A Change To Bear (A BBW Shifter Romance) (Last of the Shapeshifters) by A.E. Grace Page A

What had he said? Why had that Paul guy folded so quickly?
    “No, but I know his type.”
    “What’s his type?”
    “Use your head, Terry.” Liam stopped and looked at her, annoyed. His eyes accused her angrily, and his jawline, pronounced in the low light, hardened.
    “What the hell is your problem?” Terry’s emotion flared, and she knew part of it was that she had been drinking, but she wasn’t in the mood for dealing with any more shit, either. Especially from another man!
    “I don’t have a problem. But you should have known better than to stay in an empty bar when every other one was full.” He didn’t say it with anger, but it was clear to her that he was rebuking her.
    Terry’s nostrils flared. “It wasn’t empty the whole time.”
    “What, two or three people trickle in and out? It’s a front, Terry! They’ve probably got girls in the rooms above.”
    Terry blinked. “Girls?”
    “Prostitutes, Terry! Look, those guys, they’re old school. I know people like them. I’ve saw people like them the last time I was here. You were in a gang’s bar.”
    “So? I paid for my drinks!” Terry knew that it was a bad response, but she wasn’t about to let Liam walk all over her with words.
    “So?” Liam laughed. “Look, Vietnam’s a poor country. A lot of people stayed after the war.”
    “Americans?”
    “Many, yes. And a lot of people came after the war as well. It’s the same all over poor countries in Asia. They attract the worst kind of people. There’s money to be made, girls to be exploited, and a shit ton of drugs to be exported. These are not good guys, and they are not nice guys. His type I ran into in Saigon were a group of white guys pimping out fourteen year olds to sex tourists. They deal drugs, and drugs earns you the death penalty here if you’re caught by the police. But the police won’t go into that bar! They’re all in on it, too. This is all entrenched, and even though they’re foreign, they are left alone. The local gangs can’t be fucked to deal with a bunch of crazies like them. I don’t really blame them. They live like they’ve got nothing to lose. You were in the wrong bar tonight. It wasn’t your fault, and I’m not trying to blame you, but an attractive girl like you, and alone? That was stupid.” He looked away briefly, and breathed slowly.
    “What’s gotten you so worked up?” Terry asked, looking to turn this on him. She wasn’t about to just sit there and be scolded.
    “You should have put two and two together,” he said. Still there was no nastiness or anger in his voice. Despite feeling indignant, and of course the sting of shame that she had missed something which he was making out to be so obvious, she started to see that he was so worked up because he was worried. Even if he didn’t show it any other way, even if his eyes would not betray that emotion, it was the only explanation.
    He continued. “You know the signs back home, you may know the bad areas, but you’re missing all of them out here. This shit is not in the guidebook!”
    “Okay, okay,” Terry said, putting up her hands. “Yeah, alright, I didn’t think about it. You don’t have to be such a dick about it.”
    His eyed widened for an instant, and then they returned quickly to their normal neutrality. His face looked as though all emotion had been drained out of it. What the hell had just happened? One minute was having a go at her, worried about her, and the next his barriers were all back up. He went from fire-red to stone-cold granite-gray, and just like that, as if at the click of a button. He left her then, and she watched him for a moment. She couldn’t believe him. An overpowering urge to hit him bubbled beneath her skin.
    “Coming?” he asked, turning to look at her. She almost didn’t want to go with him. She hadn’t needed a lesson from him, and she was pissed off without really knowing why it got to her so much. Maybe it was embarrassment. Maybe it was because