The sword. Damn it.

But if Sean broke away and made a dash for the sword, the Felines would tear Jared to pieces. If Sean didn’t, the shite slinking toward the Sword of the Guardian would snatch it and run off. Sean couldn’t let that happen.

Dimly he heard cars squealing to a halt in the parking lot, and far away, the sound of sirens. Help coming?

From the scent, the people who piled out of the cars were human. Ben had assured them that the human shooters they’d hired had gone, so were these friend or foe? Sean couldn’t afford to wait around and find out.

He sprinted for the sword, knocking aside the Feline that had almost reached it. Sean’s Collar was sparking like fireworks and the later payback would be hell, but he didn’t have time to worry about that right now.

Sean morphed to human as he rolled over the Feline, landing on his human feet and sweeping up the sword. The Feline backed off, looked up at Sean with red-rimmed eyes, and turned to dash back to the fight around Jared.

“Jared, you gobshite. Run! Get out of it!”

Jared continued to fight, and the Felines continued to savage him. They were in a killing frenzy, instinctively taking out the Lupine, the competitive predator. Jared, enraged at the interrupted challenge, was fighting for all he was worth.

So this was Sean’s choice—again. Help Jared and risk the sword, or watch Jared die, just as Sean had with Kenny. Jared was nothing to Sean but the ass**le who had persecuted Andrea, but the situation was the same. Sean guarded the sword, and others died for it.

Sean dropped the sword and shifted. He bounded into the tangle of wildcats shredding Jared and fought them hard. The humans from the cars moved toward them. They had weapons, but they stood at the edge of the fight, watching.

Sean shoved one of the Felines in front of him, snarling as he rolled over and over with him toward the five humans. Sean came out of the roll and barreled into the human men, scattering them like bowling pins. They cursed and shouted and then they started shooting.

The sirens grew louder, nearer. Two of the gunmen ran, jumping into a car and peeling away. The other three remained. A bullet sliced across Sean’s chest, and he gave up trying to be nice.

He took down two humans, raking claws across the arms that held the guns, digging deep. The men screamed, trying to get away, weapons dropped and forgotten. A few smacks from Sean’s huge paws put them out, and he turned to jump on the next one.

The man rose and aimed at Jared, Jared’s Lupine form standing out among the Felines. He fired. Jared howled and fell, and Sean’s claws tore across the shooter’s back. The man landed on the ground with his fellows, and Sean smacked his gun out of his reach.

The Felines converged on Jared, but Sean dove between them, flailing and fighting. The Felines were tiring finally, reacting to their Collars. Sean fought on but he knew his own pain would creep up on him soon.

Two of the Felines morphed back to human, breaths grating, and started dragging the bleeding, mewling humans to the cars. Another Feline went for the sword, but Sean intercepted him, jaws snapping on the Feline’s spine.

The Feline squealed and limped away, his fight done, but it was the end of Jared. One of the remaining Felines dragged a paw down Jared’s face as he lay unmoving, opening it to the bone. The Felines turned to look at Sean, faces bloody, sides heaving.

Sean stood over the sword and snarled at them, the blade between his front and back paws. Two came back to Sean, circling him.

Sean lunged at one Feline, and the wildcat backed off, tail swishing. The other tried to get behind Sean, but Sean was too fast, his paw catching that one and sending him to the ground.

The sirens drew near. By tacit agreement, the Felines turned and made their painful way back toward the cars. Sean felt no triumph as he watched them morph into bloody, battered humans and crawl into their vehicles. They were giving up for now, but there was nothing to say they wouldn’t simply call others to come and take him while he was here with the sword and wounded. He needed to get the hell home, but it would be a long way for him to ride, broken and bloody, on his motorcycle. As if in response, one of the cars slowed where Sean had left his bike near the door of the bar, and fired five rounds into the motorcycle’s engine.

Bloody bastards. Sean lay down, panting, the sword hard under his body, as the cars moved off and disappeared down the empty street. The sirens neared the scene and went past on the next block, never coming close. Whatever emergency the vehicles were responding to, it wasn’t this one.

Sean couldn’t get his breath. He’d fought too long and too furiously, and the wounds in his side, plus the chunk taken out by the bullet, segued into the Collar’s payback pain. But if he passed out or even died here, he couldn’t risk anyone else picking up the sword.

He scratched in the earth, using the last of his strength to dig deep. He moved as much of the wet earth as he could before shoving the sword into the hole and piling mud on top of it. The field was so gouged with the fighting, this last gouge didn’t look any different from the others.

Sean morphed back to human, and then his world went black as the Collar’s agony took over. Vaguely he sensed another presence and smelled Lupine, not Jared, but nor was it Andrea.

Andrea. Love.

I love you.

As Sean lost consciousness, he felt himself being lifted by the armpits and dragged away. Behind him, dying sunlight picked out Jared lying alone and bloody in the litter-strewn parking lot.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Dylan’s white pickup barreled through traffic on MLK Boulevard, and Andrea hung on to the swaying seat. Dylan’s face was set, his dark blue eyes almost black with fury.

“So where did they all go?” Andrea asked. Once she’d calmed down from the shock Dylan had given her, he’d ordered her to come with him, striding away before she could ask questions.

“Callum and his clan declared war on Liam,” Dylan said in clipped tones. “Liam gave the order—all cubs and vulnerable Shifters to be taken to safety. But each family has to look after its own, because the collective hiding places aren’t safe, not when Callum and his faction know where they all are.”

Which meant each family or pride or pack had gone to ground in their own secret hideaways. They’d have these places, because even though Shifters now lived in communities, the instinct to protect the mates and cubs from other Shifters still existed. Shifters worked together now, yes; but they all had private places into which they could disappear if they needed to.