Brother. Ah. Zander relaxed but only slightly. Rae and Colin might have been raised as brother and sister, but they weren’t related by blood. Weren’t even the same species.
Colin was holding on to Rae pretty tightly—but that didn’t necessarily mean anything more than family affection. Shifters liked embracing for comfort and support.
Colin stretched out a hand in greeting to Zander without letting go of Rae. “I thought bears didn’t have last names.”
“Everyone says that.” Zander grasped Colin’s wrist and Colin’s fingers bit down on Zander’s forearm with strength. The usual Shifter greeting was an embrace, even a wary one, but the arm squeeze was accepted when the Shifter’s hands were full.
“So my dad dumped Rae on you, did he?” Colin asked as he released Zander. He had a wide smile and dark eyes, his light brown hair the same shade as his father’s. Mountain lions who’d raised a wolf cub. Shiftertowns made weird combinations happen. “I feel for you, man,” Colin was saying. “She’s wild, is our Rae. No wonder you’re rushing her back home.”
“Shut it, Colin.” Rae gave him a light punch but she had so much happiness in her eyes Zander felt like he was the one who’d been smacked in the gut.
Zander broke in. “I’m rushing her home because there’s shit going on your dad needs to know about.”
“Like how the Coast Guard was chasing you around?” Colin’s smile left him and his eyes narrowed. “We heard about that.” His protectiveness closed around Rae like a fist.
Zander didn’t ask how he’d known. Reports of Shifters being pursued in Alaskan waters would have reached Eoin somehow. Shifter leaders had a lot of resources.
“We need to go,” Zander said impatiently. “I hope you didn’t broadcast that Rae was coming back. I don’t want hostile Shifters waiting for us in your Shiftertown.”
“I think Dad knows how to take care of Rae,” Colin said. “Oh, and that Lupine you wanted from Austin is on his way. He thought it was a good idea to tell Dad he was coming.”
Rae finally stepped away from her brother and reached for her backpack and sword. “What Lupine?” she asked Zander.
Her eyes held annoyance that Zander hadn’t told her about all the arrangements he’d made before they’d left the boat. However, Zander didn’t want to discuss it out here in front of Colin, Marlo, and whatever Shifters could be listening. Eoin and her brothers might have kept it quiet Rae was returning, but Shifters were good at knowing what was going on.
“This is Carson,” Zander said instead of answering. “He’s a bounty hunter but I’m vouching for him. Ezra’s a Lupine who needs somewhere to chill for a while. And he needs a mate. Introduce him around, all right?”
He started walking to the only vehicle on the edge of the field, a black pickup with a four-door cab.
“What Lupine?” Rae asked as she hurried to catch up with Zander.
Zander kept walking. “Guy I know who can look at the sword. I was trying not to say it too loud.”
Rae sent him her gray glare. “In that case, you could have told me before we got here.”
“I didn’t have a chance. Besides, you’re cute when you yell at me.”
Rae gave him a snarl, pushed past him, and ran to the truck. Watching her hips sway as she went wasn’t a bad thing at all.
* * *
Coming home for Rae was a mixture of joy and trepidation. Joy as Colin drove around familiar corners where she’d spent the last twenty years of her life among her loving family. Trepidation because she knew many of the Shifters here wouldn’t welcome her back. They’d watched her drive out with relieved eyes, glad the embarrassment to Shiftertown was departing.
Zander had been completely right to keep it quiet about the broken sword. He’d been on his cell phone almost constantly before Miles had put in near the seaplane, talking to the Goddess only knew who. He really did have connections all over the place, Rae realized. She was starting to think that if he decided to fly to Mars, he’d know people with rockets that would take him here.
It made Rae wonder what Zander would do once he finished training her. Go back to Alaska to fish? Find a new place to hide out? Trek around the world, healing Shifters hither and yon? And who would help him recover when he took the Shifters’ pain into himself?
Rae’s heart began to burn. Zander was compelling, not to mention hot-bodied, and he’d no doubt find plenty of female companionship along the way.
The thought made growls roll around Rae’s throat. Female Shifters, especially Lupines, were possessive of the males they chose. Nothing was more ferocious than a she-wolf protecting her mate.
Is that how I think of him? Rae wondered with a jolt. Her potential mate? I need more cold showers, she decided.
Zander sat behind her in the pickup’s cab during the ride to Shiftertown but his nearness made her shiver. She tried to push away remembered sensations of Zander on the bunk with her in her cabin and kissing her on the deck, but it wasn’t easy. Even pulling up in front of the two-story house she shared with her dad and brothers couldn’t quite clear her mind.
But she was home. Rae leapt from the pickup before Colin had completely stopped the truck, and ran to the man waiting on the porch.
“Daughter.” Eoin’s love for Rae surrounded her as he lifted her into his arms. “I missed you, sweetheart.”
“Missed you too, Dad.” Rae clung to him, her eyes stinging.
It didn’t matter that Eoin wasn’t her biological father or that she was Lupine and he Feline. Love transcended boundaries like that. Eoin was her true dad and this was Rae’s home.
She hoped her other brother, Logan, would come to greet her too, but she didn’t see him. Eoin answered her question before Rae could ask. “Logan’s out looking into something for me. He’ll be back soon.”
“What?” Rae asked, worry trickling through her happiness. Running a Shiftertown was never easy. “Is anything the matter?”
Eoin shrugged, but Rae saw the concern in his eyes. “Some of the Shifters want to hold another Choosing.”
Rae’s heart constricted. The clan leaders in this Shiftertown were arrogant and ruthless—traits that made for a good clan leader. But if they opposed the Shiftertown leader, things could get sticky. If she confessed she’d broken the sword, the shit would truly hit the fan.