White Tiger

And why hadn’t he mentioned that his sons were white tigers?

The cubs’ black-and-white stripes matched the stripes in Kendrick’s hair, and their eyes were the same shade of green as his. That must mean that Kendrick was a . . .

No, that was insane. People didn’t become wild animals, unless they were . . .

Shifters.

Addie never seen a Shifter before in her life. She’d watched documentaries about them on television, seen news reports, had heeded warnings to stay away from them.

Not that she’d even needed to worry about it before. Shifters didn’t run around in middle-of-nowhere towns like Loneview, didn’t mix much with people at all. What were called Shiftertowns had been formed in Austin and around San Antonio, but Shifters didn’t leave them to come visit this out-of-the-way place. Addie never paid much attention to Shifters—they weren’t part of her world.

And now one had come to her diner to eat pie.

Four Shifters, actually. The two little tigers huddled together and against Robbie. They blinked for a while, then Brett and Zane closed their eyes, and danged if they didn’t drift off to sleep. Addie pulled a crate full of frozen pies over to them and sank down on it.

Addie’s hands were growing numb, from fear or cold, she wasn’t sure. She checked her watch every two minutes—the minute hand had never moved so slowly. Finally she simply started counting seconds to give her agitated mind something to do.

On the dot of fifteen minutes, Addison rose, signaled the cubs to stay behind her, and softly clicked open the freezer door.

The waft of warm air felt good. She’d never complain about Texas heat again.

Her foot crunched on glass, but other than that, all was silence.

That silence was broken when a man stumbled in through the open back door. He was big and hard-muscled, like Kendrick, but his clothes were in shreds, and blood coated his face and body.

The man saw Addie. He stared at her in great surprise, eyes of a very light blue widening. Then his knees bent, and he sort of folded up and collapsed to the floor, landing on his back. His head made an audible crack on the tile.

Addie started for him. He’d been one of the shooters, she was certain, but he wasn’t armed now. He looked beaten down and pathetic.

Another sound made her look up. Kendrick came through the door, likewise bloody, and he was stark naked.

Kendrick gazed at Addie, and she looked back at him. His green eyes stood out in his dirt-and-blood-streaked face, holding both insane fury and great unhappiness.

Addie heard the tiger cubs and Robbie come out behind her, but the three remained together, huddled against the door of the freezer.

Kendrick and Addie studied each other over the body of the injured man, Addie barely able to breathe.

“Guardian,” the man whispered.

Kendrick dragged his gaze from Addie and moved it down to him. The man looked back up at Kendrick, fear and shame in his eyes. The one word had been a plea.

Kendrick growled in his throat, his fist closing as though he held his sword, though Robbie still had the blade, guarding it across the room.

“You endangered my cubs,” Kendrick said, the rage in his voice making the man on the floor flinch.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know they would be here with you. Forgive me, Guardian. Take them far away, because more will be coming.”

“How many more?” Kendrick asked him, voice hard. “And why? Why have you turned on me? I put my ass on the line for twenty years making sure you stayed free, no Collars, no Shiftertowns.”

The man shrugged wearily against the floor. “There are at least fifty of us, maybe more. They’re tired of hiding, tired of running.”