“What are they doing here?” I whispered to Kelly as I joined a small group of people I knew.
“No idea,” Kelly replied. “I think they’re planning to make some kind of statement in a minute.”
The shapeshifters’ Councils were an odd mix of formal and informal, bylaws and practices that had grown out of a combination of human governance and animal pack law.
Add to that the fact that every area in the country big enough to have its own Council also included a large enough number of shifters to mean that the composition of each Council was different, and it was possible to see how the shifters had ended up with a patchwork of barely agreed-upon guidelines.
Frank and his wolves knew this as well as anyone, and I was willing to bet they were counting on it.
Really, when it came right down to it, the Councils were determined by their members. If Frank and his wolves could convince enough of our people that I didn’t belong, then they could arrange to have me kicked out.
Lucky for me, that was never going to happen while Janice was around.
“Okay, everyone,” Janice called out. “The wolves from our own Council’s pack have asked to speak and, in turn, to be given the opportunity to introduce a guest speaker.” Her eyes had turned brown—she was almost as irritated with Frank and his crew as I was. But she was a better politician than I was and managed to keep that irritation under wraps.
One of the local packs’ alphas stepped to the front of the room—for a weekday afternoon, Janice’s living room, usually more than big enough for any Council business, was full to bursting. If Frank followed through with his threat and actually called a National Council meeting, we would be forced to move to one of the outdoor venues.
It would be better that way, really, if only in order to keep humans from snooping around in too much of our business.
As I watched the jostling at the front of the room while the wolves prepared whatever they had to say, I realized how quickly I had adapted to thinking of “us” and “our pack.”
It hadn’t been that much time since I’d assumed I was the only shifter in the world.
I was still the only adult lamia I knew of, but there were plenty of other shifters.
The local werewolf Alpha opened by blustering about some arcane point of pack law as it translated to the Council and I wasted several minutes trying to follow it. I hadn’t noticed when Kade entered the room, but his scent wafted over me before I saw him.
Just the smell of him brought a smile to my face—clean and spicy and always drawing me toward him.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” He looked oddly worried as he came to stand next to me.
“I don’t want to miss what the wolves have to say.”
“I’ll make sure we get back in time for anything important—come to the kitchen with me for a couple minutes?”
“Okay.” I followed him, curious about what might possibly be more important than whatever the werewolves were cooking up now.
We got to the kitchen, Kade paced back and forth several times, chewing on his bottom lip—always a sign that he was dealing with something worrisome.
“You’re making me nervous,” I said with a half laugh. “I’m a little bit concerned it might be something serious.”
Taking a deep breath with the air of someone about to impart particularly horrific news, Kade met my eyes directly and said in a rush, “My parents and four of my brothers are going to come to town next week.”
“I thought you had a good relationship with your parents and siblings,” I said, confused.
“I do. We have a great relationship.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“You remember how, just a couple of days ago, Jeremiah was entirely terrified to introduce Shadow to his matriarch?”
“Of course,” I said.
“And remember how it turned out to be no big deal at all when he finally did — they were all so caught up in the other issues that it was like it was no problem at all?”
Oh, hell...
“Is your family coming here to meet me?”
“Not exactly.”
“That means exactly, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” He grimaced. “They’re worried about me.”
“What do you mean, worried about you?”
Kade’s gaze flickered from one point in the room to another. If I hadn’t known him better, I would’ve said he was acting shifty. And not in a “my boyfriend’s a sexy shapeshifter” kind of way, either.
“They’re worried about... Well, they’re worried about our decision to take in the baby lamias.”
I leaned in and ducked down a little to catch his gaze. “They’re worried about me, too, aren’t they?” I asked. “About us seeing each other?”
“Yes,” he finally said. “They’re having a difficult time understanding why I’m dating a lamia. I’ve told them that it’s because they don’t know you, that once they have a chance to get a sense of who you really are, it’ll all be okay.”
I frowned. “You don’t know that, not for sure.” I wrapped my arms around my midsection, hugging myself tightly, as if that would ward off any unpleasantness between Kade’s family and me.
“It’ll all be okay,” Kade said, brushing my hair out of my eyes with one hand. Normally, the gesture would’ve soothed me. Today, though, I just found it irritating. I spun away from him, throwing myself down into a chair at the table and resting my head in my hands.
“They’re coming into town next week,” he said. “I want you to meet them.”
I let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “Because my life isn’t stressful enough. I’ve got wolves determined to wipe out all of my kind, my own clan threatening to abandon me in droves, and now my boyfriend’s family is planning to show up to judge me. Perfect.”
“It’s not like any time has been a good time since we met,” Kade pointed out.
I flicked my gaze up toward
