The Skin She's In by Margo Collins (online e book reader .txt) 📕

“And that,” I whispered huskily, “is why I love you.”

Kade grinned. “So does that mean I get to stick around?”

“I really hope you will.”

Until that moment, I hadn’t known that a man’s kiss could signal his total commitment.

Several hours later, I said sleepily, “My car is still out at the ranch. I’ll need to go get it so I can take Jeremiah and Shadow back to their car tomorrow.”

“I’ll go trade it out for my truck after I drop you off at work in the morning if that’s okay. Then we can all go in your car.”

“Okay,” I agreed, and let myself quit thinking about it for a while.

It was the first thing I thought of when I woke up the next morning, though.

“Kade,” I said, shaking him awake. “Let’s leave early enough for me to go by the apartment and see what Jeremiah and Shadow have heard.”

He blinked at me several times before nodding. As he sat up and put his feet on the floor, I admired the strong, muscular lines of his back. I reached out and touched him, and he smiled over his shoulder at me before standing up to go make coffee for us. I had to admire the view as he walked away, too.

I had been unbelievably attracted to him ever since the first time I’d met him, and I think some part of me had been afraid that there was nothing more to it than some kind of weird shifter pheromones. Last night it reminded me of the other things I liked about him—his compassion, his desire to work with people as a healer. And always, the way he seemed to get me, to understand what I meant without any explanation at all.

I stretched, luxuriating in the knowledge that he really wanted to be with me.

It wasn’t just hot shifter sex.

Though I was glad that came with it, too.

When we got to my apartment a little over an hour later, Jeremiah and Shadow were already awake.

“Any word from the matriarch yet?” I asked.

“She wants to meet us at the hyena packs meeting room.” Jeremiah sounded deeply relieved.

“Apparently, it’s something like a community hall in a neighborhood,” Shadow said, her voice tinged with a hint of surprise, and maybe wonder. “I never knew that shifters lived so much like other people.”

I shrugged. “That’s probably not surprising since you are being trained to kill them—you can’t be allowed to look at your enemy as if they are human. Not when you’re a soldier,” I said.

“I suppose not. But why train our children to be Hunters at all?” Her white-blue eyes were troubled, and she stared at me as if waiting for an actual answer.

“That may be something you spend the rest of your life figuring out,” I said. I probably shouldn’t have done this, but as far as I was aware, I was the only counselor who knew enough about shifters for her to even discuss these things with. So I forged ahead. “If you’d like, you can come in and see me when all this is over. We can talk about some of the things that I suspect you’ll be facing as you come to terms with your past life and your current surroundings.”

She swallowed visibly but then nodded. “My people don’t believe in talking about our troubles,” she said.

“But you may be developing an entirely new set of beliefs, anyway,” I replied. “Seems like a good time to give therapy a try and see how you feel about it for yourself, as opposed to buying into what other people have taught you. But it’s entirely up to you—just let me know if you ever want to make an appointment.”

Jeremiah was watching me carefully, his head tilted to one side, taking into account everything I had said, and everything I hadn’t.

He might be a good Shield, but I suspected he would be a good counselor, as well.

He certainly had the observational skills for it.

It seemed to me, in fact, that pretty much the entire shifter community could use a whole raft of counselors—ones who understood their particular issues.

As far as I knew, those few shifters who saw therapists had to change their stories to fit human expectations. There was no way to truly get at the heart of the issues they had to deal with, given their need for secrecy.

Yep. Shifter counseling. I might be looking at my next career move.

With a grin, I waived the other two outside with me. The plan was to take the two of them back to Shadow’s car, and then presumably go our separate ways from there, though I would make sure they didn’t want me to follow them to the hyena clubhouse.

Kade had exited the truck and was leaning casually against the door. “Hi, guys,” he said, and I grinned a little bit at his distinctly un-Texan greeting.

“This is Dr. Kade Nevala,” I said. “Kade, this is Jeremiah Diphiri and Shadow Glass.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jeremiah said in his lyrical voice. Shadow simply nodded. Her hand kept clenching and unclenching at her side, and I wondered if she was feeling the lack of the giant ax on her back.

It had to be hard for her, going into an entire den of the very creatures she had spent her life training to kill.

Yep. Shifter counseling.

“So are we going now?” Kade asked. “Time to go get your car?”

“Yeah—I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. We’re heading up to the strip mall by the highway. Do you know where that is?”

“Yep,” Kade said. “That’s easy enough.”

I hesitated for a moment, trying to decide if I should offer the front seat on the passenger side to one of them, and finally decided it would be too awkward. Anyway, they would probably want to sit together. I knew I would if I were in their position.

Kade managed to keep some semblance of conversation stumbling along as we drove through the suburban towns that ringed Fort Worth. But I could tell