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“Ye know I’m better at the make love not war bit.” He grinned as though the results of tonight’s meeting didn’t matter at all, but his words had echoed every anxiety I had been fighting for the past few weeks.

My stomach churned. “I don’t know what to do to convince them.”

He draped his arm around my shoulders. “This evening will be like everything else. Ye’ll learn as ye go, and ye’ll know as ye go. It’s worked well for ye so far.”

“So far, so good,” I murmured, thinking again about Logan, “but that’s not all that’s weighing on my mind.”

“Well, ye’ll figure that shite out, too,” Jasper said, hefting his own bag to his shoulder. “I have faith in ye.”

He had been the shifter who had been responsible for my training since I had landed in his clan, and he had an inexplicable certainty about me as the multimorph. His confidence should have been inspiring, but as we made our way out of the rear of the Red Tail clearing and into what was supposed to be my destiny, I only wished I believed him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

logan

The Morning of the Hunter’s Moon Conclave

Marcus Steele glared at me from the threshold of my manor, his mouth contorted in a vicious snarl. The door creaked on its hinges, swinging back toward him after he’d thrown it open.

“I demand to meet the suspected multimorph.” He paused, probably for dramatic effect, but taking the asshole seriously hadn’t earned a spot on my priority list. “I didn’t expect to have to demand an audience with her, Logan Blackwood.”

I deposited the pile of supplies in my arms onto the stairs that led to the bedroom which still smelled of Emma. “Well, Marcus, I didn’t expect you to show up here…uninvited.”

Unwelcome. I didn’t have to say the word for it to hang in the air.

“I am the alpha of the Ville Platte Cats, and I am afforded the right to meet the multimorph,” he growled at me, careful not to place one toe over the threshold. Despite his trespassing in the territory, I wasn’t allowed to attack him without warninguntilhe unlawfully entered my home. Marcus was as shrewd as he was unpredictable. It was the only way he’d been able to remain as the alpha he was.

“She’s not here, Marcus. You know she’s in Red Tail.” Why was he here? Simply to pick a fight?

His eyebrows twitched. “Has she turned you down?” Finally, taking my silence as his answer, Marcus shook his head, disappointment flickering in his eyes. “I would have never accepted a rejection from any shifter I had decided to bed.”

Far from it.

I wanted to roar at him and drag Emma back to my lair to make love to her for so long none of the others would be able to tell when her scent ended and mine began, but neither would help diminish tensions for our clan gathering.

I didn’t correct the infuriating feline, choosing continued silence over confirmation or violence. Before Emma, I would have thrown Marcus from our lands in much the same way I’d tossed Jasper on his ass, but I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize Emma’s bid for uniting the clans.

“Has she been bedded and bonded by Jasper? He did seem to have her interest,” he pressed, needling me to illicit a reaction.

“Have you found any of your missing shifters?” I asked, feigning interest.

His eyes flashed. “That’s none of your concern.”

“Huh. Dr. Wise said you were failing in your pursuit of your missing members, and she’d never observed such a botched investigation.”

All lies, but Marcus wouldn’t know what Dr. Wise had said. He believed the doctor was an unnecessary human influence in matters which he thought should be managed by shifters.

He growled at me, lifted his foot, and looked as though he might forget himself. “You believe yourself to be clever, Logan, but I will call for a vote of no confidence in your ability as an alpha, and I’ll take Emma under my paw. She’ll be what she needs to be… without you.”

“There hasn’t been a vote of no confidence invoked within the clans in over a century,” I snapped. “They’ll never agree.”

“There’s more at stake now,” he said, his foot still hovering over the threshold. “Acheron is attacking our borders, taking our shifters.”

“It won’t work. There’s no proof I’ve mishandled my position as an alpha.”

“Perhaps, but what a fitting end for you… a boy who’s never measured up to the alpha his father was.” He placed his hovering foot back on the other side of the threshold.

Maybe Marcus thought his accusation would bother me, or maybe he thought I had some unresolved daddy issues. Neither of which was true.