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Cora frowned. “How come?”
He shrugged, and she could tell he was trying to act casual about it, but he didn’t quite succeed.
“It’s just the way things have been for a long time,” he said. “Granite Valley is a bear town, Long Prairie is wolves, Canyon City is lions.”
“Eagle’s Roost is hawks, ironically,” said Hunter.
“Coyotes aren’t really town animals,” Ash went on. “They tend to live on rural homesteads, scattered around.”
She saw Ash and Hunter exchange a look, and suddenly wondered whether she was being nosy.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m just curious. Most humans don’t really meet a lot of shifters.”
Ash chuckled, the rumble starting deep inside his chest. It was a comforting, warm sound.
“It’s all right,” he said. “We just don’t explain this stuff to humans that often, I guess.”
“It’s not that we don’t interact,” Hunter interjected again. “One of my biggest clients at the clinic is a lion who runs a sanctuary for stray cats,” he said. “Nice guy. A little aloof, but nice.”
“Well, he’s a lion,” Ash said, his mouth partly full. “Of course he’s aloof.”
Cora drained her beer, staring into the bonfire and thinking.
Shifters are really just like people, she thought.
As if by magic, another beer, ready and open, appeared in front of her, and Cora laughed.
“You’re trying to get me drunk,” she said.
Hunter raised his eyebrows in a half-smirk.
“Only if you’re a two-drink drunk,” he said.
Cora took two long gulps from the can.
“So what if I am,” she said. “I can trust you two, right?”
She winked.
I can’t believe I just did that, she thought, but before anything happened, Ash spoke up.
“Don’t look now,” he said to Hunter. “But your cousin Julius is on the warpath again.”
Hunter cracked himself another beer and rolled his eyes.
Cora watched as the tall, dark-haired man in the button down shirt walked toward them.
“I wish he would chill out, just for once,” he said. “He can be so self-righteous.”
Cora and Ash said nothing.
Hunter sighed.
“He’s standing behind me right now, isn’t he,” Hunter said.
“Yup,” said Ash, sounding slightly satisfied about it. Hunter made a face at him, and then all three of them stood.
“Julius,” said Hunter. “How are you?”
