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“Thank you.” She didn’t let go. “You’ve become so strong.”
    â€œI was always strong compared to you.” Now he could snap her in two without thinking. It was that difference in strength that had always kept him away from human females. The rare lovers he took were all changeling. He was who he was. And gentleness was not part of his nature. “Unless you’ve muscled up and it doesn’t show on the surface?”
    She laughed, a warm, intrinsically feminine sound. “I’m still a shrimp, but you—you’ve become a leopard.”
    He understood. She had known him as an angry boy trapped inside the claustrophobic walls of their apartment complex. The lack of clean air had stifled the leopard, wounded him on an elemental level. He hadn’t even been able to shift without someone calling the cops to report a wild animal on the loose. Then there was Isla, unable to bear the sight of her son in leopard form.
    â€œAre you happy with DarkRiver?” Talin asked now.
    â€œThey’re my family, my friends.” For Clay, that loyalty meant everything. They accepted him as he was, didn’t give a shit that he preferred to roam alone more often than not, invited him into their homes without compunction.
    â€œWho was the blond man with you?”
    He stiffened. “Dorian’s a sentinel, too.” A pretty one according to most women.
    â€œYou two were being rough with those boys.”
    â€œThey earned it. Got drunk and smashed up the bar.”
    â€œSo you came to take them home.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “You look after each other. Your pack, I mean.”
    â€œI’ll be kicking their asses three ways to Sunday soon as they sober up. We’re no Swiss Family Robinson.” They couldn’t afford to be, especially not now, with the Psy Council attempting to take down the only changeling groups—DarkRiver and SnowDancer—that had dared challenge its absolute rule.
    Something made a rumbling sound.
    â€œHungry, Tally?”
    She nodded, but remained plastered to him. “I was so nervous about meeting you, I didn’t eat all day.”
    â€œIf you don’t want to piss me off,” he snapped, “stop talking about how much I scare you.”
    â€œIt won’t change the truth.” Talin knew she’d surprised him. His muscles bunched. Then he let out a low growl that rolled down her spine like a thousand tiny pinpricks.
    â€œStop flinching or I’ll bite you and really give you something to worry about.”
    She blinked. “You wouldn’t bite me.” Would he?
    â€œTry it and see.”
    Surrounded by all that powerful male muscle, feeling warm and safe, she decided not to push him. Not today. “Will you help me?”
    Her answer was a hot breath at her ear. “Keep asking silly questions and see where it gets you.”
    She took that as a yes and, though her heart threatened to rip out of her chest, she remained stuck to him. And she prayed. Prayed that she could do this without betraying the one secret that would make Clay truly hate her.

    Twenty minutes later, she found herself sitting in the same bar the young males had smashed up. “It doesn’t look too bad.” She nodded at the relatively undamaged walls.
    â€œManager knows how to build tough. Joe’s a packmate.”
    â€œOh.” She went silent as a curvy blonde with a bad-tempered expression placed Talin’s meal in front of her before turning to Clay.
    â€œI hope Cory, Kit, Jase, and the rest of those drunken monkeys get the same punishment I did. Joe thinks it’s hysterical to make me wear this frickin’ getup.” Her voice was a snarl as she waved at her pink baby-tee and black miniskirt. Teamed with knee-high boots, it turned her into a sexy stunner. But Talin had a feeling that any man stupid enough to put a move on this woman would soon find his arm broken into