“No,” Aldrik replied. “I don’t think they will. Oh, I have no doubt that some high-priced lawyer will show up at some point to bail them out and they’ll never be seen again, but they won’t say a word about why they really broke into our motel room. That would just damn them even more.”
“He’s right,” Dom said. “Breaking and entering is a lot easier to deal with than attempted murder and conspiracy.”
Okay, Gabriel could see that, but he still felt as if this was a little too easy. The men who had attacked him and Aldrik had been defeated a little too easy, as well. There had been three of them. They should have fought a little harder. They hadn’t even had guns. Surely men who knew they were going after a panther shifter would have come armed?
It just didn’t make sense to Gabriel.
“I still don’t—” Gabriel sniffed the air when a thick scent floated around him. “Do you smell that?”
Chay lifted his nose and inhaled a deep breath before glancing at Dom. “Were you followed?”
“How the hell would I know?” Dom snapped.
“We have company,” Gabriel said as he jumped to his feet and raced to the window. He pulled the curtain back just far enough to look out the window. “Damn it, it’s the guys from the motel.”
“Guess their high-priced lawyer showed up,” Chay said.
Gabriel shot him a look. “These guys are human, right?”
Chay nodded. “All human.”
Gabriel wasn’t sure he was ready to fight another shifter.
“Let them in the house before you attack,” Aldrik said. “It will be easier to hide the mess than if you fought them on the front lawn.”
Gabriel grimaced. He didn’t like the idea of fighting at all, but he’d be damned if he let some ninja thug wannabes destroy the peace he had found with Chay. He might have no idea where this thing with Chay might be going, but he planned on going along for the ride.
“Aldrik, you should go hide in the bathroom.” Gabriel didn’t want the older man involved in the fight. He was human. He could be seriously injured or worse.
Aldrik smirked. “Boy, I’ve been fighting longer than you’ve been alive.”
“Still, maybe you should”—Gabriel swallowed hard when Aldrik’s eyes narrowed—“arm yourself,” he said instead of what he really wanted to say. Telling the man to go hide again didn’t seem like the thing to do at the moment, not if he wanted to keep his head attached to his shoulders.
Aldrik pulled out two very lethal-looking knives. “I’m good.”
Okay then.
“Don’t shift unless you have to, Gabe,” Chay said. “The less they know about you the better.”
“Then how do I defend myself?” Gabriel was not a fighter.
Chay raised his hand. Razor-sharp talons grew out of the tips of his fingers. “You can shift just parts of yourself, like your claws. Try it.”
Gabriel glanced at his hand and concentrated on growing just claws. His eyebrows shot up when claws just as sharp as Chay’s talons grew out of the tips of his hands. He grinned at Chay. “That works.”
One of these days he would get a handle on being a shifter, but he needed more than a few days to learn everything he needed to know.
“Be ready,” Chay said.
Gabriel grabbed Chay by his shirt collar and pulled him in for a kiss that left his lips swollen and his body aching. “Don’t get dead,” he told his mate. “I would be very upset.”
Chay grinned as happiness twinkled in his golden eyes. “Yes, mate.”
“Mate?” Aldrik echoed in a tense tone. “You’ve mated?”
Gabriel glanced at Aldrik, confused by the near panic he could hear in the man’s voice. “Yes, we have. Do you have a problem with that?”
“A mating of a member of the royal household must be approved by the council.”
