“Right, but how?”
Hawk just stared at her, unspeaking.
Eve blinked. “What?”
“You’regoing to have to talk to him about it.”
Eve gasped. “I can’t. What if he’s not a shifter? It’s forbidden to tell humans our secret.”
“Sure, but he’s not just any human. He’s your mate. We’re allowed to tell our mates if they’re human.”
“That’s only for shifters who intend to claim their mates, Hawk,” she said quietly.
“Oh please, I’ve seen the way you look at him. Youwillclaim him. You like him, just admit it.”
“Fine, I like him, okay? But it could never work. He’s a criminal.”
“Hewasa criminal. Sounds to me like he wants to turn his life around.”
“I—”
The sound of Liam screaming had Hawk and Eve grabbing their guns and racing for his room. Eve practically crashed through his bedroom door, ignoring everything she’d been taught about safely entering a room during her time in the FBI. She flew inside, panicking and looking for the threat. Only there wasn’t any. Liam was sitting up in bed, his forehead covered in sweat.
Eve frowned.
“What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“It was just a nightmare,” Liam mumbled. “I’m fine.”
“Uh, I’ll leave you to it then,” Hawk said.
He pushed Eve further into the room then closed the door behind her, shutting her and Liam in together. Eve turned to glare at the door. She was going to kill him when she got her hands on him.
Liam leaned to the side and switched on the bedside lamp before glancing between her and the door.
“What just happened?” he asked. “Should Hawk have left you in here with me? Why did he do that?”
Eve didn’t answer him.
“Wow, you’re sweating,” she said. “Let me open the window. I don’t think there’s much air to be had tonight, but it is stuffy in here and something is better than nothing, right?”
She was rambling and she knew it—too nervous about the conversation she needed to have with him. She crossed the room to the window and pushed it wide. The faintest of breezes came into the room, which just stirred up his scent and made her panther stir inside her. She turned back to face Liam and was suddenly aware of his bare chest, and the fact they were alone in the bedroom together. She tried to force herself to look away from all that smooth, tanned skin, and failed miserably. Was he naked under the sheets?
“Do you have them often?” she asked, wrenching her eyes up to meet his. “Nightmares.”
“They come and go.”
“What are they about?”
Without pause for thought, Eve went back to Liam’s bed and sat down on the end of it, waiting for his reply. He watched her quietly for a long moment, long enough that she thought he wouldn’t answer, but then he started speaking softly, staring off over her shoulder.
“They’re always the same. I’m running from someone, I don’t know who, I’ve never seen his face, but I figure it’s one of the Vipers. He chases me for ages, and I eventually turn around to face him, but when I look down, there’s a knife in my hand.”
He paused, and she gave him an encouraging nod.
“When the man gets closer, I realize it’s not a man at all, it’s a big black cat. I raise the knife to defend myself, but the knife is gone, and, in its place, my hand isn’t a hand anymore, it’s a claw. Then the cat leaps for me and that’s when I wake up screaming. Every time.”
Eve closed her eyes.
