Page 42 of Visions, Paws, and Claws

He chuckled. “More than okay.” Saul eased out of him, and Crank was aware of feeling emptier than he’d ever done before. Saul stretched out beside him, and they kissed and touched, kissed and stroked, talking in low voices, neither of them, it seemed, in any hurry to get dressed.

Crank could get to like this.

“Vic will be calling us in a few hours,” he murmured.

Saul kissed him. “We get to do this all over again, show Vic what he’s missing.” His eyes sparkled. “You never know, that might bring him home to us all the faster.” A soft sigh rolled out of him. “I know things were a little… prickly when you and I first met.”

Crank cackled. “And the rest.”

“Vic telling me we were mates? I have to admit, it knocked the wind right out of my sails.”

“And now?”

Saul cupped Crank’s chin. “Now, I couldn’t imagine my life without you. Either of you.”

Crank cradled Saul’s head in his hands. “Ditto.” He kissed Saul on the lips, a sweet, lingering kiss that seemed the perfect end to their coupling.

Never thought I’d see this day.

A man had just made love to Crank, not to mention made his ass ache in the most delicious wayever, and he wouldn’t change a fucking thing about it.

Chapter Nine

IT DIDN’Tmatter how many times Vic showed the presentation to Fridan leaders—watching his mate on the screen speaking calmly about what the Gerans had done to him still made Vic’s blood boil.

Shifters have no idea what’s going on under their very noses.

What saddened him was that for a significant number of them, learning the truth wouldn’t alter how they felt. They would still see humans as beneath them, not worthy of their attention.

Such pessimism wasn’t like him, but he knew the root of it. This last visit hadn’t been an unqualified success, and Vic wanted to go home to his mates.

“You have no idea of the impact your coming here has had.”

Vic turned to face Marc Delore, the leader of the Fridan group in Paris. “Kind of you to say, but I think we both know the truth.” He gestured to the long table around which were gathered more than fifteen Fridan leaders, some of them not bothering to lower their voices.

The same leaders who glanced over to where Vic stood, doing little to hide their disdain.

“Not all the leaders agree with you.” Vic sighed. “I didn’t pull any punches, but it doesn’t seem to have helped.”

Delore peered at the assembled group. “I’m not surprised, if I’m honest. Two of my fellow leaders have always seen the world through rose-colored glasses, and nothing will persuade them otherwise.” He patted Vic’s arm. “But I for one am grateful, and I know others feel the same. It was truly a cannon shot across our bows, but a well-timed and much needed one.”

“AndI’mgrateful no one asked me to deliver my speech in French.”

He laughed. “Which was why we had a translator. Some of our leaders here in France are old-school. They think everyone should speak French.” He gazed out at the skyline. “It’s strange to think of a whole world of shifters out there that has no idea of what is going on.”

Vic blinked. “You read my mind.” He followed Delore’s gaze. “It’s a beautiful city, one I’ve never visited before. When this is all over, I must come back.”

A romantic stay in Paris with Saul and Crank sounded wonderful.

“Do you really think this will end?”

He glanced at Delore. “Don’t you?”

Delore sighed. “I am older than you. I have seen too much of the world and witnessed too many scenes like the one we just saw, unfortunately.” He pointed to the landscape beyond the glass. “I know that even if we were to show our shifter brothers and sisters out there the atrocities that have been committed in their name, all with the aim of smiting humans and establishing shifter superiority, there would still be those who would say we lie. A minority, perhaps, but….”

Vic remained quiet, but it was a relief to hear his own thoughts from someone else’s mouth.

It’s not only me, then.

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