A chill snaked up her spine as she stood slowly from her chair. “I’m pro-shifter.”
“Except for the fact that you edit newspaper articles for the Saratoga Hometown News, and your name is on a bunch of openly anti-shifter propaganda pieces.”
“Oh.” She rolled her eyes heavenward in relief and huffed a laugh. But when she looked around, everyone was staring at her like they’d never seen her before. “That can be explained. I’m a freelance editor, and I don’t get to pick my articles. I’ve edited hundreds of them. I wish I could pick and choose, but they pay me to stay neutral.”
“Neutral?” Clinton barked out, squeezing the stack of papers in his angry grip and shaking them in the air. “Quote from the article that released this morning on page four. ‘The shifters of Damon’s mountains should be taken seriously as a threat.’”
“Yeah, and what it said before I edited that sentence was, ‘The shifters of Damon’s mountains are bloodletting monsters who pose a serious threat to human children.’” She arched her eyebrows. “I’ve taken the sting off every one of that writer’s articles. And besides, I probably have a message on my cell phone right now telling me I’m fired for what I did to that article.”
Clinton’s furious grimace faltered. “Why?”
“Because read the author’s name, Clinton. His real name is Bartleby.”
Clinton squinted at the small type on the top page.
“Well, what does it say?” Audrey asked.
“Fartleby.”
Bash laughed loud and, beside her, Audrey peeled into giggles and kicked her heels in the sand. Kirk snorted. Mason wore a big grin, looking from Clinton to Emerson to Clinton again. Even Harrison was finally smiling.
“Okay,” Clinton conceded. “That’s kind of awesome.”
Bash leaned down, still chuckling, and kissed her. As he made his way back to the grill, shaking his head, he murmured, “Funny mate.”
“Don’t call her that,” Clinton said, sitting in the chair next to Emerson. He glared at her. “There’s still time to get out of this.”
“Clinton, if you don’t back off, I’m going to drown you in the falls,” Bash said over his shoulder. His eyes were glowing green. “I called her my mate because she is.”
Clinton dragged his narrowed gaze to Emerson.
“Sorry, old chap, but it’s true. I’m in his life to stay.”
“He didn’t bite you,” Clinton said. “You don’t smell like a bear, so I know you don’t have a claiming mark.”
Emerson strangled her plastic cup. It cracked down the side, and juice leaked out onto her legs. “Maybe someday he’ll claim me, or maybe I’ll choose to stay human and we’ll just get married instead. Either way, what we are to each other doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“The hell it does!”
“Emerson and I are trying for a cub,” Bash said from right behind her.
She startled at how fast he’d gotten to her, and the look on Clinton’s face was nothing shy of terrifying.
“No, she wants artificial insemination from some human she found on the Internet. That’s what you said,” Clinton gritted out through clenched teeth. Oh, now he sounded snarly, and the fine hairs on Emerson’s body lifted.
“She changed her mind. She picked me instead.”
“Bash, are you serious?” Audrey asked, sounding shocked. “You’re gonna have a cub?”
“Get away from her,” Bash rumbled to Clinton. “Now.”
The air was so heavy it was impossible to breathe, or even move. Emerson was trapped, frozen under Clinton’s furious gaze.
“Clinton, move,” Harrison said, his words sparking with a power Emerson hadn’t ever felt before.
“I’m not gonna hurt her,” Clinton said low.
Bash said, “You smell like a fucking bear, and you’re too close to my mate. She don’t heal like us, fuckwad. Move.”
Emerson couldn’t breathe. She was suffocating!
Something enormous brushed her arm, and when she dragged her terrified gaze downward, a massive white tiger rubbed her body against Emerson’s legs with a loud purring sound rattling the air. When the big cat turned to rub her other side against Emerson’s locked legs, Audrey opened her mouth, exposed horrifyingly long canines, and roared at Clinton. Then, panting, Audrey rubbed across Emerson’s legs again, just about knocking her over with the affection.
Clinton shook his head and looked like he hated everything, then stood up and made his way to the grill. With one defiant look over his shoulder at Bash, Clinton took something off the top rack of the grill and dropped it in the sand. A pizza roll with tomato sauce oozing out the side of it.