“I’ll just bet you are,” Dora said, closing her mouth. She broke the hug and peered into Glory’s face. “It really is you, huh? The tiger in the woods?”
“Yes,” Glory nodded in a very definite way. “And I’ve seen you before. But I didn’t know you were a lion.”
Dora tugged Glory over to the couch and they both sat down. “I’m not. Figure of speech.”
Glory cocked her head to one side and turned to Emin. She didn’t understand what Dora had said and she was asking him. For some reason that made him want to pound one fist on his chest. He didn’t look closely at his feeling. “Mama meant that Dora was LIKE a lion. Because she is fierce. And smart. And a fighter. Not that she is a lion shifter.”
Glory’s eyes lit with delighted understanding. “Oh, that is true. You are a smart, fierce fighter. I’ve seen it.”
“That night in the woods?” Dora asked, remembering a time about six months ago. Dora was an investigative reporter and she’d been sneaking around a site in the woods, looking for information. She’d thought her eyes were playing tricks when she’d seen the shadow of a tiger in the woods of Spokane. That was before she’d married into a family of bear shifters and suddenly a lot more had seemed possible in the world.
“At the bad place,” Glory nodded solemnly. “I saw you there, sneaking and climbing and looking around. And then again, later, you came back, even though the place scared you. And then I saw you fight a bear. You are very small and the bear was very large. But you tried to fight anyways.”
“Wow,” Dora said, her eyes wide. This girl tiger had apparently been quite the tail last spring when Dora had been eyes-deep in the investigation of a lifetime.
“Bad place?” Danil asked from across the room. He thought he knew what she was talking about, but he, all of them really, needed confirmation. And a lot more information. “I’m Danil, by the way.”
“I’m Glory,” she glowed. But then a cloud was drawn across that glow and Emin had the insane urge to brush the hair back from her face, curl her into his lap. “Yes, the bad place-”
Glory cut off and her eyes went wide as Anton filled the doorway of the living room, tugging a shirt over his head. He’d obviously just come inside from having been in his bear form.
“Now, what is big emergency?” he asked, grouchy as usual.
Again, Glory was springing to her feet. But this time she was sniffing at the air as well. She hopped gracefully over Dora’s outstretched feet and sprang across the room to Anton. He barely had the shirt down before she was gripping his shoulders, sniffing at his neck, his face, his hair.
A wild grin stole over his face and made Emin want to burn the house down. If a smile like that from Anton hadn’t been so rare, Emin may have smacked it right off of him.
Glory stepped back, staring into Anton’s face.
“Hello,” Anton said, charmed by her gorgeous, guileless stare.
No one noticed the sleeve of AJ’s sweater being twisted to smithereens in her hands. Yup. Just as she expected. Glory looked perfect next to Anton. Of course. And she’d just spent an afternoon making her look even more perfect. Good one, AJ.
Glory sniffed at Anton again.
Stop sniffing my fucking brother! Emin screamed in his head.
Stepping back, Glory looked Anton fully in the face. “You’re a Navuka bear,” she exclaimed emphatically, wiping the smile completely from his face. “I’m a Navuka tiger. Did they hurt you? They hurt me. But,” she reached up and brushed the small shock of white hair behind one of his ears, the light scarring down his neck, “it looks like they hurt you more.”
Emin’s brothers expected him to look to them for confirmation. They all expected him to give a dark, pained look and ask who the hell this lady was. They expected him to sulk into a corner or disappear back out the door, desperate to shift again and get away from his past. He did none of those things.
He gripped Glory by the shoulders. “Navuka had you? For how long? Where? You are okay?” His English was the worst of all the brothers; he rarely used it. Only when he was talking to AJ, really. But now it was flowing out of him. Fast.
Glory nodded, gripped his shoulders right back as if she were imitating him. She probably was, Emin realized. Considering she pretty much had no idea how to talk to people who weren’t her mother. “I’m okay. I got away.”
“Glory, come tell us all,” Katya said. “We need to know.”
Katya’s voice broke the spell between Anton and Glory and the two of them looked back at the room. Anton took a step back, out of the room, but Glory tugged him forward. She folded herself down on the floor and when he stood above her, she tugged him down to sit next to her.