average human. They’re shifters.”
Bitsi? That’d be enough reason to be a ball-buster. Since shifters were born, not changed like many Weres could be, her parents must have thought giving her a foo-foo name might disguise her true nature. That’d be like giving a buffalo a poodle’s haircut and expecting folks not to notice they were being charged by an enormous shaggy beast.
So focused on the unlikely shifter’s unlikely name, I missed the first part of Stone’s next comment but caught the end. “… so if the leaders want to—”
“I think we should get Bitsi,” Dyslexia shouted, earning the swivel of everyone’s attention to her. She glanced around our team saying in a lower voice, “What? She’s a woman. She’ll be easier to fight.”
“She’s a shifter,” I snapped back, not caring who heard. And since shifters had better hearing than humans, Bitsi already was listening in on everything being said. “There’s no ‘easy’ in fighting any shifter.”
Stone gave me a small nod and I swear I heard Rolf snort under his breath. But he wasn’t the most immediate problem, being saddled with an idiot with attitude was.
Dyslexia thrust her hands on her hips, lowering her head to protect her vulnerable neck and rocked forward on her feet. “You don’t care about the team,” she snarled back. “You don’t care if we’re all torn to pieces.”
Kelly stepped forward to diffuse the tension, but I thrust my hand out and held her back, not glancing at her but staring instead at the woman itching to take a bite out of me.
“You’re wrong.” I swung my gaze to intersect with Vaughn, then the rest of my team. “No human wins going one-on-one with a shifter. We have to fight as a team or go down. Doesn’t matter if we get Bitsi,” I stumbled a little over the name, “Or Rolf, or Paris Hilton.”
Not that I thought Paris Hilton was a shifter, fae maybe, but she fit the point I was making. “And if you think the sex, or name, or outward appearance of a shifter is going to make fighting one easier than another, you’re on your way to a quick grave.”
“Says you,” Dyslexia almost spit the words. “Are you a shifter?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know squat. You’re—”
“The sister of four shifter brothers,” I ground out, earning a quick step back from most of my teammates, all except Kelly and Vaughn. Even Dyslexia hesitated as fear washed over her face. Fear of the unknown. And since most shifters never advertised what they were, the fact I’d lived among them marked me as different and frightening. Nice way to paint a neon sign on my head. The first to come out. The group might not know what I was, but they sure as heck knew I was related to non-humans.
I stepped forward, closer to Dyslexia so she was very clear I wasn’t afraid of her stupidity, even if it could get us killed. “Vaughn’s team leader. She chooses. Not you.”
Not that Vaughn had a lot of choice at this point. If she chose Rolf the whole group, including Stone, would assume it was because Dyslexia forced her into a no-win situation. Right now the tail was wagging the dog.
Vaughn glanced at me, gave a what-the-hell shrug and cut her gaze to Stone, not the shifters, as she said. “Makes no difference to me. I’ve got a strong team. We’ll fight any shifter you have.”
Nice face saving move. We were still going to get trounced, but it looked like we could do so in style.
I gave Vaughn a thumbs up, moving the circle in for a huddle. Yeah, that was Vaughn’s call, but I had a few things to share before all hell broke loose.
CHAPTER 10
“What do we need to know?” Vaughn whispered, our heads so close it might be hard for the shifters to hear us. Hard but not impossible.
There were a hundred things I could say but no time, and I doubted that everyone in the group would listen so I cut to the chase. “Hit them with everything we’ve got. No holds barred. Two at a time, wave after wave,
M.M. Brennan
Stephen Dixon
Border Wedding
BWWM Club, Tyra Small
Beth Goobie
Eva Ibbotson
Adrianne Lee
Margaret Way
Jonathan Gould
Nina Lane