Glory was easy to spot, sitting on a barstool in her black leather and lacy top, chatting to the human bartender and the Shifter males around her. She saw Andrea and lifted her bottle of beer in greeting.
“Hey, Andrea. Did Dylan send you running after me?”
“No.” Andrea edged against the bar and gave Glory a hard stare. “I came running after you on my own. What are you doing here?”
“Enjoying myself. Who’s your friend?” Glory gave the human who’d followed Andrea her widest, most tooth-filled smile. “He looks edible.”
“He and his friends gave me directions.”
“Oh, he has friends, does he?”
“Glory.”
The young man looked from Glory to Andrea, and his face changed. “Aw, f**k, you’re a Shifter.”
Andrea stifled a sigh. “I never said I wasn’t.”
“Damn it, I was trying to help you.”
“Why were you?” Andrea fixed him with a stare. “Why didn’t you want me to come in here?”
The guy clammed up. He wasn’t good at hiding things; humans often weren’t. Something about this bar scared him, though Andrea couldn’t tell whether it was simply because it was a Shifter place or something more sinister was going on.
He gave her an ugly glare worthy of Nate the tracker. “Forget it, bitch. It’s your funeral.” He spun and strode away.
“We need to go,” Andrea began, but Glory clamped her hand on Andrea’s arm.
“No,” she said in a hard voice, though she kept smiling. “You need to stay.”
Andrea stopped. “Why?”
Glory leaned close, bathing Andrea in heavy perfume. “Because there are some very interesting conversations in here.”
“Meaning?”
“Just listen.”Andrea slid onto a barstool and signaled for the bartender to bring her a beer. Good Shifter hearing let Andrea eavesdrop while accepting the cold bottle the bartender put in front of her. If she’d been in her Lupine form, her ears would have been twisted hard behind her.
A table full of Felines had the most interesting conversation, and Glory nodded ever so slightly when Andrea focused on snatches of their talk. They were confident, Andrea thought. They must recognize Glory—she stood out, even for a Shifter—but they didn’t seem to worry about her overhearing. The Felines talked for a while, and Andrea went cold. Something was going on, and it didn’t take her long to figure out what.
When Andrea pulled Kim’s car into the driveway an hour or so later, it was to face three Morrissey males: Sean, Dylan, and Liam. They stood with arms folded, right in front of the car, frowning like a tribunal ready to pronounce sentence.
Glory parked her own little car next to her house and leisurely exited her vehicle. Andrea got out of the Mustang and closed the keys in her hand, ready to return them to Kim. Without acknowledging the three watching men, she started for the porch, but Sean stepped in her way. His blue eyes glittered under the black slash of his brows, and his face was hard with anger.
“I take the blame, Sean,” Dylan said behind Andrea. “I made her worry about Glory.”
Andrea saw movement inside the house. Kim and Connor watched from the other side of the living-room window, making no move to greet Andrea.
Andrea looked from Sean to his brother and father. “What is this?”
“What did you think you were doing, lass?” Sean said, his voice deceptively soft. “You didn’t tell Liam, or Dad, or even Ellison where you were going. Instead, you coerced Kim into helping you and told her to keep quiet.”
Andrea stared at him. “I didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to leave Shiftertown. Even the humans are all right with me doing that.”
“Alone.” Sean’s voice was a growl. “When humans have been shooting Shifters.” He was furious, his eyes blue white, but he only stirred her own anger.
“First of all, Sean, I can pass for human. Second, Glory was out there, and I wanted to bring her home before she got hurt. Third, I couldn’t tell you about it, because I didn’t notice you anywhere around today. Where the hell have you been?”
“Colorado.”
Andrea stopped. “What? Why?”
“Taking care of business.”
“What business? And anyway, how did you get there and back so fast?”
“There’s this fine invention called an airplane.”
“Which Shifters aren’t allowed on. That’s why I had to take that stupidly long bus ride to get here.”
Kim opened the front door, despite Connor’s obvious attempts to pull her back. “Leave her alone, Sean. You’re getting to be as bad as Liam.”
Glory strode unapologetically up the porch steps, passing Dylan without a word. “Instead of snarling at Andrea, you all need to hear what we have to say.” She walked past Kim and into the house. Kim opened the door all the way, inviting the rest of them in.
Sean’s anger tasted fiery as he led Andrea inside. He was rarely angry like this, but when he’d returned to Austin and found Andrea gone off alone, all reason had left his brain. When Kim, worried, had volunteered the information that Andrea had left to look for Glory, Sean’s feral rage had taken over. Liam had tried to hold Sean against a wall to keep him from charging off to tear apart the city, but Sean had twisted free of Liam and slammed out of the house just as Andrea had driven up in Kim’s car.