The warmth in his heart he’d told himself he didn’t yet have time to think about, now suffused his body. Saying good-bye to Deni had been one of the hardest things Jace had ever done. Jace had been ripping out his heart and walking away bleeding, but he’d made himself do it, believing leaving was the right thing to do.

The mate bond meant you gave yourself to that other person, body and soul. You protected them; they healed you, and you healed them while they protected you. Jace didn’t know if Deni felt the mate bond for him—sometimes both parties didn’t share it—but he remembered the look in her gray eyes before he’d left her.

She had to feel it. They’d grown from acquaintances to lovers to mates rapidly, but it often happened like that with Shifters. Shifters formed the mate bond, then they got to know each other—throughout their long, happy lives.

And now, with Marlo fighting this tiny bird, fire whipping around the wing, and the flat ground of West Texas coming up fast, Jace might never move beyond knowing the mate bond had settled in his heart.

Tiger told me not to let you go.

Tiger, damn his crazy, striped ass, had been right. He might not have predicted this, specifically, but he’d known Jace should have made sure he stayed next to Deni and figured things out from there.

Something cut his palm. Jace opened his hand and saw he’d clutched the gold bracelet so hard it had pressed into his skin.

Jace clenched the bracelet again and shook his fist at Marlo, the ends of the chains dancing. “Fix this damned thing. I’m taking this back to her.”

“You are f**king crazy, Shifter. I need a landing strip, or I’m not fixing anything ever again.”

“Shit,” Jace said. He’d been scanning the ground, but what did he know about good places to put down a plane? Then he saw it, a flat stretch of land, unbroken, a dirt road without an oil well at the end of it. They were low enough now that he could see the way wasn’t full of rocks or hidden washes. “What about that?”

“Good enough for me.”

The plane was rattling with bone-jarring intensity, something popping in the back like a row of fireworks. Jace prayed it wasn’t really fireworks.

The road came at them, Marlo desperately pulling at the stick to lift the nose enough. The wheels were down, at least, because Marlo had never pulled them up.

“Hang on!” Marlo yelled.

To what? Jace braced himself on the instrument panel, trying not to look at the dials going around and around.

They hit the road with an upward burst of dust, grinding it so thick it coated the windows, blocking their visibility. That was fine, because grass and whatever huge weeds this part of the state grew came up out of the ground and bashed into them, winding around the burning engine and spewing the flame higher.

The plane hit something and skidded sideways, throwing Marlo on top of Jace, and whipping Jace into the window. The window cracked, and flame raced inside.

At the last minute, Jace yanked off his seat belt, hauled himself out of the chair, threw the already unconscious Marlo to the bottom of the plane, and landed on top of him. A roar of explosion met Jace’s ears, and then nothing.

Chapter Eleven

Deni was restless all morning. She tried to work in the yard, neatening her garden, but she found herself stabbing the trowel into the dirt again and again for no reason. Deni threw down the trowel and stripped off her gloves, dropping them as well.

Her arm felt bare and strange without the bracelet she wore all the time. She touched her skin there but smiled. The bracelet was safe with Jace. He’d come back to her.

Still, she was growling by the time she reached the house. Jackson hadn’t been scheduled to work today, but Will now gave Deni a good-bye hug and went off to the warehouse.

“You all right, Mom?” Jackson said, peering at Deni after they waved off Will.

Jackson looked so much like his father, his hair dark instead of light like hers and Ellison’s, his eyes a lighter shade of gray. Deni pulled him into a hug, feeling a flood of love for him. But she remembered when her mate had been dying, how the mate bond had pulled at her and sickened her . . . as it was doing now.

A reaction to Jace leaving so abruptly, she told herself. Nothing is wrong . . .

“I’m fine,” she said.

“It’s just that you look at little bit, you know . . .” Jackson frowned in worry. “Like you do when you start to go feral . . .”

He trailed off, and nausea bit Deni, the world spinning. She gripped Jackson’s shoulder. “No, don’t let me . . .” Forget who everyone is, try to attack my own children. Goddess, please!

She smelled a strong, male smell, one different enough from other Shifters to make her wolf’s hackles rise. Deni growled and spun around, instinctively stepping in front of Jackson, protecting.

Tiger stood at the edge of the yard, having suddenly appeared as he usually did. Deni took a deep breath, willing herself to calm.

“You let him go,” Tiger said.

Deni shook her head, the nausea still churning. “I didn’t have a choice.”

He waited until she came to him, not violating Ellison’s territory. Deni felt herself drawn to him, though, as though she needed to go to him. Unnerving.

Tiger let his hand hover a few inches from her chest, as he’d done last night. “Something is wrong.”

Fear washed cold through her. “How do you know?”

“The mate bond.” Tiger closed his fingers over empty air. “It’s telling you.”

The logical Deni wanted to argue, to deny. The feral beast inside Deni knew. Jace was in danger.

Tiger pinned her with his yellow stare, then turned around and walked away. Deni’s heart beat faster, and she almost snarled when she felt Jackson’s warmth suddenly behind her.

She blinked, Jackson’s worried face coming back into focus. “I’m all right,” she said to him, drawing a deep breath. “I need to make a phone call.” She hurried into the house, found her cell phone, and rushed across the street after Tiger to ask for the phone number of Eric Warden and his son, Jace.

* * *

The snow leopard choked on the black smoke, paws scrabbling at the hole in the fuselage to find air, any air. He burned himself on the hot metal and snarled, but he needed to get his nose out of the plane and breathe.

More scrambling, using Shifter wildcat strength and huge claws to tear into the metal. His cat brain reflected that having someone like Ronan the Kodiak bear around would be very useful right now, then he went back to the task at hand. Human thought fled, and animal ones took over.