Yet he’d be ready in an instant if Hargrove moved a single muscle.

For a moment, the only sounds were Jace’s steady, controlled inhalations, the pained hitch as Hargrove breathed through a bruised gut and broken fingers, and the steady drip of his blood into a growing puddle on the floor.

Then Hargrove frowned. “She’s your sister?”

Jace stiffened, and my fear spiked along with the almost painful jump in my pulse.

Nonononono!

My world was falling apart. Every word Hargrove spoke threatened to split the ground beneath my feet and send me tumbling into an abyss I could never crawl out of. Jace would be furious. My father would be devastated. The council would want my blood, and then everything I’d worked to hide—to protect—would be lost.

“Darren will never even get close to her,” Jace whispered. “My men will shred him before he even knows they’re there.”

Hargrove frowned, confusion warring with pain in his features. “But you’ve left her exposed! Darren probably already has her!”

Jace stepped toward him again, as claws burst from the ends of my fingers. I could see what he was thinking. He’d only brought four enforcers, including me, which left more than enough at the lodge to defend Melody. Especially considering that other than defending his Alpha, an enforcer had no greater or more honorable duty than to protect a pregnant tabby.

Hell, Isaac would singlehandedly skin Darren alive to protect his fiancée and unborn child.

But neither the Alpha nor the hunter knew they were taking part in two completely different conversations. And Jace could not come to that conclusion.

“We can’t figure out why, if girl cats are so rare, you’d all leave not just one”—Hargrove glanced at me—“but two of them totally undefended. We’ve been watching them, taking pictures, and we never saw a single one of your men. It’s almost like you want us to—”

Terror squeezed my chest with a brutal pressure. The bones in my hand crackled as they fell into place. The room blurred around me as I lunged at him.

“Abby, no!” Jace shouted, but logic cracked and fell away from me, and the exposed fury burned like fire in every vein in my body. It snapped like static across every synapse.

I have no memory of ripping Hargrove’s throat out.

One moment, I was leaning against the grimy kitchen counter, listening to the words that would bring an abrupt halt to life as I knew it, and the next, I was standing in front of Gene Hargrove as his blood arced over my face and my borrowed jacket with each dying beat of his heart. His mouth hung open as he gasped. His eyes were wide but already unfocused, and some primal part of me rejoiced at the thought that I was the last thing that bastard would ever see.

Then he crumpled to the floor in a pool of his own blood.

I stepped back, and the consequence of what I’d just done hit me like a blow to the gut.

That’s when the world slid out of focus.

THIRTEEN

Jace

I hardly saw her move, but as soon as I realized her hand had shifted, I knew what she was going to do.

“Abby, no!” I shouted, but I was too late.

One second, she was standing there with her jaw clenched, her heart racing so fast, I was afraid it would explode. The next, she was covered with Hargrove’s blood, and he lay dead at her feet, still bleeding all over the linoleum.

She looked down at him for the span of a single heartbeat. Then her eyes lost focus and her hands—one still a claw—fell limp at her sides.

“Abby!” I pulled her away from the body, and my fingers smeared the blood on her sleeve. Only it wasn’t even her sleeve. She’d ruined her roommate’s jacket with arterial spray from the man whose throat she’d just ripped out, and there would be no way to explain that to Robyn.

Or to the territorial council.

Fuck. I didn’t have clearance to execute any of the human hunters unless they were an imminent threat, and Abby had just killed the only member of the sick shifter taxidermy club we had in custody. The only source who could tell us how many of his fellow humans knew about us and just how big a problem we had. We needed that information, and someone would have to pay for the loss of it.

“Abby!” I yelled again, practically in her face, but she only stared at the floor as if she no longer saw the body lying there. As if she no longer saw anything. Footsteps thundered from the back porch, then Lucas pulled her from my grip and wrapped his massive arms around her.

“What the hell happened?” he demanded.

“She flipped out and ripped open his throat.” Then she’d totally checked out of reality—it probably wasn’t true catatonia, but she was definitely in shock. “Abby!” When I reached for her, Luke turned to put her out of my reach, and my temper flared in a white-hot instant. He’d forgotten in his concern and confusion that I was his fucking Alpha and that respect was my fucking due.

And, evidently, that I would never, ever hurt her. Even if she’d just thrown all of us into a vast world of hurt.

I snarled, and Lucas dropped his gaze but made no move to let go of his sister, who stood motionless in is grip. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that this wasn’t about defying his Alpha; it was about being there for his sister. I’d have done the same thing, even back when I was an enforcer. And I didn’t even like Melody that much. “Okay. See if you can wake her up. Quickly.” I grabbed his arm when he started to guide her away. “And don’t ever let that happen again.”

I turned to Mateo while Lucas bent to speak directly into his sister’s ear. “Call Isaac and put everyone on alert. Tell him Darren’s going after Melody, and we’ll be there as soon as we can.”

Teo stepped outside to make the call, and as a traumatized feline whine began to leak from Abby, I realized that her throat had shifted along with her right hand. What the hell had set her off?

“Why would she do that?” Warner watched Lucas smooth back his sister’s curls, still whispering into her ear.

“She must have felt threatened,” Luke said.

“Hargrove’s hands were bound behind him. He wasn’t a threat. She was in no danger.” Even when he’d held her at gunpoint, she’d been cool and collected…right up until the moment she ripped his neck open.

“Well, she must have thought she was,” Lucas insisted, over Abby’s head. “She was probably having some kind of flashback.”