this morning. “Shite, but I hate going to Dallas. I always get lost on those freeways.”

* * *

Walker Danielson woke up again flat on his back, his wrists taped together in front of him. He’d swum into and out of wakefulness since the Shifter had taken him down to the yard in front of his neat bungalow. Walker had woken again in the living room of one of the bungalows, surrounded by men in Collars who looked as though they wouldn’t mind tearing Walker apart and leaving bits of him around as a warning to others.

The desk jockeys in the Shifter Bureau thought Shifters were pushovers, contained and controlled. They congratulated themselves about it.

But Shifters were dangerous, and that Bengal tiger Shifter was even more dangerous than most. Walker’s commander knew it too. When Walker had made his report about the hospital to the Bureau, he’d been told to contact Dr. Brennan and suck up to the human woman Tiger seemed to like, and see if they could make her find out more about Tiger for them.

Carly Randal. She was pretty, friendly, polite—a well-brought-up Texas girl. She hadn’t bought Brennan’s bullshit for one minute. She’d recognized the danger in Walker, and knew her Shifter friends couldn’t let Walker go.

So now Walker woke up on the floor of yet another Shifter house, after the one called Dylan had shot tranquilizer into him, looking in no way worried about it. Dylan’s gaze had told Walker that if the decision had been up to him, he would have given Walker a lethal dose.

Walker assessed his situation through half-closed eyes while he lay as motionlessly as possible, so that anyone set to watch him wouldn’t realize he was awake.

They’d taken the duct tape from his mouth. That didn’t mean kindness—it meant they didn’t worry about who would hear him if he called out. He must be pretty deep into Shiftertown.

This living room was similar to the one in the Morrissey house. The ceiling was beamed, the windows wide casements, one open to let in the air, as hot as it was. This house was bigger than the other, the living room twice the size of the Morrisseys’. The back half of the room bore a long table with many chairs. A polished wooden staircase led upward, and a door near the table presumably led to a kitchen.

A lot of Shifters must live here, judging from the length of the table and the haphazard way the chairs had been pushed in. It looked like every chair was used.