“I guess we can finally get started,” he said flatly. “I’m Cade Drummond,” he said, then gestured to a woman and man standing behind him. “This is Breonna; this is Joe.”

Breonna was little shorter than me, with suntanned skin and dark hair pulled into a ponytail. She wore leggings and a cropped tank, showing off her trim and muscled figure. Joe was tall and thin, with a sharp, narrow face, pale skin, and shaggy blond hair.

“We’re here from Memphis,” Cade said, and I heard the slight Southern twang in his voice. “And we’re sick of the Keene family fucking up the North American Central Pack.”

SEVEN

The bar wasn’t huge, and tightly packed as it was, the peppery shifter magic nearly filled up the remainder of the room, as if pushing out the air. I had to remind myself to breathe through it.

Gabriel crossed his arms, and his expression portrayed boredom. “Do we really need the drama? You have issues with Pack decisions, you know how to reach me.”

“And what good would it do?” Cade asked, casting his gaze over the crowd. It was easy enough to guess he hadn’t come here for a dialogue.

“We’ve become too involved in the human world, the vampire world, the fairy world,” he continued. “All the worlds except ours. Where’s the focus on Aurora? On strengthening the Pack? On building our ranks?”

Aurora, Alaska, was the spiritual home of North American shifters. This wasn’t the first time Pack members had raised concerns about the shifters’ involvement in the world—either too much of it or not enough. But I hadn’t previously witnessed someone actually saying it to Gabriel’s face.

Cade’s eyes searched, settled on me. “Hell, there’s a vampire in the room right now.”

“There is,” I said. “Would you like to see my fangs?”

There were amused snickers in the crowd. Maybe I’d managed over the last few months to actually make a few more shifter friends.

Cade rolled his eyes, turned his gaze back to the crowd. I’d been dismissed.

“Aw,” I said quietly, knowing my audience. “That hurts my feelings.”

But the low chuckles made me feel better.

“You think the other Packs would stand for his? Would put up with it? Not just mixing with vampires”—there was enough disgust in his voice to make clear he meant something more physical than mere “mixing”—“but bowing to them. Who the hell do they think they are?”

“Well, they think they’re immortals,” Gabriel said. “So I guess that gives them one up on us.”

It wasn’t often that shifters complimented vampires in situations like this, and his gaze narrowed as he waited for Cade’s reaction. Testing, I thought. Wondering how deeply the hatred ran. Or whether it was a show for the crowd.

“Tainted,” Cade said, throwing a look of loathing in my direction.

I gave him a wink.

“You want us to return to the woods?” Gabriel asked. “To pretend the world around us doesn’t exist? The Pack made its decision to stay at ConPack more than twenty years ago. You’re refusing to honor?”