Moon Shifter 02 - Primal Possession

wasn’t going to leave town. Not that it was fair he’d ever asked her to in the first place. This was her home. She’d been here for a lot longer than he’d known her. On a logical, human level, he knew that. It was just that—
    “Uncle Liam!” He turned at the sound of Vivian in the doorway. With a chocolate-covered cupcake in her hand, she smiled broadly and raced toward him. As the little she-cat started to dive for the couch, she froze, then climbed up next to him using her free hand. “Ana would
not
be happy if I got chocolate on her couch,” she said seriously.
    Liam bit back a grin. “You could probably blame it on me and get away with it.” Vivian’s dark eyes lit up and Liam shook his head. “Don’t get any ideas, cub.”
    She crossed her legs and twisted on the couch to face him. “What are you doing here? I thought Ana said you were out patrolling.”
    “We have a pack meeting soon.”
    “Oh. That’s probably why Noel made all those cookies. Where’s your girlfriend? She’s pretty. I thought she was going to start living with us. I know she owns a bookstore and I wanted to ask her something.” Vivian shot words at him like machine-gun fire while staring intently.
    Liam tried to wade through everything Vivian had just said. “She’s not my girlfriend anymore.”
    “What did you do wrong?”
    He smiled wryly at her assumption he’d done something wrong. Not wanting to have this conversation with a ten-year-old jaguar cub who would surely repeat every word to Ana, he cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t you be in school?” While Vivian and Lucas, the other wolf cub who lived with their pack, didn’t go to regular school, they were homeschooled by Esperanze, a sweet beta femalerecently mated to one of their warriors. Ryan used to homeschool them, but since they’d moved to the ranch, the beta female had taken over the duties, since she was more qualified and genuinely seemed to enjoy it more.
    She rolled her eyes. “It’s Saturday.
Duh.
So what did you do to make your girlfriend mad?”
    “It’s complicated.”
    Vivian snorted loudly in the same manner he’d seen Ana do when annoyed with her mate. The little she-cat was definitely taking after Ana.
    He raised an eyebrow. “That’s funny, cub?”
    “Whenever Connor says something is complicated, Ana calls him a bad word. Well, I don’t think it’s really bad. It means a donkey’s butt, but I’m still not allowed to say it. I tried once and Ana took away my horse-riding privileges for a
whole
day
.” She shuddered and scooted off the couch, cupcake still firmly in hand. “I hope you and your girlfriend work things out.”
    “Me too.” As soon as he said the words, he realized he meant it. He couldn’t live like this. Not without December. It was like living without a limb. Since it was obvious she wasn’t going to leave town, staying apart didn’t really make her any safer, and it drove him crazy worrying about her. He wanted to be the one protecting her instead of other wolves from his pack.
    Vivian looked longingly at her cupcake, then at him, as if fighting a decision. Finally she shoved it in his direction. “It’s the last one. You need it more than me.” When he didn’t take it, she sat it on his outstretched leg before running out and yelling for Noel that she needed a cookie.
    Smiling, he picked it up and shook his head as Erin strolled into the room. Her eyes widened when she saw what he had. “Are there cupcakes?”
    “Last one.” He grinned and took a bite of it.
    “Figures.” Sighing, Erin sat on the love seat opposite him.
    “I think there might be cookies in the kitchen.” Before the words were out, she had jumped up and was heading in that direction.
    Liam ate half the cupcake, then set it on the coffee table. It was good but it might as well have been cardboard going down his throat. As other pack members and Brianna, the fae warrior they’d found the same night as Kat, filed into the room, he grunted acknowledgments to them but otherwise didn’t talk.
    Even though he wanted to sulk in his own pathetic thoughts, he tried to shake visions of December and her last parting words from his head.
    “You okay?” Brianna, the soft-spoken fae, surprised him with her question. She sat on the opposite couch next to Noah.
    “Yeah.” He managed a half smile for her, but by the way she drew back from him, it probably came off as a snarl.
    He rubbed a hand over his face. Brianna had filled them in