“Easy.” Liam’s voice held such calm authority that Glory backed off in spite of herself, and her Collar went silent. Liam’s Collar didn’t spark at all, although Andrea felt the waves of anger from him.
One of the Shifter groupies raised his hands. “Hey, man, it had nothing to do with us.”
Liam forced a smile, stuffing himself back into his ostensible role as bar manager. “I know that, lad,” he said. “I’m sorry for your trouble. You come back in tomorrow, why don’t you? The first round’s on me.”
His Irish lilt was pronounced, Liam the Shiftertown leader at his most charming, but the humans didn’t look comforted. Liam was stark naked, except for his Collar—a large, muscular male, gleaming with sweat, who could kill the men at his feet in one blow if he wanted to. As much as they pretended to want the thrill of that danger, Shifter groupies didn’t like it when the danger was real.
Ronan staggered back in, no longer in his bear form. Ronan was even bigger than Liam and Sean, nearly seven feet tall, broad of shoulder and chest, and tight with muscle. His face was sheet white, his shoulder torn and covered with blood.
Andrea shook off Sean’s protective hold and went to him. “Damn it, Ronan, what were you doing?”
“My job.” The amount of blood flowing down his torso would have had a human on the floor in shock. Ronan merely looked embarrassed.
Sean got to the man’s other side. “In the back, lad. Now.”
“I’m fine. It’s just a bullet. My own fault.”
“Shut it.” Sean and Andrea towed the bigger man to a door marked “Private,” and Sean more or less shoved him into the office beyond.
The office was ordinary—cluttered desk, a couple of chairs, a storage cabinet, shabby sofa, and a small safe in the wall that only the bar’s human owner was supposed to know the combination to. Andrea knew good and well that Liam and Sean knew it too.
The Sword of the Guardian leaned against the wall like an upright cross, and threads of its Fae magic floated to Andrea from across the room. Andrea had no idea whether pure Shifters could sense the sword’s magic as she, a half-Fae, half-Lupine Shifter could, but she did know that the Shifters in this Shiftertown regarded the sword, and Sean, with uncomfortable awe.
Sean pushed Ronan at a chair. “Sit.”
Ronan dropped obediently, and the flimsy chair creaked under his weight. Ronan was an Ursine—a bear Shifter—large and hard-muscled, his short but shaggy black hair always looking uncombed. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. Andrea wasn’t used to Ursines, having never met one before moving to Austin. Only Lupines had lived in her Shiftertown near Colorado Springs. But Ronan had proved to be such a sweetheart he’d quickly overcome her uneasiness.
“I can’t stay in here,” Ronan protested. “What if they come back?”
“You’re not going anywhere, my friend, until we get that bullet out of you.” Sean snatched a blanket from the sagging sofa and dropped it over Ronan’s lap. Shifters weren’t modest as a rule, but maybe Sean thought he needed to protect Andrea from a bear in his naked glory. Ronan, admittedly, was ... supersized.
“I thought I’d be away from the door maybe a minute.” Ronan’s deep black eyes filled. “What if someone had gotten hurt? Or killed? It would have been because of me.”
“No one got hurt but you, you big softie.” Sean’s voice took on that gentle note that made Andrea shiver deep inside herself. “You frightened away the bad guys before anything worse could happen.”
“If I’d been at my post, I would have blocked the door, and none of the bullets would have gotten inside.”
“And then you’d look like a cheese grater,” Sean said. “And be dust at the end of my sword. I like you, Ronan. I don’t want that.”
“Yeah?”
Andrea set down the first-aid kit she’d fetched from the cabinet and perched on the edge of the desk, her hand on Ronan’s unhurt shoulder. “I don’t want that either.”
Ronan relaxed a little under her touch—he needed touch, reassurance, all Shifters did, especially when injured or frightened. Andrea wanted to give Ronan a full hug, but she feared hurting him. She kneaded his back instead, trying to put as much comfort as she could into the caress.
Ronan grinned weakly at her. “Hey, you’re not so bad yourself, for a Fae.”
“Half Fae.”
Anyone else mentioning her Fae blood made Andrea’s anger rise, but with Ronan it had turned