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  “Why would someone want to pick a fight with Eric? That seems stupid,” Alex said with a sneer. “Him, Tony, and Kyle are the biggest badasses around.”

  Thea was going to correct his language and then decided that was a bone to pick another day. She didn’t want Alex picking up Eric’s propensity for cursing. “When you’re someone who is as powerful and visible as Eric, there are always going to be people who think they can quickly gain the same power and visibility by taking that other person down a few notches. It’s crude and irrational, and yes, often stupid, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t still try.”

  “Okay, so what is Eric doing about it?” Alex asked. He began to eat his sandwich, and Thea watched as it quickly disappeared. Alex’s appetite had definitely been on the rise as of late. She wished she knew if it was strictly because he was a growing teenager, or if it was one of the first signs that he was going to transition soon.

  “Right now, Eric is helping Billy,” Thea said. “It seems like the person who is doing this is going after both Eric and the Greyelf Clan at the same time.”

  Alex shook his head. “Doubly stupid,” he said with his mouth full.

  “Or brilliant.” Thea saw Billy emerge from the doorway. He was dressed in jeans and a fitted t-shirt. “I found your package,” he said to her with a smile.

  Thea had sent a courier over to the hotel to collect Billy’s clothes and take care of any damages to his room. She smiled back at him. He came to the table and sat down forming a triad. His fingers had brushed the back of her chair, but he didn’t touch her. Although she missed the feel of his fingers, she understood that he was being respectful of Alex being in the room.

  “So now what?” Alex asked.

  Now what indeed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Billy was impressed at how well Alex seemed to be taking Thea’s news. He had listened in the hall for a few minutes. He thought that she might have tried to hide the situation from Alex, but he was a sharp kid. Billy thought the direct approach was best. He had something else that he was going to suggest, and he had no idea how Thea was going to react.

  “Well, tonight, I’ve been challenged by this guy to a shifter match,” Billy said. He could tell by Thea’s expression that she was going back and forth about how much she wanted Alex to know. “This concerns all of us. The Urban Dwellers and the Greyelf Grizzlies Clan. And whether it’s a formal clan or not, you both are part of the Urban Dwellers. You should be aware of what’s happening because you need to support Eric and his partners. They need people who understand what’s happening and can help them think through different options.”

  “You mean, like a council?” Alex asked. He stuck the last piece of sandwich in his mouth, and Billy heard the low rumble of his stomach. Although Billy couldn’t say with one hundred percent confidence, he thought that Alex was on the cusp of his transition. He remembered eating his parents out of house and home when he was in that same stage.

  “Yes, like a council,” Billy said. “When you are a council member, you listen as much or more than you speak. It’s important to watch and observe everything around you. Tiny details can be important. You don’t want to spend all your time running your mouth and trying to argue to get people to agree with you because then you’ll likely miss a lot that can help you later.”

  “How long have you been a council member?” Alex asked.

  “Five years,” Billy said. “I joined the council about two years after I moved to Greyelf. Markus Kasper was the alpha then. He was very different than Lukas, but they both want the same thing.”

  “I thought council members were old and grumpy,” Alex said.

  “Well, when my name came up for the vote, there were a lot of people who thought the same thing probably,” Billy said. He remembered that vote. All of the clan members were gathered in the lodge to hear from each of the people whose names had been put forth before the vote. Billy was the youngest one on the ballot by at least ten years. “But there is a lot that someone who is younger brings to the table. That shouldn’t be dismissed. Just because you’re young doesn’t mean that you can’t have a valid say in things.”

  Billy looked across the table at Thea and hoped that his words had made sense in some way to her. If not, what he was about to propose next was going to go over like a lead balloon. He really didn’t want to cause waves so early in their relationship, but he felt like it was important that Alex be included in what happened next. It affected him as well.

  “Alex, I was going to ask your sister if you could come with us to the shifter match tonight.” He saw the kid’s eyes light up, and he held up a hand. “Now, the first thing is that she has to agree, and we will both respect her wishes on the matter without any argument. The second thing is, if she does agree, you have to promise that you will do everything that she says when we are there, no matter what your brother says. Deal?”

  Alex nodded his head vigorously. “Deal.”

  Billy could see the shocked expression on Thea’s face. “Before you say anything, I’d like you to hear my logic. Okay?” Billy took a deep breath and waited. Slowly, Thea began to nod, but he saw by the set of her lips that she was angry. He had sidestepped how he knew she felt about the matter and blindsided her with the request. He’d be angry at him too, but he pushed forward.

  “With the current threat, Alex could be at risk of getting hurt. You agree with that in principle, at least, because you sent a car to bring him home today.” Thea’s arms crossed her chest. He thought that she might be hunkering down for a fight as soon as he finished speaking. “If he is with you, Eric, Kyle, and Tony, then you can keep an eye on him. If he was here alone while you were all there at Urban Dwellers, you’ve exposed a vulnerability. This way, you’re all in the same place.”

  He paused and watched her expression. He could practically feel the bounce of Alex’s excitement coming across the table in waves. When she didn’t say anything, he continued.

  “Alex wants to see what a shifter match is like, and I understand that wish and desire. Often, what we build up in our mind doesn’t even come close to matching the reality of the situation. But Alex thinks one thing, and he won’t think anything else until he sees what it is actually like. If you expose him to this one, you and Eric have the chance to talk about it with him and answer his questions afterward in a safe environment. Otherwise, if he’s anything like just about any teenager out there, he’ll eventually go behind your back and do it anyway. You don’t have to like it, and you don’t have to condone it. But take the curiosity out of the equation. I think you’ll be surprised at how well he can handle it.”

  “You want Alex to watch you fight? Even saying I agree to this, of all the fights that he could be exposed to, you want him to see you? A person he knows?” Thea’s question cut deep, and he felt himself grimace. In that, she was probably right. It might be better to watch a fight that was truly neutral from an emotional perspective, but there was one other thing she wasn’t considering. It was a completely selfish reason on his part, though.

  “I’m a stranger here,” he said slowly. “I am going to guess that there are going to be more than a few rogue Osten clan members in the crowd. It’ll help having friendly faces there who are on my side. That probably doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I’ll yell the loudest!” Alex said. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “I can be loud, and I’ll be the only one you can hear.”

  Billy had to appreciate the kid’s enthusiasm. He closed his mouth then and listened. Thea’s heart was beating a million miles a minute even though her expression didn’t give any indication to the internal anxiety that was almost palpable between them. If she decided that Alex should stay behind, he wouldn’t blame her, and he wouldn’t push her. It was her decision.

  “These are very interesting points you bring up, Sheriff,” she finally said. Out of the corner of his eye, Billy saw Alex’s face fall. Her tone was brisk and businesslike. “I think we are all well aware
of my feelings on the topic of shifter matches, not even taking into account the idea of taking my little brother to see one.”

  Billy opened his mouth to say something but caught her warning look. He had to remember what he had just told Alex. Sometimes it was better to sit back and listen. He closed his mouth and nodded. He was well aware of her feelings on those two topics.

  There was a short pause as Thea seemed to struggle with her next words. “If I agree to this - if,” she enunciated the word as Alex let out a low whoop of excitement, “then I agree with the sheriff that you need to promise that you will do everything I say. I don’t think things are going to be as low key as people would like to believe.” She cast him a sidelong look. “But I would feel better if you were with me instead of here at home alone.”

  Billy kept his smile hidden. There was one thing that she could have considered, which was both of them staying away from the match altogether. He was delighted that it didn’t sound as if that was something she wanted to do. Just like her desire to keep Alex close to her, he wanted to keep Thea close to him.

  “So does that mean I can go?” Alex asked. His tone was moderated now as if he suspected she might be trying to pull a fast one on him.

  “You can go,” she said finally.

  “YES!” Alex jumped up and pulled his cellphone out of his pocket. “Man, I can’t wait to tell the guys. They are going to be so jealous. This is so awesome!” He made his way around the table and gave Thea a big hug. Billy could see that she was surprised by Alex’s emotional outburst, and she laughed a couple of times as she thumped him on the back.

  “You’re welcome. Now I expect that you’re going to get your homework done before we have to leave.”

  “Yes, Ma’am!” Alex said. He grabbed his backpack and headed out of the kitchen whistling a tune that Billy had never heard before.

  As his attention returned to Thea, he found that she was staring at him with a hard look. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I probably should have talked to you about that first, before suggesting it.”

  “You think?” Thea said. She stood up and started to walk away from the table, but Billy was up and crossed the room to her. He put his arms around her shoulders and turned her to face him.

  “I’m going to have a lot to worry about tonight,” he said. “I don’t want to worry about you or Alex. I know that your brother will keep you both safe. That will ease my mind a lot.”

  Her expression softened. “Do you really think this is the best idea? Are you sure there isn’t any other way out of this?”

  “I have to get Joshua’s blood,” Billy said. “The sooner, the better. This doesn’t require us trying to track him down and find him. He’s coming to me.”

  “I have a bad feeling about all of this, Billy,” Thea said. She wrapped her arms around her middle. “I know it sounds strange, but this all feels too easy.”

  Billy had to give his girl credit again. He had thought the same thing many times since Joshua’s ultimatum. “It’ll be okay,” Billy said. He took her hand and led her back to the table. “There are a few things that I should probably tell you that might, or might not, make you feel better about tonight.”

  “That doesn’t sound at all ominous,” Thea said. He saw the tumultuous smile on her face. He wished that he could tell her everything would be just fine, and there was no reason for her to worry. But that would be a lie. So he’d give her something else to gnaw on. He was going to let Thea in on something that he hadn’t told anyone since he moved to Greyelf.

  “Look, I told you that there were some things in my past that I didn’t want to talk about yet. But there are some things that are relevant.”

  “What, were you a big shifter fighter back in the day?” Thea scoffed.

  Billy didn’t say anything. He let the words hang there between them.

  “Okay,” Thea said. Her voice grew serious. “You used to fight in shifter matches.”

  “Good guess,” Billy said. “Yes, I did.” He couldn’t read her expression. “During my first transition, I had a difficult…experience. Because of that, I eventually decided to part ways with my family and my original clan. I was a bit of a hothead, but I was smart enough to understand that there was another part of me that needed stability. While I was in the police academy, I got written up several times for getting overly aggressive. I needed a way to get rid of that and blow off some steam. One of my friends at the time suggested that I try shifter fighting.”

  “So simply starting a new gym routine wouldn’t have cut it?” Thea’s quip was said with a light tone, but Billy knew that it was anything but.

  “I understand how you feel about them. They are violent and barbaric. But as I said last night when you asked me about it, it is also the ultimate expression of control of your animal instincts. It’s a way to commune with that other side of you and turn that energy outward so that you gain balance in other parts of your life.”

  “Most people would try a little bit more meditation or something like that,” Thea muttered.

  “Look, I’m not proud of it. It was at a time in my life where I was confused and rebelling against everything. Shifter fights were a way to make a few bucks and take out some aggression that just kind of threatened to bubble over. It got me through the academy, and that was what I needed.”

  “So why did you quit?” Thea asked.

  Billy looked away from her then and out the window at the sweeping city skyline. The sun was beginning its slow descent into the west and lit up the panes of glass that covered the buildings with brilliant flecks of light that hurt his eyes.

  “I guess I grew up. I had a falling out with the alpha of the clan I belonged to at the time. I didn’t want to fight anymore. I wanted to go straight. He had made a lot of money off my matches by that point. He didn’t want me to quit. So we decided it was best to part ways. I had heard about the position with the Greyelf police department, and I decided to apply. I was good at my job, and I hoped that my reputation hadn’t followed me. The sheriff there made me see a therapist, and I got better all around. It was the best move I could have made, honestly.”

  “What was it? The thing that happened to you that caused you to leave your first clan?”

  It was the question that Billy had been dreading. He could choose not to answer it. But if he wanted things to be right with Thea, she deserved to know the truth about the man she was involved with. All parts of him.

  “I’m not sure how much Eric had told you about the first phase?” Billy had to figure out a way to ease them into the story. It was one that he hadn’t shared in many years.

  “He said that if Alex is a shifter, we’ll probably need to take him out of school for a short period of time and send him to some kind of training camp,” Thea said. “I assume that’s so he can be taught how to control all of those urges.”

  Billy had to wonder what kind of camp the Urban Dwellers had set up for adolescent shifters. It was yet another question to add to his list for them. “It’s hard to explain what it’s like the first time the phase happens. You lose every bit of control you have over your mind and your body. It takes patience and a lot of strength of will to learn how to talk to your inner animal and make them see that they are not the ones in control. During that time, it can be extremely dangerous for a shifter to be around anyone.”

  “What happened, Billy?” Thea’s voice had dropped to a whisper.

  Billy couldn’t meet her eyes. “All of the signs were there, of course. I was fifteen. I was agitated and angry all the time. I was more aggressive than many of my friends, but my parents attributed it to just being a kid. That was even after I started breaking stuff in the house on the regular basis. I guess you could say that I had quite a temper. There was a lot of stuff inside of me that I didn’t talk to anyone about. It was all normal teenager bullshit looking back on it now, but I was angry at the world. I didn’t fit in, and I didn’t like being different. This was just before Markus Kasper brought us all out into
the mainstream. You still had to hide your true nature from the world.”

  Thea reached across the table and took his hands in hers. He looked at their joined fists. He still couldn’t look at her.

  “I came home from school one afternoon with a pounding headache. I had gotten into a fight and was given detention. I knew that since it was like the third time something like that happened, I might get expelled. I was so mad. When I got home, my mother told me she had to run out to the store to get a few things for dinner. She asked me to watch my little brother. The store was ten minutes away. She was going to be gone thirty minutes, tops.”

  Billy felt a small choke in the back of his throat. He could see the scene clearly in his head. His mother walking out the door and his younger brother, Pete, sitting at the kitchen table coloring in his coloring book.

  “Pete was ten. He and I barely spoke because I thought he was boring and obnoxious. He followed me around everywhere. I was frustrated that day because I was supposed to meet a few guys to hang out, and then I was stuck there in my house babysitting my little brother. I just remember thinking how unfair everything felt. Then it was like something else took hold of me. I stared at Pete, and I got angrier and angrier. Then it was like I blacked out.”

  “Oh, Billy,” There was a throb of emotion in Thea’s voice.

  “When I came to, I heard my mother wailing and the screech of the ambulance sirens. I don’t remember much else. I think they gave me a sedative, but then they carted me off to a place that I’m sure is nothing like the camp that your brother mentioned. After I had phased, apparently I overturned the kitchen table, and Pete got caught underneath. He had two fractured ribs from that, and when I jumped onto the table and across the room in my bear form, I broke his pelvis and femur. They did everything they could, but he still walks with a cane.”

  Billy met Thea’s eyes then. “It was an accident. I know that. That’s what the rational part of my brain told me every night when I went to sleep. But I saw the way my parents looked at me after that. Pete wouldn’t even stay in the same room as me. He was always afraid that I would shift and hurt him again. No matter how many times I said I was sorry, no one in my family was able to forgive me. When I graduated, it was a mutual decision that I find somewhere else to live.”