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Espie growled at the thought, but there was nothing they could do. Not here, in front of all these people. But Espie sure looked like she wanted to tear the guy apart.
“Behave, grizzly,” Luther told her. “We don’t want to tip him off, remember? Try to play nice.”
“I’ll try,” she grumbled. “But I don’t have to like it, though.”
As they joined the group, she was positively savage toward the shifter, whose name was Will. Jen seemed to be attached at the hip to him, but even Luther could tell that the attachment was somehow unnatural, like maybe he’d tricked her somehow.
“So, an environmentalist, a miner, and an activist, all at the same table?” Maria joked as they started eating their food. “I hope this party hasn’t just turned into a political summit. Well, unless you three could manage to come up with some positive results.”
Will rolled his eyes at her, and raked his eyes over Luther and Espie, who were plastering fake smiles on their faces. “I think if we don’t want to ruin the party completely, we’d better agree not to talk.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Espie replied.
Luther’s inner bear loved that. He thrilled at his fierce mate’s fire, falling deeper and deeper in love with her spark, her courage, and her inner tenacity. She couldn’t be more perfect – flaws and all.
***
As the evening wore on, it became more obvious that Jen had no clue that her boyfriend was actually a cougar shifter. Will attended the local college where both Jen and Maida took classes, but he wasn’t an Angel Fire native. And the way he kept smiling at Espie made her want to rip his face off.
Will knew the bears had scented him, and he spent most of the meal gloating about it, mostly because they couldn’t do anything about it. Espie didn’t trust herself to keep her cool, so she soon asked Luther if he was ready to go out and play a few more games before they hit the road.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” said Luther, perfectly attuned to her mood.
Instead of enjoying themselves, however, the pair spent the next hour keeping a close eye on the cougar, ready to make their excuses just as soon as he seemed ready to depart. They’d drove over to the arcade in Luther’s truck, but he’d parked it a little up the road, and they’d walked a small distance to get to the building, so it would be an easy excuse to look like they were just out for a walk if Will should happen to notice them once they were outdoors.
But what they saw as they enacted their plan to see what Will did as the group broke up left Espie’s blood running cold. Standing just outside a car waiting for him was another man she recognized, and her jaw dropped as she saw who he was.
“Jesus, Luther, isn’t that the drunk human who was hitting on me at the nightclub?” she whispered urgently.
Luther tugged Espie into his arms, kissing her just as they reached his truck, trying to make it seem as though they hadn’t noticed the new arrival. Except Espie could feel the eyes of both Will and his friend boring into the back of her skull like knives. She couldn’t figure it out; she’d first thought that Will was human, but tonight she’d scented him as a cougar. Was this guy, who smelled human, going to turn out to be some kind of a cougar as well?
Her instincts told her he would. Her instincts told her that there was a whole lot more to Willard Vesper and his men than just the fact that they were assholes and tree huggers.
“Come on, Espie,” Luther encouraged her. “There’s nothing more we can learn by standing here tonight. In fact, I really think we should get out of here.”
Espie knew he was right. They soon got into Luther’s truck, and the two of them each sat in quiet contemplation as he drove them back up to the resort.
