Pride Mates (Shifters Unbound #1)(27)
Author: Jennifer Ashley

“Kim,” Glory shouted. “Come on.”

Kim leaned over Liam. “We have to go, Liam. It’s the only way, Glory says.”

Liam tried to speak, but his words came out as unintelligible grunts.

Glory charged back inside and grabbed Sean. Kim finally persuaded Liam off the floor, and Liam hauled Connor to his feet. Somehow, the three of them got out the door and to Kim’s two-door Mustang.

Sean had already folded himself into the tiny backseat, while Dylan leaned heavily on the car. Dylan seemed the least debilitated, but he was older, probably stronger. Glory took charge of Connor, and Dylan helped her slide Connor into the back next to Sean. Dylan himself cramped in beside his grandson, leaving the front seat for Liam to collapse into.

“What the hell?” A male Texan voice reached Kim. The big Lupine she’d met the night before, Ellison, came running at them from across the street. “Glory, what’s going on?”

“Summoning,” Glory said tersely.

“Holy shit.”

“Kim’s taking them to Fergus.”

“Aw, man.” Ellison’s light blue eyes filled with distress. “And I can’t go with you, damn it. Liam’s got my cell number. You call me and keep me posted, all right?”

“Sure.” Kim numbly got into the car.

“Wait.” Ellison dashed into the Morrissey house, then out again, carrying Sean’s big sword in its leather sheath. “Take this, in case.”

There was no room for it in the packed car. Kim opened the trunk and Ellison dropped it inside.

As Kim slammed her door and started the car, Ellison stepped close to Glory and put both arms around her. She leaned into him, not in a sexual way, Kim realized, but for comfort, like Sandra had with Sean and Liam yesterday.

Kim pulled out of the driveway, her fingers cold and shaking despite the July heat, and headed out of Shiftertown.

Chapter Ten

They’d better be grateful for this. Kim sped down the I-35 as fast as she dared, cursing under her breath at the crawling traffic. It was Sunday—shouldn’t all these people be in church or something? But no, they were meandering along the freeway between Austin and San Antonio, clogging the ramps, driving slowly in the left lanes, cutting her off…

She drove as swiftly as she was able, though she didn’t dare risk being pulled over for speeding. She imagined herself trying to explain to the nice police officer why she had four half-crazed Shifters stuffed into her car and a big sword in the trunk.

Connor’s moans had turned to whimpers. Kim had no idea how this Fergus had caused their state from so far away, but she wanted to scream at him. Liam was the strongest man she’d ever met, and to see him hunched up in the seat next to her, rocking in pain, made her furious.

“It’s not much farther.” She had no idea if Liam could hear her, and he didn’t respond.

The freeway had never seemed so long. Signboards with German-sounding names slid by: New Braunfels, Gruene, the ever-popular Schlitterbahn water park, which Kim had loved as a kid.

When they reached the northern outskirts of San Antonio, Liam at last took his hands from his face. “This exit.”

Kim dove for the off-ramp, which took her to a freeway that looped around the city. “Then where?”

Liam flicked his fingers at the road, which she took to mean, “Keep going.” Dylan sat up behind her. In the rearview mirror, Kim saw him draw Connor to him, cradling the boy against his chest. Sean had his eyes closed, but Kim couldn’t tell whether he slept.

When they’d reached the southwestern edge of town, Liam gestured for Kim to take another exit. He directed her down a road that became a highway, running west out of town again.

“There’s a Shiftertown out here?” Kim asked, as they left the city limits behind.

Liam didn’t answer. Sean was sitting up now, leaning against the window. Their breathing had calmed, no longer tortured rasping, but they still looked gray and drawn.

About twenty-five miles later, Dylan leaned forward between the seats, long arm pointing out a side road that wasn’t signposted. “There.”

They’d left Hill Country behind and had reached the deserts of south Texas. The land was flat and dry, grasses clumped and yellow instead of soft green. On the left side of the road, behind barbed wire, a few cows grazed.

No barbed wire lined the right side of the road, the land open and flowing to the white-blue horizon. The humidity had dropped considerably, Kim’s sweat was quickly evaporating in the dry air.

“It’s coming up,” Liam said. He sounded almost normal, and his fangs had receded.

Two wooden fence posts with no fence and no gate marked a dirt road that reached a pale finger across the land. Kim turned down it, silently cursing the ruts that banged her car’s underbody. Maybe she could charge this Fergus for the damage.

A cluster of houses lay about three miles down this joke of a road, and a hand-painted sign read: WELCOME TO SHIFTERTOWN! POPULATION: FIFTY-TWO SHIFTERS, TWENTY HORSES, FIVE DOGS, AND FIFTEEN CATS.

The houses were long, low adobes with tiny windows, probably ranch houses left over from earlier in the twentieth century. Like the houses in Austin, these had been fixed up and painted, but instead of having yards, they were grouped around a somewhat sad playground where no kids played. Pickups were parked haphazardly in the dirt around the houses.

A steel pole corral that surrounded open stalls with corrugated steel roofs sat at one end of the street. A dozen desultory horses moved between pens and corral, paying no attention to the car hurtling toward them in a cloud of dust.

One of the town’s five dogs lounged at the front door of the house in front of which Liam told Kim to park. The house was no bigger than the others and had a green-painted door flanked by two windows to either side of it. The dog got up, stretched, and wandered toward them, tail wagging.

“Are you sure this is right?” Kim asked, as she got out and yanked the seat forward to release the others.

“Very sure,” Liam said.

The four men had returned to almost normal, except for the tension. Connor leaned against the car once he’d gotten out of it, his face still tight.

“Why did he Summon Connor?” Kim asked Liam in a low voice. “If he wants me, why didn’t he just get you and your dad to bring me down? Or can’t he pinpoint who he wants?”

“No, the spell can be very specific. Fergus decided who he’d cast it on.”

Kim looked at Connor, who had walked away to retch into a stand of tall grasses. “What kind of ass**le is this guy? Connor doesn’t have anything to do with me.”