Kenzie raised her hands. “If you’ll stop talking, I’ll tell you I agree with you. We should check it out.”
“Not we.” Cristian pinned her with a stare as intense as Bowman’s. “Me.”
“Uncle, you can’t go running around out there with a shooter on the loose. And you can’t without talking to Bowman first—why don’t you two work together? That was the whole point of my mating with him, wasn’t it?”
Kenzie heard the rising pitch in her voice, and she tried to suppress it. She was running on lack of sleep, too much adrenaline, worry for Bowman, and irritation at Cristian for trying to use any excuse to undermine her mate.
Cristian stepped to her and laid his hands on her shoulders, his touch surprisingly gentle.
“Kenzie, child,” he said, reverting to his native language. “When I was a young Shifter, my territory was caught between that of Ottoman Turks and the Austrian Empire. Trust me when I say that my life has calmed down a great deal since. Survival then meant to stay alive at any cost—here and now surviving is simply following a set of rules. Humans, especially in this country, are more—how do you say it in English?—touchy-feely. I can deal with one man and his rifle.”
“Huh. Are you sure it was only one?”
“I think so. And it was not the man inside the cabin. Different scent.”
Kenzie had decided that too. She also knew she had this snowfall’s chance in hell of stopping Uncle Cristian doing whatever he wanted.
“If you go back out there, you be careful,” Kenzie said sternly. “We don’t need to be searching for your dead body on top of everything else.”
Cristian gave her a smile that warmed his eyes. He could be a handsome man, when he let the ice crack. “Look at it this way—if I am shot, Bowman will have his victory. None of my nephews will be ready to fight for leadership for some time. Perhaps it would be better for everyone.”
Afina scowled. She was half a head shorter than her son, but her glare could have knocked over a building. “Not better for me,” she snapped. “I refuse to lose another child before I am old enough to call for the Guardian. This Shiftertown will not be better without you. If nothing else, your antagonism of Bowman helps him be a stronger leader. He’ll do anything to keep you out of power.”
Kenzie hid her smile. Cristian might rule the clan, but Afina never let him forget who’d raised him.
Cristian and his mother exchanged a long look before Cristian let out a sigh. He stepped away from both of them, pretending he hadn’t just let his mother win another argument.
“Fine then,” Cristian said to Afina. “You can come with me.”
Afina blinked, surprised at the turn. “All right, I will,” she said.
“I’m driving,” Cristian said. “The Ottoman Turks were less frightening than you on a motorcycle.”
Afina only smiled.
“Wait, now I have to worry about both of you?” Kenzie asked, annoyed. “This isn’t trading up.”
Cristian became serious again. “You worry about your mate, Kenzie-love. He is perhaps too furious, too obsessed with what is happening. One reason I did not oppose him taking you as mate is I knew you could keep him calm. That is what you must do, or Shiftertown will suffer.”
Kenzie had known this for years, but Cristian’s words gave her a qualm. “Sure. No pressure.”
Cristian’s smile made his eyes crinkle, and he pulled Kenzie to him for a hug.
Kenzie wrapped her arms around him, remembering how, when she’d been a child, his strength had bolstered her. Her uncle could be a total shit, but he’d also saved her life, time and again.
“Keep in touch,” Kenzie said, releasing him. “I mean it.”
“I will make him,” Afina said. She also enfolded Kenzie in a hug, hers scented with woods, coffee, and cinnamon rolls. “You look after your mate. And your cub.” She gave Kenzie a kiss on the cheek before letting her go. “And get some sleep, granddaughter. You look terrible.”
“Aw, thanks.”
Afina gave her a big smile, then turned and walked away with Cristian. They started arguing about something before they even hit the end of sidewalk, then they turned the corner, their voices fading.
Kenzie let Ryan play a little more before she called to him to return with her to the house. Once inside, he raced to his bedroom to shift and dress—he was getting too modest to shift to a naked human in front of his mother. Kenzie warmed up the cinnamon rolls Afina had made. The good kind—huge and dripping with icing.
She licked icing off her fingers, took out the new cell phone she’d picked up on the way home, and called Gil. She knew Bowman would probably have already talked to him, but Gil’s warm voice when he answered lifted her spirits. Kenzie ran her finger through the bowl of icing and told Gil everything.
* * *