Free Mate Marked: Shifters of Silver Peak by Georgette St. Clair

ignoring Avery.
    A blonde in tight jeans sidled over and draped herself over Avery, who threw his arm around her waist and led her away.
    “Yep.” Zeke nodded. He wasn’t bragging about whoever he was banging, which was unlike him.
    “Be careful when you’re screwing around with humans,” Roman warned him. Human men tended to get jealous. And hanging out with humans was just tiptoeing through a minefield in general.
    “She’s not human,” Zeke said, and turned and walked away.
    Roman was puzzled. Shifter? Had Zeke started getting serious with one of the shifter girls from town? They pretty much knew all the single girls who liked to party by now. Most of them were at the bar that evening.
    Was Zeke getting serious enough that he’d actually want to settle down and stay? Well, if that was the case, Roman would miss him. But not too much. He never missed anything too much; he didn’t let himself. He just concentrated on the here and now. How could he keep his pack fed, happy and safe? And how could he keep them from ripping one another’s throats out? That was enough to keep him busy.
    He should have felt at least a little down thinking about the possibility of Zeke leaving, but he felt an odd lightness in his mood at the moment. He couldn’t put his finger on why, exactly.
    “Hey, your lady friend is here.” Benjamin had walked up to them, his expression serious. He wasn’t flirting, but then he usually didn’t. Benjamin came to keep an eye on everyone and make sure they didn’t get into too much trouble.
    “I don’t have a lady friend,” Roman growled, with more anger in his voice than he’d expected. Benjamin raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t look too shocked. They were all a temperamental bunch of bastards.
    “I meant the lady sheriff.” Benjamin inclined his head to the other end of the bar, and Roman saw her and felt his gut tighten as he saw that a human ranch-hand was flirting with her.
    The shifter named Erika was leaning on the bar next to her, with a glum look on her face.
    “Who’s that?” Leland’s voice made him start. “Who’s that girl with the sheriff?”
    “Her name’s Erika.”
    “I’ve never seen her in here before,” Leland said.
    “She doesn’t come here a lot. She’s not really the party girl type.” Roman shrugged. “I think she wants an actual life mate.”
    “A life mate. Huh.” Leland looked at her with interest.
    Roman found himself watching the sheriff closely, in case she made another laughable attempt to arrest him. Also, why was she still talking to that loser ranch hand? Roman had never met the guy before, but for some reason he could tell that he hated him.
    Should he go warn her to stay away from humans?
    Oh, who was he kidding, she was a shifter. She already knew that.
    He saw her throw back her head and laugh, and then turn away and resume conversation with Joyce and Erika, and he felt himself relax a little bit.
    Oh, come on, Roman, do you actually have a crush on the lady sheriff? He mocked himself, and took an enormous swig of his beer.
    He’d been wondering why she hadn’t made another attempt to arrest him yet. Well, here was her chance.
    And yet, she ignored him all night.
    He moved closer, casually, and concentrated on filtering out all the other conversation in the bar so he could eavesdrop on her as she chatted with Joyce.
    “I swear I don’t know what’s gotten into my family,” Joyce was saying to Chelsea. “Must be something in the water. They are all acting completely bonkers.”
    “Like how?”
    “My grandmother is obsessed with bathing in the mineral springs on our land, and she’s constantly sneaking out in the middle of the night for a dip. Makes me freaking crazy. She could drown! My brothers are sneaking around too, and I know they’re hiding something. I found them out in the cellar hiding some scraps of cloth and they wouldn’t tell me where it came from or why they were hiding it.”
    “They’re probably just