Jennifer Ashley - Pride Mates

The story was simple, easy to relate. Her grief had burned away to emptiness long ago. She lived in the big house she'd inherited from her parents, and it was--so quiet. She tried to cheer it up with weekend parties or office mixers, but the warmth never lasted. Her parents' neighborhood was one of standoffish elegance; no kids would dare splash in plastic pools in any front yard on her street.

Liam gently squeezed her feet. "I'm sorry for you, Kim Fraser. It's the hardest thing, losing a brother. It's like losing a part of yourself."

He was too right. Kim's next words came reluctantly. "When Mark was killed, I blamed myself. I know that's stupid. I was at a friend's house miles away, and I was ten years old--what could I have done? But I kept thinking that if I'd been there, I could have warned him, pulled him out of the way, kept him home altogether. Something . "

Liam's warm, relaxing fingers slid beneath each of her toes. "Sean and me, we had a brother. Kenny. We lost him about ten years ago. You always wonder, if you'd persuaded him to do something different that day, would he still be alive?"

"Exactly." After seventeen years, Kim had never found anyone who really understood, not friends or colleagues or the child counselor she'd been hauled off to. Now a Shifter she'd met an hour ago wrung the truth from her heart. "I'm sorry, Liam. About your brother."

He acknowledged the sympathy with a nod. "Did they ever get the bastard who hit Mark?"

Kim shook her head. "The police picked up a guy, but it turned out he didn't do it. Everyone wanted him to be guilty, wanted someone to blame, but I knew he hadn't done it when I saw him. He was so scared, and his wife was crying, and I said it wasn't him--but of course, how could I know? I was a kid and hadn't even been there. In the end, evidence came to light that cleared him. But everyone was pissed that he was innocent. They couldn't catch the real guy, so they wanted a substitute."

His hands slowed. "Is that when you decided to become a defense attorney?"

"No, I wanted to be a doctor." She grinned. "Or a dancer, I couldn't decide. I was ten. But I wanted the right guy to pay. I knew that if the wrong person went to prison, then whoever really did hit my brother would have hurt that many more people, you know?"

"Well reasoned for a ten-year-old."

"I thought about it. A lot. For a while, I couldn't think about anything else." Hence the child counselor.

"I know." He looked grim again.

Kim wanted to ask how his brother had died, but at that moment Sandra and Sean returned with the coffee. Kim tried to jerk her feet from Liam's lap, but he closed his hands around her ankles and held them fast. She glared, and he smiled back, showing her nice white teeth.

Sean set a tray on the table. It held the whole works: cups, a pot, cream, and sugar. No artificial sweetener. Kim wondered whether that was because Sandra didn't like artificial sweetener or whether Shifters never had to worry about their weight.

Sandra didn't look surprised or shocked that Kim had her stockinged feet in Liam's lap. She poured out a cup of coffee and handed it to Kim without comment.

"So, tell us, Kim," Sean said, as he sat down and took his cup, "is there any chance for Brian?"

Kim couldn't lie to them. "Brian's DNA was on the victim, Michelle, and in her bedroom, and now that everyone watches CSI , they figure DNA is the magic truth. But Brian says he'd been dating Michelle and had gone to her house, so of course his DNA would be there and on her too."

"Then what can we do?" Sandra asked, angry. "If this DNA has already convicted him?"

"We can prove he was nowhere near the scene of the crime that night," Kim said. "Which is why I'm here. Neither the private investigator I hired nor my journalist friend who's been following the case can find any information on his whereabouts that night. I mean, no information at all. Like he'd vanished for twenty-four hours. But I can't believe no one saw Brian or knew where he was going."

Hell, everyone on this street had known within minutes that Liam and Sean were taking the human lawyer to Brian's house. They probably knew Kim's full name and her favorite color by now. "I'm having the investigator look into Michelle's side of things--see if she had a jealous ex or an abusive father, or even a normally nice friend upset that Michelle was dating a Shifter. I'm trying to find any evidence the police overlooked in their zeal to arrest a Shifter."

"Your investigator came around and asked me questions." Sandra sounded pissed about it. "But Brian didn't tell me himself he was walking out with this girl, so how could I know?"

"But you might know something that can help," Kim said. "I'm sorry, I know this is painful for you, but Brian's clammed up about Michelle, so I have to poke and pry. I think getting him released is more important than keeping his personal secrets, don't you?"

"Is it?" Sandra had a bit of the same Irish lilt as Sean and Liam, but Brian didn't. He'd told Kim that his father came from a different clan, she guessed not an Irish one. Either that or his clan had lost their accent after living in Texas awhile.

Kim didn't really understand how the Shifter clans worked, though Brian had tried to explain a little. She knew that each immediate family belonged to a larger, extended family group called a pride, and they belonged to an even more extended group called a clan. Shifters never married within the pride, and tried to marry outside the clan. When a female married, she joined her husband's clan and pride, leaving her own. Kim had thought clans were based on what kind of animal the Shifter turned into, but Brian said it was more complicated than that. This Shiftertown was home to several clans, as well as several species of Shifters, and there was another Shiftertown with more clans on the northeast edge of Austin.

Liam's father, Dylan Morrissey, was more or less the official head of the Austin branch of his entire clan, but also the unofficial head of this Shiftertown, even over the other clans. But no, Kim couldn't talk directly to Dylan, Brian told her. He was off-limits to non-Shifters. She could petition him through Liam and Liam only.

Why not Sean? Kim wondered, glancing at Liam's brother. What position did he hold in the clan hierarchy? Officially and unofficially?

Sean helped himself to coffee and exchanged a glance with Liam. "So you need to find someone who was with Brian at the time in question?" Sean asked.

Kim could have sworn that Liam had nodded ever so slightly, as though letting Sean know it was all right to say this. Nonverbal cues were flowing thick and fast.

"An independent witness would be terrific," Kim said. "Someone without a grudge against Shifters. And preferably not a Shifter him- or herself."

"Tall order," Sean said.

"The girl is human," Sandra snapped. "What human will come forward and say my son didn't do it?"

She had a point. Kim knew that locating a witness was a long shot, but it would be a nice change to find something concrete. Innocent until proven guilty was not working in Brian's case. The fact that he was Shifter had already condemned him in most people's eyes. Kim had to exonerate him or he didn't stand a chance.

Liam started massaging the tops of Kim's feet, which made her tense limbs start to droop.

"I might be able to find out where Brian really was," Liam said. "You should have come to me about this right away, love."

"I didn't know that, did I? Like I said, Brian is the first Shifter I've ever met, and to get him to tell me that you, Liam, even existed was an amazing feat." Brian hadn't bothered to mention Sean.

"We don't like talking about ourselves," Sean said.

"I don't see why not. Shifters exposed themselves years ago, and everyone knows all about you. There's nothing to hide anymore."