Moon Shifter 02 - Primal Possession

him well, but I know he’d never do anything to physically hurt her.”
    “You can’t know—”
    “Yes, I can. Shifters act a certain way around their mates. They might not be officially together, but he feels for her the way I feel for you. I saw it on his face.”
    “Oh.” At his words her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red and it had nothing to do with the cold. At least she understood his meaning.
    When she still didn’t move, he gestured toward her car. “You gonna make me freeze my ass off out here all night or are we gonna go?” he asked jokingly.
    Her blue eyes narrowed. “I know you’re not cold, but you’re right. Let’s get out of here.”
    Once in the car he turned the heat all the way up. At least she hadn’t fought him about driving home. Not that he would have listened. She’d had a couple drinks and he hadn’t had any. There were some things he’d compromise on and others he wouldn’t. Letting her drive with alcohol in her system wasn’t something she’d ever win.
    After they’d made it halfway back to town, she uncrossed her arms and flipped the heat down a couple notches. “I never said thank you, so…thanks.”
    “For what?” He kept an eye on the rearview mirror as he drove. After everything that had been going on lately, he wanted to make sure they weren’t being followed.
    “I don’t know, for not being a jerk about Kat, I guess.”
    His eyebrows drew together. “I don’t follow.”
    Her shoulders lifted slightly. “We had to leave the party early and you didn’t make a big deal about it. Plus you defused what could have been a drama-filled situation. I just appreciate it, that’s all.”
    Liam still didn’t understand why she was thanking him, so he mumbled a nonresponse. Maybe the males she’d known in the past were different, but he couldn’t comprehend why she thought he’d care about leaving a party. He’d only gone to be with her in the first place.
    The sooner they left meant the more time he got to spend with her alone. He’d barely had any time with herall day. Her store had been packed with holiday shoppers and as soon as they’d gotten to her house, she’d spent the next hour in her room getting ready for tonight. Part of him wondered if she’d been intentionally avoiding him, but right now he didn’t care.
    Right now it was just the two of them. And he planned to take full advantage of it.
    Edward leaned against the door frame as he listened to Greg, one of his APL recruits, talk. It was late and almost everyone had left. The small meeting had gone well and if they pulled off taking Katarina Saburova, his boss would be very pleased. Edward was in charge of the new recruits in the Fontana area and so far his track record was shit.
    The two recent failed kidnapping attempts from his group were garish blights and he planned to rectify that soon. He’d joined the APL because he was tired of the blasé attitude of most people and even the government where supernatural beings were concerned. They walked around freely like they had every right to. It was wrong and nauseating. His own mother—whore that she’d been—had left his father for one of those abominations almost as soon as shifters had come out to the world twenty years ago. Edward might be close to forty now, but it didn’t alleviate the pain when he thought about her and that lupine shifter. She’d not only left his father but cut contact with him too. She’d become nothing more than a pathetic groupie overnight for those animals. It was like the woman who’d raised him had never existed. She’d broken his father’s heart when she’d left, but she hadn’t cared. She’d said she wanted a different life. To this day he had no clue where she’d ended up orif she was still alive. The male she’d shacked up with hadn’t been part of a pack, just some lone wolf, making it impossible to track her down.
    “…Once I get Katarina’s new work schedule, I think we’ll have something solid to work with,” Greg finished.
    Edward nodded absently. He hated being distracted but Brianna was in the kitchen with Tony. He hated that pretty boy and it had been hard to miss the looks he’d been giving her all night. Edward cleared his throat and stepped back inside the house. “Call me with any updates.”
    Greg nodded and fished his keys out of his jacket pocket. “Will do. Talk to you soon.”
    As he shut the front door behind him, Edward slipped off his coat and hung it on the