Pride Mates su-1 Read online

  Liam laughed. "Vixen." He tilted her head back and kissed her.

  Liam was still learning how to kiss. Which meant he experimented and explored, his tongue sliding all over hers while he gripped her buttocks with one firm hand. He tasted like the gum he'd been chewing, minty fresh.

  If anyone came in, they'd see his sun-browned hand planted against her gray business skirt, Kim letting a Shifter put his tongue down her throat. And they wouldn't know the half of it.

  "Stop," she whispered. "Don't do this to me."

  A gentle kiss to her forehead. "I'd never hurt you, Kim."

  "It's not pain I'm worried about." Kim rested her head against his chest. His skin was hot through the shirt, his heart pounding at breakneck speed. "It's me."

  "You're not making sense."

  "I know what I mean. You are seriously damaging my mental health."

  Liam broke away, but he was smiling. "You mean I make you spare."

  "If that means crazy, then yes. That too."

  There was a soft knock on the door, and Jeanne poked her head in. She carried in a tray of coffee, in real mugs, not Styrofoam cups. Kim turned from Liam, hoping she looked nonchalant.

  Jeanne set the coffee on the polished side table. "Abel is looking for you."

  "Abel?" For one crazy moment, Kim couldn't remember who he was. Ah, yes, buttoned-up, executive ex-boyfriend. The man who looked incredibly boring next to Liam. "What does he want?"

  "To ask you about the judge you had on that indecent exposure case. He's got a similar case before the same judge."

  "Oh." Business. Tips on what swayed a judge or pissed him off. Kim had won the case, because the man they'd arrested had had erectile dysfunction, verified by a doctor, when the witness had sworn the defendant had been quite, um, pointed. "Set up a meeting with Abel," Kim finished. "I'm busy until tomorrow."

  "He's here now."

  Before Kim could answer, Abel Kane pushed around the door and strode into the office. Kim had always thought him good-looking--tall, blond, well-dressed--but he was a lightweight compared to Liam. And there was no comparison at all in the sex department.

  "Can't this wait?" Kim asked him.

  Abel was looking at Liam in curiosity. "Kind of in a rush."

  Liar. He couldn't be paid to care about indecent-exposure cases; he'd used the excuse to come in here and eyeball Liam.

  "Why?" Kim asked in an annoyed voice. "Client can't keep his pants on?"

  Abel ignored her attempt at humor. "So the Collars really do fit all Shifters. What neck size would you say he has?"

  "He can hear you, Abel."

  Liam gave Abel his slow smile. "Top o' the morning to you."

  "Will you stop that?" Kim snapped.

  "Is he Irish?" Abel said in surprise. "I didn't know Shifters could be Irish."

  "The Shifters in my family go back generations in Ireland," Liam said. "We had a castle on a hill and everything."

  Abel continued to assess Liam like a scientist examining an interesting specimen. "Type up a report on him," Abel said to Kim. "It would be useful if we ever have to defend another Shifter."

  "Abel, will you please stop talking about him like he's not in the room?"

  "What's eating you, Kim? Is it the new guy you met or your time of the month?"

  What an idiot. Abel hadn't connected Kim "meeting someone" with the extremely virile Shifter standing in her office. Abel couldn't imagine for one second that she'd dump him for a Shifter.

  Liam's grin died. He'd been taking Abel for what he really was, a self-centered moron, but Liam's eyes narrowed at Abel's last statement. The predatory thing Liam did so well came out, proving that up until now, he'd been a wolf watching the sheep frolic.

  "The lady said she's busy." Liam's voice held a hint of growl.

  Without moving, Liam gained the attention of everyone in the room, plus Jeanne listening outside the door. A sheen of perspiration glistened on Abel's forehead.

  "Right. I'll call you later, Kim. About that judge."

  Abel couldn't turn around to walk out. Liam wouldn't let him. And yet, Liam did nothing but stand there, not moving, not touching the man. He hadn't even let his pupils go slitted.

  Abel had to back to the door, one step at a time, before he finally turned and fled. He ran into Jeanne, who was plastered solidly against the crack in the door. They tangled a moment; then Abel fled and Jeanne slammed the door, leaving Kim and Liam alone again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kim took Liam out for lunch. Liam enjoyed riding in her small car, watching her gray businesslike skirt riding up her thighs. As he'd guessed, she wore stockings with lacy tops, held in place by garters. Thinking about skimming off the skirt and looking at her in only the garter belt and stockings didn't do his rising erection any favors.

  What deflated his arousal was being turned away by the first restaurant they reached. The hostess took one look at Liam's Collar and got the manager.

  Kim stormed away, furious, but Liam didn't know why she was surprised. Shifters hadn't been welcomed in most places for twenty years.

  The next two restaurants wouldn't let them in, either. They ended up at a greasy spoon close to the north Austin Shiftertown, where the owners had figured out that Shifters paid for the food and didn't cause trouble, unlike the gang kids that roamed the nearby neighborhoods.

  "How can you stand it?" Kim fumed as she dumped sugar into her coffee. "I never realized how blatant it was."

  Liam blew on his coffee to cool it before he sipped. "Bans against Shifters? If you never witnessed it firsthand, I'm guessing you frequent places Shifters don't even bother trying to go to. But it doesn't much matter to me where I go. I don't really want to eat at a place where they don't serve Shifters."

  "Stop being so blase. They treat you like animals."

  "We are animals."

  "Be serious."

  "Kim, sweetheart, I've lived a hundred years under various and sometimes nasty conditions. This life isn't so bad. There are certain people I keep out of my bar too. I'd ban Lupines altogether, except Ellison and Glory would try to wipe the floor with my butt."

  "Be serious," she repeated.

  "What for?" Liam looked straight into her blue eyes, trying to calm her rage. He liked her anger, though, because it meant she cared. "The way people treat Shifters can be amusing."

  "Discrimination is never funny."

  "You're a righteous woman, Kim. I like that."

  "How can you just sit there?"

  "I usually sit when I'm drinking coffee. Or I lean against something. If I lie on my back, it goes down the wrong way." Kim started to rage, and Liam reached over and took her hand. "I'm sorry, love. I'm glad you care so much. It's sweet. But I'm not bothered."

  "How can you not be bothered to have people walk all over you? Abel acted like you were behind a viewing wall in a zoo."

  "Because they don't walk all over me." He glanced around, but they were relatively alone in their corner of the restaurant. "We don't ever let them. Do you understand?"

  "Not really."

  Liam lifted his coffee again. "Neither does Fergus. That's why he chose the Shiftertown out in the desert. He can't stand for anyone to bruise his ego."

  Kim sat in silence, running her finger around the rim of her cup. She spoke carefully, as though she had to choose each word. "What you mean is, you don't get upset when they won't let you into restaurants or forbid you having cable, because those things aren't important to you."

  "Now, you're catching on."

  "And Abel doesn't bother you because you don't value his opinion."

  "Not really. On the other hand, he says anything nasty like that to you again, I'll crush him."

  Kim had a sudden vision of a lion lying on a veldt in complete relaxation, swatting an obnoxious fly with his tail. The fly had Abel's head. The same lion would have cubs climbing all over him, which he'd turn and greet with a lick.

  "It's like we live in a different world from you," Kim said
. "And we don't even know it."

  "Something like that."

  The look she gave him was stunned. "I've been feeling sorry for you."

  "Don't worry about that, love." He grinned. "If last night was a pity fuck, I'm all for them."

  She turned bright red. "It wasn't. And don't talk about sex while I'm trying to get my head straight."

  "I was thinking about doing more than talking about it."

  "Stop." She pressed her palms flat on the table. "When you do that, I can't think."

  "I'm glad. Thinking, it's an overrated activity."

  "Liam, where does Fergus get all his money?"

  Liam managed to look blank. "Does Fergus have money?"

  "You know he does. There's that underground complex for one, and all that artwork for another. It didn't spring there overnight."

  "Shifters live a long time, and some are good with money."

  "But Shifters aren't supposed to have much money."

  "No." Liam took a calming sip of coffee. Trust Kim to pry at their most basic secrets, leaving Liam to have to think of ways of explaining. He didn't want to lie, not to the woman he'd chosen as mate, but at the same time she wanted to rip the lid off everything they desperately needed to keep protected.

  "How do you think we live, sweetheart?" he asked her, keeping his voice down. "We're only allowed low-wage jobs, and yet we're expected to feed our families, pay the rent. You don't think I live on what I make as a part-time bar manager, do you?"

  "I did notice you had a casual attitude about going to work. As in, you never go."

  "But I have the job. So the human committees can mark down on their sheets that I have employment and be happy that they've done well by me."

  "So you do have money?"

  "Now then, Kim, a man would think you didn't want him for his looks and his fine personality."

  Kim flushed again. "You obviously don't want me prying, but you expect me to be your mate--for life--without explaining what's really going on with you."

  Liam laid his hand lightly over hers. "I was teasing. Let's just say my family is provided for. As will be my mate and my offspring."

  "Offspring. Now we're back in dangerous territory."

  "I thought all women would want to know that their mate can take care of the cubs. But all right." Liam withdrew his hands. "Let's talk about Brian."

  Kim looked surprised at the change of subject. "All right, let's talk about why Fergus doesn't want me to save him. Why he wants Brian to plead guilty."

  "I wish I knew, love. Brian's no threat to Fergus, nowhere near challenging for leadership. Fergus has helped Brian and his family in the past. They aren't close, but not enemies."

  "Maybe Brian pissed him off somehow."

  "If he did, I never heard about it. I would have heard." It bothered him that he knew little of what had gone on between Brian and Fergus. Liam had always thought he had his finger firmly on the pulse of Shiftertown. He knew everyone, and they knew him. If a Shifter were in trouble, someone would tell him or Sean. That was the way it worked. In Brian's case, it hadn't.

  Kim said, "When I first came to see you, you told me you didn't know much about Brian."

  "I was trying to put you off. A human poking around in Shiftertown is dangerous."

  "But you took me to see his mother."

  "I liked you." That liking was growing into something far deeper, perilously deeper. The joy that flashed through him every time he saw Kim's beautiful eyes and sassy smile grew stronger each day. The thought should dismay him, yet it didn't.

  Mating could start off as nothing more than a drive to reproduce, and some Shifters never moved beyond that. But others, like his father and mother, his brother Kenny and mate Sinead, had developed a relationship that went beyond mating, even beyond love. It was a bond humans couldn't understand, and Liam felt it forging between himself and Kim.

  It was a heady feeling, and one he feared would turn into worse pain than any he'd ever experienced. The Collar's torture would be nothing compared to Kim breaking his heart.

  Kim frowned at her coffee. "I can't believe that now that I have good questions to ask Brian, you won't let me near him. You're not making my job easy." She looked up, an idea lighting her eyes. "But wait a sec, I can't believe Fergus wouldn't let Brian's mother talk to him."

  "Possibly. Clan rules are one thing; maternal ties are another. Sacred, you could say."

  "The same way Fergus can't mess with me if I'm your mate."

  Liam nodded. "He can't unless I let him."

  "Let him? What's all this 'let' shit? Shifters don't understand the term 'feminism,' do they?"

  "I wouldn't say that, love. Shifter females are no pushovers. But realize that Shifters have lived in small groups for thousands of years, the males protecting the females and the cubs. It's instinctive for us. This is the first time we've dwelled in close communities--we still had the clans, but we rarely saw others in our clan. It's taking us a little bit of time to adjust."

  She watched him in curiosity, one finger still rubbing the rim of her cup. Liam thought about her sweeping the same finger over his cock and instantly got hard again.

  "Where did you live before?" she asked. "I mean in Ireland, before you came to Shiftertown? You told Abel you had a castle."

  "A castle. That we did."

  "With battlements and everything?"

  "It was mostly a ruin by the time we moved in, but we fixed it up and made it livable."

  "What did the Irish think of you? This was before Shifters came out, right?"

  "Oh, they had all kinds of explanations for us. The ones inclined to believe in ghost stories thought we were the Fae, and that wasn't far off. Lucky for them, Shifters are ten times kinder than the Fae. Others thought we were former IRA come to hide out. The more skeptical just said we were crazy. But everyone knew we kept the village protected, so no one tried to drive us out."

  Kim was watching him now, a bit like her office colleagues had, but Liam didn't mind so much being subjected to her blue-eyed scrutiny. "Why did you come to Austin if you had a fine castle in Ireland, and everyone loved you?"

  Liam shrugged. "Once the traitorous bastard Shifter in England sold his story and demonstrated that he could shape-shift, Ireland got a little dangerous for us. People who needed money started taking bounties on Shifters, dead or alive. Kenny's mate, Sinead, was pregnant, and we couldn't risk her getting hunted. We heard that in this country, Shifters were being herded into camps rather than exterminated, but allowed to live in safety. So we packed up, and here we are."

  "But Sinead--Connor's mom--died anyway."

  "That she did." The sadness of her death had never gone away. "But if we'd stayed in Ireland, we'd likely have lost Connor too. He came early and was so weak. He needed quiet and medical care. Here, me and Dad, Sean and Kenny, we were able to look after him without having to worry about fighting off villagers with pitchforks."

  "Are you saying that you took the Collar to save him?"

  "Pretty much."

  "And then a feral Shifter killed Kenny." Kim's eyes flashed with rage. "Bastard."

  Liam's heart warmed at her anger. She understood. "May hell rot all feral Shifters."

  "Ferals are the ones who refused the Collar, right? Why do they kill other Shifters?"

  Liam's deep anger stirred. "Because in their eyes, we betrayed them. Instead of waiting to get slaughtered or watching our children die, we chose to sacrifice our freedom and band together. What infuriates them most is that we now live with other species of Shifters--which, to ferals, is even worse than letting humans believe they tell us what to do."

  "Safety in numbers?"

  "And strength." Liam smiled. "When we buried our cross-species hatred, we got stronger. We helped each other instead of fighting. Shifters were scattered and dying out. Now we're growing in number again. And growing stronger."

  "Are you telling me that Shiftertowns aren't so much places of captivity as they are fortresses? No matte
r what humans think they are?"

  "I'd say sanctuaries, but you're not far from wrong." He lost his smile. "Do you understand now why Fergus doesn't want a human learning all our secrets?"

  Kim glanced around, but still, no one had come to sit near them. The coffee shop was pretty much deserted, the lunch crowd not yet surging through Austin's streets. "Then why are you telling me?"

  A nonchalant shrug. "You're my mate. I tell you everything."

  "Sure you do. You're saying that you live in Shiftertowns for your own ends and that you don't care about the things humans keep you from having--like cable and new cars and high-paying jobs. I sort of understand that. But the Collars are still cruel."

  "They are. Invented by a half-Fae with no love for Shifters. The truth is Shifters weren't all that violent in the wild. We used to hunt animals to eat--now we get our meat from the supermarket. But then, same with humans. We fight among ourselves for dominance or to protect the pride, but no indiscriminate slaughter."

  "This from a man who killed a Shifter in my bedroom and was about to battle his clan leader yesterday morning."

  He shrugged. "Extenuating circumstances."

  "And you are supposed to hate other Shifter species?"

  "We've learned to suppress our prejudices for the health of us all. Mostly. I count Ellison my friend, but I can still call him dog breath."

  Kim's eyes sparkled. "What does he call you?"

  "Cat shit."

  She burst into nervous laughter. "I thought it would be 'Hairball.' "

  "Glory calls us that sometimes. That or 'Cock-sucking Feline Irish bastards'."

  Her brows rose. "And your father sleeps with this woman?"

  The relationship between Glory and Dylan was unexplainable. "I'm glad to see him take an interest," Liam said. "I give him a break. He lost his mate."

  "Your mom."

  "Yes." Liam didn't fight his memories of his mother anymore. He had for a long time, not wanting to examine the hole in his heart. Dylan's taking off for a year had, in retrospect, been a good thing, even though at the time Liam had been furious with his father. But he realized now that Dylan had needed room to grieve, and Sean, Liam, and Kenny had needed to figure out how to live without a guiding hand.