Oh, hell.
“Do I need to pull over?”
“I don’t—oh God, yes. Pull over. Please.”
Anna jerked the car to the curb and shoved it into park as her friend threw open the door and emptied her stomach. She’d hold back Sera’s hair and get her ginger ale and crackers, and then they’d drive out to the middle of nowhere and see a witch doctor about a potential supernatural pregnancy.
Sadly, even the vomit was more interesting than the night she’d had planned.
I hate you, Patrick McNamara.
Alec’s truck was parked outside the Southeast council’s headquarters in the spot where Patrick usually put his motorcycle. This morning he took the place next to it, parking his bike before checking to make sure his anti-theft charm was still wrapped firmly around the left handlebar.
A quick survey of the other vehicles in the lot told him where to find New Orleans’ head wolf. He took the stairs past his own apartment and stopped in front of Andrew’s door, knocking as he stripped off his helmet.
Kat answered before he unzipped his jacket, and Patrick fought the stab of pain that always hit when he saw her. Fought it harder than he should have, because Kat was an empath, and she’d
know
it hurt him to look at her. More than six months and it still hurt, knowing she’d been the last one to see his brother, knowing she’d watched him die…
His pain reflected in her eyes, but she didn’t say anything. She had, once. The first time they’d come face to face, when he’d been recently injured and she’d been recently tortured. He’d told her then that he didn’t want to hear her apologies, didn’t want to blame her.
She was the only friend of his brother’s he knew. The only link to Ben that existed in his sad little life, so he welcomed the pain, the connection, and smiled at her. “Looking for the boss man.”
Kat pulled the door wide as she rolled her eyes. “God, don’t call him that where he can hear it. His Majesty, King Alec of the Shapeshifters, is still feeling very pleased with himself.”
“Ignore her.” Andrew came up behind her and steered her around. “She’s not suffering the male ego lightly today. How’d it go last night?”
“It didn’t.” Patrick stepped inside. “Anna beat me to the kill. Don’t know how she knew.”
“Huh.” Andrew raised his voice. “Alec, did you set Anna on the Trumaine thing?”
A chair scraped in the other room, and Alec poked his head around the corner. “No. Did she catch wind of it?”
“Yeah.” Patrick followed Kat and Andrew as they headed back to the table. “She’s got damn good contacts in the shapeshifter community. Most of mine are magical, so I never hear about things as quickly as she does.”
“See?” Andrew dropped into a chair. “It doesn’t make sense not to have her helping out, especially since we don’t have to worry about pissing off the rest of the Conclave.”
“You’re right.” Alec braced his elbows on the table, and he looked suitably tired for a man who had helped dismantle the shapeshifter world order. Most people were still trying to decide if the change had made things better or worse.
Patrick had spent most of his life dodging the ruling body that governed the largest group of shifters in the country, but at least the Conclave had provided some damn oversight, however unreliable. The new way was different, messy. Quality of life was going up in the Southeast now that Alec had absolute control, but out in the rest of the country…
Well, not all leaders looked as tired as Alec, and their people suffered for it.
As if he could sense Patrick’s thoughts, Alec frowned. “What? Something else?”
Not the time to blunt the truth. “It’s a mess out there. You guys might need to be prepared for a whole lot of supernaturals picking up and trying to find a home in your territory. And that’ll include people like the rogue wolf that attacked Trumaine.”
Andrew folded his hand around Kat’s. “It’s the same thing we’ve been encountering wherever we go. We were just saying so.”
“I can’t run them down fast enough.” Kat sounded tired too, and sad. The turned wolves had become her crusade, and every time one had to be put down, she took it personally. “We need people like you and Anna on this full time. People with contacts, connections, who can find the ones that won’t talk to us.”
They were all so clean they squeaked when they moved too fast. Andrew and Alec might have the nerves of stone-cold mercenaries, but they looked like what they were—men who enforced laws, even if they weren’t of the human variety. Most of Patrick’s best informants would take one look at either of them and go so far down the rabbit hole he’d have to wait for their kids to come back out. “I told you I’d help out.”
Andrew eyed him. “And if helping out means working with Anna?”
“Then I work with Anna.” Hell, it might help. At least then she couldn’t run away. “She might not feel the same way, though.”
“I think she’ll get the job done, and so will you.”
Alec leaned forward, intense and serious, and Patrick had been around enough shapeshifters to know the body language was instinct, not intent. It didn’t stop him from tensing as Alec spoke in a low voice. “I want to know if you’ll do more than take jobs. I’ve been talking to Andrew, trying to figure out if Anna would be willing…”
That sounded fucking ominous. Patrick looked at Andrew. “Willing to what?”
“Keep an ear to the ground,” he answered. “Like Kat said, people don’t talk to us. But you and Anna have the right contacts, and you run in the right circles. You’re in a position to know the things
we
need to know.”
“I’m Alec’s NSA,” Kat said. “He needs a CIA.”
Oh, yeah. Nothing big. “That’s something I need to sleep on.”
“Fine,” Alec said, pushing his chair back. “Think about it, because I’m talking a real job, with real pay. Kat, walk me downstairs, would you?”
“Sure.”
When they were gone, Patrick raised both eyebrows. “Are you guys serious about this?”
Andrew tapped his fingers on the table and shrugged. “Alec never jokes when it comes to this stuff.”
“And Anna?”
“What about her?”
“Have you asked her about this crazy idea?”
Andrew looked away. “Not yet. Kat thought we should talk to you first.”
Kat was sweet—and sometimes a meddlesome snoop. “There’s nothing going on with me and Anna. We don’t always get along personally, but that’s never stopped us professionally.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Patrick.” The wolf leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table. “I know you’re a pro because you’ve proven it time and time again. Maybe there’s nothing good going on with you and Anna, but even that’s not nothing. Not really.”
“Look, you’re protective of Anna because the two of you had a thing once upon a time.” A thing Patrick might have been able to get nice and jealous over, if Andrew weren’t around-the-bend crazy in love with Kat. “The woman can take care of herself, okay? She’d eat me alive.”
“No,” Andrew denied, certain and sure. “She really, really wouldn’t.”
“She already has, man. That’s why there’s nothing there.” Patrick plastered on his cocky, joking little smile and patted his chest. “Good and broken.”
The other man frowned. “So is the not-getting-along-personally going to be harder for you than working alone?”
So much for joking his way out of the conversation. You couldn’t pull that shit on shapeshifters any more than you could Kat and her empathy—and Patrick was getting really fucking tired of these people and their impossible, unavoidable
caring
. In the real world, people got what they could out of you and left it alone. No long, tortured discussions about his feelings.
New Orleans wasn’t the real world. It was the supernatural Brady Bunch, and it was making him claustrophobic. “Lighten up, Andrew. If you don’t trust me, ask your girlfriend. She can tell you I’m fine.”
“I already did that.”
Shit. “And she said…?”
“She said you
seem
fine, all things considered. But you haven’t been out pounding the pavement with a lady who hates you yet, either.”
That made him flinch. “If it comes to that, I’ll do what needs doing. First we’ve got to get Julio married off.” Which should give him plenty of time to force the issue with Anna, one way or another, while they were trapped in a hotel together for twenty-four liquor-soaked hours.
“Fair enough, but watch yourself.” Andrew rose. “There
are
people who’d eat you for hurting Anna. The bride-to-be, for starters. Sera’s fiercely protective.”
“I see.” It explained the edge that sometimes accompanied Sera’s overly forceful friendliness. For a sweet little submissive shapeshifter, the girl could throw some pointed looks. “That’d be awkward for the groom, I guess.”
“Maybe.” He retrieved a beer from the refrigerator and tossed it to Patrick. “I’m not trying to tell you how to live, man. All I’m saying is…I’ve been there. I’ve been the jackass who broke a girl’s heart. It’s lonely.”
An unalienable fact. It settled in his gut, the reminder that the only person in the world who had really known him was gone. “They’re her people, not mine.
You’re
her people. I know how it works.”
There was only one thing Andrew could say, one thing written all over his face. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.” Patrick twisted the cap off his beer and raised it. “I don’t want to break her heart. For her sake, and Julio’s and Sera’s sakes, and for the future of the little covert agency Kat’s trying to start. I promise to do my best to play nice this week.”
Andrew drained his beer and changed the subject. “How’s your back?”
Another unwelcome topic. Patrick shifted in his chair and winced at the slight tug. His scarred skin still didn’t move the same way, might not feel right for years, but at least he could answer honestly. “Better. Healed, according to the doctors. Most of the real damage is cosmetic.”
“What’s the Ink Shrink had to say about it?”
“That perfection takes time. He wants to wait a few more months before messing with my ink.” It rolled off his tongue like the truth, because he needed it to be. Because he wasn’t ready to admit reality to anyone, not even himself.
Andrew stared him down for a moment but only changed the subject again. “Got your tux yet?”
“No. I’ve been avoiding it.” Patrick held up one arm and stared at the tattoos climbing from his wrist up under the edge of his T-shirt sleeve. “You should see the looks they give me in fancy places like that.”
“Some people are good at passing as fancy. Then there’s the rest of us.”
“You’re Captain America next to me, buddy.”
Andrew smiled and picked at the label on his empty bottle. “Once upon a time, maybe, but not anymore. That’s Julio’s gig now.”
Compared to Patrick, they were all model citizens. “Why? Because he’s clean cut and getting hitched in a couple days?”
“And about to own a couple of big-ass houses, et cetera. He’s the golden boy of the Southeast council, even if he
is
marrying a coyote. The old-timers think he might just save their way of life,” Andrew explained. “They think it because they don’t know him.”
The pieces clicked into place. “Because he was born a wolf.”
“Now you’re catching on.”
Shapeshifter politics gave shapeshifters a headache. They exhausted Patrick. “Well, to the rest of us, you’re a good man. It’s nice to see Kat happy with someone who’s going to take care of her.”
“Yeah.” Judging from the man’s expression, he knew talking about Kat hurt. “I think Julio wanted to see you before you went anywhere.”
It felt like a dismissal. Andrew’s way of inviting him to leave before Kat came back upstairs and looked at him with those big blue eyes and Patrick drowned her in the pain of missing his brother. Andrew might have broken the girl’s heart once, but he was going to make damn sure it never happened again.
At least Patrick knew where he stood—and where he’d end up, if he ever hurt Kat with more than grief he couldn’t control. “I’ll check in with him,” Patrick said as he rose. “Tell Kat to call if she needs me, huh?”
“I will.”
A lie, but a polite one. Figuring he’d well and truly worn out his welcome, Patrick collected his helmet and jacket and retreated. Not to Julio’s apartment, but back to his own, where he locked the door and raided the nearly empty fridge for another beer.
He had to get out of this building. Out of this town, and this mockery of a life. He didn’t fit here, playing at being a part of a team, pretending he belonged. Julio had fought to make a place for him, but Patrick could have Julio’s back without breathing down his neck twenty-four/seven, especially now that the man was about to get married and settle down.
Patrick would make it through the wedding. He owed Julio that much, for the number of times the man had patched his battered ass up after he’d taken on a fight he wasn’t strong enough to win. He’d stand there in a tux, looking like a fool…
And then he’d find a job. With Anna, without her, he didn’t fucking care anymore, as long as he wasn’t trapped inside four walls with a bunch of crusaders who rarely got their hands dirty.
Someone had to do the wrong thing for the right reasons, after all, and he belonged in the gray area between the heroes and the villains.