Lexi gasped. Truly shocked that some two-bit small-town shifter would dare criticize her jacket. It was the really impressive metallic one from the performance the night before. Apparently, it represented her signature look for this tour and had to go everywhere with her.
She metaphorically clutched her pearls, which in a werewolf Alpha meant her canines dropped and her eyes started to shift. “Well I never! Who do you think you are?”
Colin bit his bottom lip to stop a laugh. Was his sainted mother about to have a fit of the vapors? Excellent.
He wondered if he should remind her that she was not, in fact, a Southern belle debutante but instead a forty-plus-year-old trailer trash from Boston. But it was too much fun to watch her pretend. Of all the people to take down his mother, Colin hadn’t considered that it might be Trick. The little otter shifter was fierce as fuck. He’d practically left Lexi speechless, and that never happened.
Kevin sidled up next to Colin. “What, exactly, is going on?” His brother’s voice was awed.
Colin shook his head in wonder. “I don’t know. I mean, it looks like our mother is being humiliated by a tiny otter barista, but I can’t believe it. I might totally love Trick.”
“Hey,” said Judd, mildly.
Risa, at this juncture, seemed to realize something was terribly amiss with her employer’s plan to stop for coffee. The stylist cast desperate eyes around.
But she was human and, aside from Tank, no one in that café looked at all like a werewolf. And Tank was a quiet, still shadow, huge but utterly unthreatening. He had a hard hat resting on the table in front of him. Just some construction worker on break. (If you forgot it was Sunday.) Alec and Marvin were clearly a pair of college gay boys, couldn’t possibly be werewolves. (Again, ignoring the lab coat on a Sunday.) And Max was too, well, Maxish, to be any kind of shifter. He’d taken up residence leaning against the counter to one side, looking bored. Because Max always looked bored.
Max never came off as a threatening super mage of doom. He was beautiful but all clumsy angles, seeming awkward and out of place all of the time. Right now, for example, he had whipped cream on his nose.
Finally, Risa’s eyes came to rest on Floyd. “And what are you?” she asked, voice fierce.
Floyd gave her the most baleful look ever. “I’m Floyd. I knit. And that jacket is a fucking travesty.”
Risa gasped.
Lexi looked wildly around for a moment, intentionally activating her werewolf senses for a change. “What the hell is going on? What is this place?” She took a deep inhale. But there were too many odors for even the best nose. All the smells of the beverages, including hers, the roasting coffee beans, her humans with those perfumes that she allowed them to wear standing close, as well as her own. Marvin’s spilled drink. Alec’s dumb mint tea.
Not to mention that her four hired bodyguards, still standing around her, were all werewolves. Everything smelled like werewolf.
Kevin said, “Nothing, Mother. This is just my local café. I told you, my life’s not very exciting. This place is mostly human. You wanted to see how the little people lived. Here we are, the little people. What did you expect?”
Lexi glared at her son and pointed at Trick. “Little people are NOT ALLOWED TO CRITICIZE MY JACKET.”
Colin could feel himself jerk in response. Had she just used VOICE command on them? Because of a jacket? What the actual fuck?
Kevin recovered first. “Mother! We weren’t. There’s no need to go that far.”
Lexi waggled her finger at Trick. “He was!”
Trick didn’t look particularly fazed. Apparently werewolf VOICE wasn’t effective on otter shifters. Or he’d already allied himself so much with Alec, the Alpha’s presence was protecting him. Or he was tricky enough to avoid the command by taking it literally. So he stopped criticizing the jacket and just criticized her.
“Whine, whine, whine, hot stuff. I wasn’t disparaging that garish disco ball you’re sporting – on a Sunday – as such. I was merely mentioning the fact that your out-of-touch stylist let you out of the house in it – on a Sunday. Bitch, puh-leez.”
Lexi looked like she was actually contemplating shifting forms and jumping over the counter to maul Trick. She was truly incensed.
Trick was possibly too good at his role.
Out the corner of his eye, Colin could see Alec tense, ready to jump in if needed,