Page 34 of Bear Facts

Leo bristled. “I’ll beat him down just because I don’t like him, then.”

“Answer the Challenge, Shane.” Graham’s growl was low. “If you don’t, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“We have three leaders here,” Nell pointed out. “What do we say? Follow the rules? Or, I can take Leo somewhere and soak his head until he cools off.” Her toothy smile told Freya she’d enjoy every minute of that.

Eric finally spoke. “We follow the rules. A Challenge has been issued. Freya has said the outcome won’t influence her choice, but an unmet Challenge is a powder keg waiting to go off.”

He didn’t bother raising his voice. Nell and Graham nodded without argument, taking Eric’s word as final.

Shane flexed his fingers. “I accept. Happy to. As the Challenged, I pick the venue. Fight club?”

“Done.” Leo gave Shane a steady look. “Make your peace with the Goddess, bear.”

Freya appealed to Nell. “Stop this. Please.”

Nell regarded her with understanding. “No one fights to the death anymore, honey. First rule of the fight club. Graham and Eric are right, though. The outcome of the fight will settle the tension between Shane and Leo, so it goes ahead. This is about more than you.”

Freya sensed that. She also saw in Leo’s eyes that he was determined to win, no matter what he had to do to gain a victory.

“Freya.” Graham’s rumble broke her thoughts. “Walk with me.”

He turned and made his way out through the kitchen. Any Shifter in his way moved aside for him, including Leo, but Shane leaned to murmur into Freya’s ear.

“You don’t have to obey him anymore.”

A tingle traveled down Freya’s spine. Shane’s breath was warm, his words, soothing. He was the only one in this room who seemed to perceive how hard this reunion was for her.

“It’s all right, I want to talk to him,” Freya answered. “To ask him a thing or two.”

“Okay, but I’m going with you.”

Freya warmed still more. “I don’t think that’s what he has in mind.”

“Tough.” Shane put a large hand on her shoulder. “The least I can do for a Lupine who attacked me out of the blue is to protect her from Graham.”

Freya for some reason wanted to laugh. “Fine, but if he gives you trouble, it’s your own fault.”

Shane shrugged. “I’ll take the chance.”

He steered her through the kitchen, following Graham’s path. Leo, predictably, made a move toward Freya, but Eric all of a sudden was in his way.

They exited through the back door, Shane’s hand still on her shoulder. Graham waited in the middle of the yard, his eyes narrowing when he saw Shane.

“I meant I wanted to talk to her alone,” Graham said.

“You want her, you get me,” Shane returned. “Live with it.”

Graham rumbled a growl, but to Freya’s surprise, he didn’t argue. Without further objection, he turned and started off along the common area behind the houses.

Freya followed. Shane, no longer guiding her, strode right behind her.

Graham led them all the way down the common until he’d passed the last house and a cinder block wall that separated it from the desert beyond. Not far past that was the chain-link fence that marked the boundary of Shiftertown. A clump of olive trees that had been planted here, leaves dark green on spreading branches, hid them from any passing Shifter.

Beyond the fence, a swath of desert reached toward the mountains where Freya had recently had her aborted meeting with Althea.

Graham gazed in silence into the desert. A new development was spreading a few miles away, bare stud walls rising against the blue of the late morning sky.

Would people buy homes that close to Shiftertown? Or were humans growing so used to Shifters that they thought nothing of living near them?

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