Wild Invitation

enthusiastic.”
    She understood the surprise in his voice. All the DarkRiver cats she knew had one thing in common—family was the bedrock of their world. And Pack was one big extended family as far as they were concerned—she’d had senior pack members turn up to parent-teacher conferences more than once when the parent was ill or unavoidably delayed. “My mom keeps trying to set me up with men.”
    Zach’s expression changed and, for the first time, she saw the ruthless soldier in him. “What kind of men?”
    “Academics.” She shrugged. “Mom and Dad are both professors at Berkeley—math and physics respectively.”
    “Are academics your type?”
    “No.”
    He glanced at her again, and those eyes had gone leopard on her. “Are you sure?”
    “Quite.” She found herself refusing to be intimidated by the sense of incipient danger in the air. If she gave an inch, Zach would take a mile. And while she might not be a dominant female, it was important that he respect her. She frowned. Of course it was important, but that thought, it had been so vivid, so strong, so
visceral
—as if her mind knew something it wasn’t yet ready to share.
    Then Zach spoke again, breaking her train of thought. “So you’ll be skipping the dinner.” It was an order plain and simple.
    Annie opened her mouth. What came out was, “No, I’ll take you.”

Chapter 5
    ZACH’S GRIN WAS openly pleased. “What’s the blind date going to say?”
    She couldn’t believe she’d just done that, ordered him to do something. More, she couldn’t believe he’d agreed. “Probably, ‘Thank God.’”
    “Huh?”
    “My cousin Caroline works at the university, too. The men come in expecting a statuesque, intellectual, blond beauty and get me.”
    “So?”
    She scowled, wondering if he was teasing her again. “So, I’m about as opposite Caro as you can get.”
    “If they ignored you, that’s their loss. Too damn bad for them.” He shrugged. “Do you want to put on some music?”
    She blinked at the way he’d swept aside the disappointments of the past with that simple statement. If she hadn’t already liked him, that would’ve done it. “No, I need to tell you something about my mom.” She swallowed, realizing she’d made a mess of things. If she hadn’t mentioned the dinner, she could’ve avoided this altogether.
    Zach groaned. “Don’t tell me, she’s a vegetarian?” he said, as if that was the worst thing possible.
    She supposed for a leopard changeling, it was. “No.” For once, he couldn’t make her smile despite herself. “My mum is a little”—she tried to find an easy way to say this and failed—“biased against changelings.”
    “Ah. Let me guess—she thinks we’re only one step up from animals?”
    She felt very, very awkward discussing this, but she had to warn him about what he might face if he went to dinner with her. “It’s not so blunt. She has no problem with other humans, and she admires the Psy, but she’s never wanted me dating, or getting friendly with”—she raised her fingers in quotation marks—“‘the rough changeling element.’”
    “What about you?” A deceptively soft question.
    “That’s an insult, Zach,” she said as softly. “If that’s what you really think of me—”
    He swore. “Sorry, Annie, you’re right, I’m being an ass. My only excuse is that you hit a hot button.”
    “I know.” She couldn’t blame him for his reaction. “It makes me really uncomfortable, but I’ve tried to change her mind, and it’s never worked.”
    “What does she think of you teaching in a school with such a big changeling population?”
    “That it’s my version of acting out.” She laughed at his expression, awkwardness dissipating. “No, she doesn’t seem to realize I’m a grown-up, as the kids would say.”
    “Why do you let her get away with it?”
    She was beginning to expect the straight-up questions from him. “My mom was on that train with me. She tried and tried and
tried
to get me out even though I was pinned under so much wreckage, she didn’t have a hope of shifting anything.” Her throat choked with the force of memory. “Her arm was broken at the time, but she didn’t cry a single tear. She just kept trying to get me out.”
    Zach reached out to run his knuckles over her cheek. “She loves you.”
    She found comfort in the touch, and when he returned his hand to the steering wheel, she realized he’d somehow given her strength. “Yes.