Until this morning. The man was a bulky black smudge in the lighter gray of the morning, in black fatigues, with a blackened face and a black knit hat. The only color on him was a couple of Tiger’s shirts he had bunched in his hands.

Connor’s Shifter took over. His body fought the sudden change, which hurt like hell, and the shirt and underwear he’d slept in tore away. By the time he became his young lion form, the intruder had rushed out the door to the tiny landing.

Connor crouched down on the bed on four paws, and sprang from there to the doorway. Not fast enough. The intruder was down the stairs, and there was Kim, with Katriona, in his path.

Kim screamed but had the sense to move out of the way. Connor leapt from halfway up the stairs onto the intruder below.

Who rolled out of the way and kept on going down the next flight of stairs. Liam and Sean were coming in the back door by the time Connor made it to the bottom, both running. The human man swung around and charged out the front, Sean and Liam after him.

Connor ran behind them, his tail, which he could never manage, waving in his rage. He galloped out onto the porch and down the steps to find the intruder on his back, having been taken down by Dylan.

Spike was there too, probably for an early tracker meeting or something. The human man looked up at the ring of Shifters around him—Liam, Sean, Dylan, Glory, Andrea, Spike, and Connor, panting behind them.

“Who is this?” Liam’s voice held a savage growl, rage working its way up from a deep well. Liam could be laid-back and charm the devil, but Connor knew that his uncle had an ocean of anger, hurt, and grief in him, mostly about the death of Connor’s dad, Kenny. Liam had worked through that, and he had Kim now, but when he was very angry, that old bitterness and rage seeped through him to make him a deadly enemy.

The man on the ground kept his mouth shut. Sean reached down, wiped the black off the man’s face with a tissue, and remained staring down at him. “No idea who that is,” Sean said.

“Some kind of pervert, looks like,” Glory said. She ripped Tiger’s shirts out of the man’s hands. “Stealing Shifter clothes. What were you going to do next, break in and steal my bras?”

“Glory,” Andrea said to her aunt in her calm tones like still water.

“Doesn’t matter,” Glory said, showing her teeth in a smile. “I don’t wear any.”

The man looked back and forth among them, his expression stoic, but his scent betrayed his alarm. No outright fear though, Connor thought. Strange. The alarm was because he’d been caught.

“What do we do with him?” Liam’s question was not so much a question, or at least, it was rhetorical. From Liam’s scent and the way his eyes had gone Shifter white blue, he’d already decided what he wanted to do.

“You can’t kill him, son,” Dylan said quickly. “Not worth the price.”

Liam’s rage rose, the scent of it hot. “He came into my house. He endangered my mate, my cub, and my brother’s cub.” Liam had become ultra-protective of Connor, Kenny’s son, again going back to taking the blame for Kenny’s death.

The intruder now started to exude some fear. Liam wasn’t the pushover he appeared to be, and Dylan, a man who looked even more frightening than Liam, was trying to calm Liam.

Spike growled in agreement with Liam. Spike, recently discovering he was a father, had become a fierce protector of cubs.

“Hold it together,” Sean said, his voice the calmest, but also with an underlying hint of feral anger. “How about we make an example of him?” His smile was frightening. “Sounds like fun.”

“Aye,” Dylan said.

Connor shifted—painfully—back to his human form, too furious to mind being naked in front of his enemy. “Let me help. He scared the shite out of me.”

Andrea moved to Connor’s side and slid an arm around his waist. Connor’s shakes and pain started to lessen a little. Sean’s mate could make people feel better just by being near them—her healer’s touch, Connor supposed.

“Kim okay?” Andrea asked him.

“I think so.”

Andrea glanced at the house, gave Connor’s shoulder a squeeze, and turned away. “I’ll just go make sure.” She ran lightly up the porch steps and into the house, and Connor moved within the circle of Shifters.

“I have an idea,” Liam said, his smile flashing out, but the fury still in his eyes. “Sure, Connor, you can help.”

“Great,” Connor said. He looked down at the man, who was smelling more and more of worry. “But wait for me a few seconds. I’m gonna need pants.”

* * *

Crosby found his wrists and ankles wrapped in duct tape, then he was loaded into the bed of a pickup between the shaved-headed tattooed guy and the older guy with the eyes of steel. The two Morrissey brothers and the kid Crosby had woken rode in the truck’s cab. A family outing, Crosby thought with grim humor.

They took Crosby to a dirty street in a warehouse district, parking the pickup next to a line of Dumpsters. The Morrisseys piled out of the cab, selected a Dumpster, opened it, and returned to the truck.

All five of the Shifters grabbed Crosby by the legs and arms and lifted him out of the truck.

“One,” Liam Morrissey said as they swung Crosby back, then forward. “Two. Threeee.”

Crosby felt himself go airborne and land with perfect precision inside the Dumpster, on top of a pile of foul-smelling, slimy trash. He heard the Shifters walk away, laughing, and the truck start.

But they didn’t drive away. As Crosby lay motionlessly, waiting for them to go, the square of sky above him darkened and Liam alone looked in and down at Crosby.

“If I see you in or near Shiftertown again,” he said in a voice that held the quiet fury of a wild animal, “I will kill you.” His laughter was gone, and much of his Irish accent too. All that was left was the calm conviction of a man not afraid to kill. “No one will ever find you. I’ll guarantee that.”

Crosby believed him. Liam reached for the lid of the Dumpster. He stared a while longer at Crosby, his eyes that strange blue-white, hard to look at. Crosby did his best to appear subdued and nonthreatening.

Liam at last let the lid fall with a clang, shutting out light and fresh air. The truck’s door slammed, and this time, the truck drove away.

Crosby started working on the tape around his wrists. Liam’s threat didn’t bother him, because Crosby had no intention of ever going back to Shiftertown again. He was done with them.