The woman sneered at her. “I’m going to have such fun with you, human.”

Mace picked up Dez’s phone. Her last attempted call still blinking, waiting for her to hit Send. 911. “You smell ’em?” he asked Smitty.

Sissy Mae stood next to her brother. “They smell young.”

Mace closed his eyes. Not good. Anything but that. Anything but hyena children. He could see it now. They lured Dez out here by pretending to be innocent kids. As a cop, no way in hell would Dez ignore them.

Smitty cast around until he locked onto the scent. He followed it to an unlocked metal door. He walked over to it and threw the door open. The scent of hyena sucker punched Mace and made him want to retch. Nothing smelled as bad as their markings. He glanced down. The stairs seemed to go on forever. But he could smell Dez. This is where they’d taken her. He had to go after her, no matter what the cost.

“I don’t have to look to know there is at least one Clan of hyenas down here. Maybe two. I can’t ask you guys to go with me. But—”

Mace turned around and found the entire Pack had already shifted. Their clothes tossed all over the alley floor. They were just waiting for him. He would have smiled if he wasn’t terrified for Dez.

He didn’t waste another second. He shifted, shook off his clothes, and bounded down the stairs—his Pack following him.

“I was so excited when I heard you and your cat were walking around the Village like you owned it. I sent my cousin’s children to go get your dumb human ass.”

Dez pushed herself into a sitting position, the wall against her back. She was in a long hallway, but she didn’t know where. A healthy guess would say she was under the Chapel Club. If she hadn’t been fighting for her life, she’d marvel on the hyenas’ use of underground tunnels.

Dez glanced up and saw exposed plumbing, sturdy and within reach. Plus, there were doors all along the hallway, including a janitor’s closet.

Anne Marie held up Dez’s gun still in its holder. “Nice weapon, Detective. You ever been shot with it?” Dez didn’t answer. “But where would the fun be in that, right? I wanna feel your flesh rip under my hands. Taste your blood on my tongue. We’re going to have such a party, you and me.”

Dez loosened up the rope on her throat with one hand while gathering the rest in the other. “Sorry about your face. Did Gina find out about what you and Doogan did to Petrov? Or was that cause of me?”

“Do you have sisters, Detective?” Dez nodded. “Then you understand. At least a little. I was trying to protect the family. First she brings in that idiot Petrov, then she lets you into our club, reeking of lion, and she thinks I’m going to let that go? Because she wants to find out who whacked her fuckin’ cat boyfriend?” Anne Marie stood in front of her. Dez pushed herself to her feet and stared the crazy bitch in the eye.

“But I’ll deal with her later. Because first…” Anne Marie whispered, “first I’m going to hurt you.”

Dez knewshe had only one chance, so she might as well make the best of it. She headbutted her. Anne Marie stumbled back, caught off guard by Dez’s sudden attack. Dez pulled the noose over her head while she advanced on Anne Marie. Once close enough, she punched her. A right cross to the jaw. Anne Marie stumbled back several more steps, then Dez grabbed the brutalized side of the woman’s face, digging her fingers into the torn flesh. She got a good grip on her cheek and spun the howling, screaming woman around, slamming her face-first into the wall.

The air changed around them—Anne Marie’s scent becoming stronger, her body shifting. Dez looped the rope around Anne Marie’s throat and tightened it at the moment the woman’s body began to change. Dez knocked her to the ground, one foot flat against her back to hold her in place. She lifted her other foot and brought it down hard against Anne Marie’s hand, breaking all her long nails. She did the same to the other hand.

Anne Marie howled in rage, completing her shift so she could tear Dez apart. But as hyena, her body would be no bigger than either of Dez’s dogs. Dez had never done to one of her dogs what she needed to do now, but it was time for her to try it.

Yeah. It was time to take Anne Marie Brutale on a Nature Walk.

Mace stopped at the bottom of the stairs, the Pack surrounding him. Why the hell did he smell lion? He glanced at Smitty and realized he smelled it too. After another moment, he realized he smelled Shaw as well as Doogan and his brothers. Like he had time to deal with that little problem. This was starting to get freakin’ complicated.

He glanced down the long dark hallway and realized they were in one of the infamous hyena tunnels. He knew if he followed this tunnel, it would take him back to the Chapel Club. Growling, he sprinted into the darkness, Smitty and his Pack behind him.

Thankfully her left wrist wasn’t broken. It hurt like a bitch, but if it had been broken, she would never have been able to swing Brutale around like one of her dogs.

As soon as Anne Marie finished shifting, Dez gripped the rope tight and swung Brutale up and into one wall. Her hyena body bounced off, but Dez used the momentum to hammer her into the opposite wall. This time she stunned the beast. Heard the air “woosh” from Anne Marie’s lungs.

Using the few precious seconds she now had, Dez tossed the end of the rope over one of the exposed pipes above her head, right by the janitor’s closet. She grabbed the end and yanked down.

She pulled until Brutale hung there. A good four feet off the ground. Satisfied Anne Marie wasn’t going anywhere, Dez tried the door of the janitor’s closet. Locked. So she kicked it in. The door, not particularly strong, splintered and burst open. She walked in and spotted what she needed immediately. A large, heavy shelf case stood on one side of the room. Dez reached down and tied the end of the rope around one of the shelf legs. She made sure it was tight, and the bottom shelf prevented the rope from sliding up. With the rope taut, Brutale would continue to hang until someone let her loose.