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“We did. Cash was an asshole.”
“So, as expected.” He looked at me. “You appear to have survived.”
“I mostly stood there and tried to look stern.”
“Wise choice,” he said with a faint smile.
“What did you find last night?” Connor asked.
“Nothing useful. Ground in the woods didn’t hold footprints. No fur, no scent of non-shifter blood.”
“In other words,” Connor said, “no sign of the animal.”
“Zip.”
Clapping and whistling split the air around us, and we followed the others’ gazes to the movement at the top tier of waterfalls.
Shadow and light began to shimmer across the rock and water as shifters carrying candles and torches moved across the plateau, walking toward the middle falls. In the arms of a smiling brunette with sun-kissed skin was a smiling baby boy. His cheeks were flushed pink, his hair pale blond. He looked to be about nine months old, and he gnawed on his fist like it was a favorite snack. Behind them a man followed with tan skin and the same shade of blond hair as the child, although his was longer and shaggier, reaching his shoulders in what I considered classic shifter style: halfway between “hair metal” and “cologne model.”
“That’s Cassie with the baby,” Connor said, gesturing. “Her husband is Wes, and her mother is Georgia. All of them are McAllisters.”
Georgia was tall and pale, with long legs and a generous build topped by a bouffant of black hair with a streak of silver just above her eyes. She had a face that would have been called “handsome.” Strong features, with sharp blue eyes and a wide mouth with a beauty mark at the left corner.
“So Georgia is one of your parents’ cousins?” I asked.
“My mother’s cousin,” Connor said. “Their mothers were sisters.”
“Big family.”
“My mother has to keep a list.”
“I bet.” I glanced at him, saw pleasure and pride as he watched his Packmates assemble, prepare to welcome another into their fold. “You were initiated, weren’t you?”
“I was. My parents, aunts, and uncles were there. It’s where Jeff stood up to my father for the first time. I think that was before you were born.”
“Old-timer,” I said.
“Maybe. But I got to wear a crown.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Seriously?”
“Well, technically it was a coronet,” he admitted with a shrug. “But that’s close enough.”
“I’m jealous.”
“Of course you are, brat. You did always love a good crown.” He slid his fingers into mine, squeezed, and trained his gaze and satisfied smile on those who gathered on the plateau beside the trickling waterfall.
I could hear the murmurs around us, surprise and whispers moving through the crowd like a wave as they observed their prince, their would-be king, and the vampire he’d brought to the ceremony and publicly joined himself with. If their magic was any indication, their emotions were mixed. Some were confused, others surprised. A few were angry, but since I didn’t know anyone here other than the few we’d met last night, that could have been prejudice or preconception talking.
I wondered if I should be concerned, glanced at him, and found him looking at me, brow lifted in amusement.
“You’re a very loud thinker,” he said.
He couldn’t have known what I was thinking, but when I realized I’d tensed up, I figured it was easy to guess.
“If you’re going to focus on shifters,” he said with an easy smile, “focus on me.”
A whistle cut through the air, high and sharp as a blade. We looked up at the waterfall, where a man with suntanned skin, gray hair, and a thick but neatly trimmed beard in the same shade looked down at us, hands clasped together. He was short and compact; his arms were strong beneath the short sleeves of abutton-down shirt he’d paired with khakis. That was practically shifter formal wear.
