Page 4 of Shifter Mates for the Single Mom

Murders or no murders, stalking or no stalking, I still would have wanted to punch this asshole Matthias in the teeth. I was sure my Pack would feel the same once they showed up. "Do you have any idea what kind of shifters they are?"

"I have no idea. I didn't even know there were different kinds."

"Wolves are the most common, but I kind of doubt that Matthias is one unless he and his mother have been kicked out of their Pack. Otherwise, he'd have a big team of people with him, not just one or two. Our strength is in numbers and unity. He's not quite a loner, but his personality alone would have kept most Wolves from accepting him."

She sat forward, taking a sip of her drink. I tried to keep my eyes out of her cleavage as she listened to me. "What other kinds are there?"

She hadn't acted this curious about shifters back when she was with Ben. My guess was that she hadn't wanted to talk about something so personal with me. Not when I couldn't really help the way I looked at her. Especially when Ben wasn't in the room.

"Bear shifters often live in small family groups, but I never heard of one as urban as Matthias. They're usually off in the woods somewhere, avoiding big cities. There are others. Rarer, but they exist. Coyotes, Foxes–most of them are Japanese–Seals, and Tigers."

"Tigers." She tapped her chin. "Tell me more about them."

"You sure you want me to?" I asked gently. "Because most of them are really bad news."

"I'm just thinking about the damage that was done last night. That wasn't done by a Coyote a Fox, or a Seal. Maybe a Wolf, maybe a Bear, but the way it attacked wasn't very Wolflike."

"I can understand your wanting to know more. But uh… Tiger shifters are dangerous. They're so dangerous that they're one of the iconic monsters of India. And I do mean monsters. Tiger shifters are evil. They lie, manipulate, steal, kill, and worse, they like eating people." Her jaw dropped, and she nodded grimly. "Yeah. Most shifters avoid doing that, both because it's horrible and because it can make us sick. Really sick. But Tigers? They seem to either be immune, or they kill their infected as soon as they show symptoms. And that's not all."

She took a shivery breath, like she was bracing herself, and nodded. “Okay. What is it?”

“Every kind of shifter has a special power that’s all ours. Wolves have the strength of our Pack, our loyalty to each other. We won’t betray each other, not even under torture. Bears can heal almost any wound, not only in themselves but in others. And Tigers? Tigers can look and sound like any human being they want.”

I hated doing this to her, but there were reasons why we’d waited until Aidan was asleep. I watched her mull this over, and the horror on her face grew. “You mean they can imitate people you know?”

“Yeah, they can. They might not be able to keep up the act long unless they know the person, but you could open your door one day and see your dead mother standing there talking to you in her voice. They like messing with people that way. Like cats playing with a mouse.” I couldn’t keep the disgust out of my voice.

“How did you learn all of this? I mean, there are some basic books that have been written since you guys all went public, but none of them go in-depth like this.” She remembered her lemonade and took another swallow.

“Pack elders from when I was young, mostly. And yeah, a lot of knowledge about shifters we only share with those close to us. Don’t want to give the Hunters too much ammunition.” The lemonade was crisp, cold, and just sweet enough to cut the acidity some.

“Matthias loves to play with people.” She sounded disgusted. “He’s a con man. He bilked and then robbed me out of a good ten thousand dollars in money and goods. He also targeted the artist’s colony in town. My friends. I warned them and dumped him, and boom, suddenly I have a vengeful stalker making my life hard. But I didn’t know he was a shifter at all until last night.”

“He never told you?” Yeah, even if it wasn’t my job to bring this guy down, I’d go out and do it. What a piece of shit.

“No. He uh… to be honest I have no idea how much of what he told me was true. His family is in on everything. His mother… she plays a sweet old lady as well as he plays a debonair arts patron. Just horrible people. I wonder if she’s a shifter too, or if it was just his dad.”

“Let’s just assume she’s one too, for safety’s sake.” I got out my phone and started texting details of our conversation to Jamie, my tech guy, to send to the others. Jamie was the only one who consistently paid attention to his phone. Bela, our security guy, did normally, but he was ignoring it a lot right now thanks to an annoying ex blowing it up. As for Ulf, I’d had to argue my Luddite of a Beta into carrying a phone at all.

Jamie responded quickly. “OK, got it so far. How’s she doing?”

I pressed my lips together before answering. “Not good. Her stalker’s a rogue shifter. Possibly his mom and their bodyguard, too. He’s done a number on her and means to do worse.”

I looked up at Madelyne. “Just updating the guys. They’ll be driving over in a few hours. Well before dark. You say that these people have always harassed you at night?”

“Like a couple of damn vampires, yeah.” She sounded so tired.

It made me sad that this amazing woman had gone from Ben, who had treated her like a queen, to this predatory, lying dumpster fire of a shifter. Matthias must have been a brilliant manipulator to pull that off. She was too smart and strong to break down like that unless a master was working on her.

But she had broken down. I knew that Ben’s death had hit both her and her son hard, and three years wasn’t that much time to get over it. Matthias must have swooped in while she was vulnerable. There was just no way outside of pure skill that he could have tricked her otherwise.

Ben would want to kill this guy. I want to kill him. And I knew that some of that was plain and simple jealousy. How dare this fucker be with her after Ben when I had held off so long, and how dare he hurt her in the process? How dare he be bothering her, threatening her, even now?

On the phone with me at dawn, explaining her terrible situation, she had nearly broken down in tears on me twice. Afterward, my Wolf had been so agitated by the news that I’d had to run it out, putting in ten miles before I could go home, tell the guys, and start making plans.

“Any idea where they are staying?” I asked her gently.

“They’re jet-setters. Fancy hotels are more their style than anything in a small town. Matthias drives a damn Bentley like an old-money millionaire. His mom has a matching one with that giant driving it.”

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