* * *

At five A.M., Tiger had silently slid open the window of the guest room, preparing to climb out, when he heard Carly’s whisper, felt her touch.

“No.”

“I’m going.” Tiger’s answering whisper held a hint of growl.

“And I’m coming with you.”

Carly. Tiger briefly closed his eyes. If he left her behind, she and his cub would be safe. Liam would protect the cub—Tiger trusted him for that at least.

And if he left Carly behind, Tiger might never see his cub. A fist around his heart tightened.

He remembered the glimpse he’d had of his son—a tiny mite wrapped in a blanket, with a thin down of black hair on his head, touched with the faintest brush of orange. The surge of pride and love Tiger had felt had never been equaled, nor had the surge of grief when they’d told him the cub hadn’t survived.

That Carly was pregnant, he had no doubt. He saw the glow inside her. A Shifter cub, not a full-blood human, not the offspring of the dickhead Ethan. The cub was Tiger’s.

“I’m coming with you,” Carly said stubbornly. “I have money, you don’t. I know how to travel and live in the world. You don’t.”

“I will run as a tiger, hunt.”

“Oh, sure, because no one will notice a Bengal running through the Texas flatlands. You have transportation? I don’t call that thing in the garage transportation.”

“Walker is waiting for me.”

Carly seized his arm. “Wait. What? You can trust him? How do you know he’s waiting?”

“We arranged it while you were sleeping.”

“That’s it. I’m definitely coming. I even packed.” She reached into the shadows beside the bed and pulled up a shoulder bag to go with her purse. “Let’s go meet Walker.”

Tiger stopped arguing—this was taking too much time. He would let Carly come with him until he could convince her to go back home. Play it by ear, he’d heard Connor say. How anyone could play an instrument with their ears, Tiger didn’t understand, but Connor had explained that the saying meant decide as we go along. Tiger was good at doing that.

Carly smiled her triumph when Tiger nodded, closed the window, and gestured for her to follow him out of the room and downstairs. Janine and Carly’s mother had gone home long ago, and Althea and Zoë were fast asleep in their respective rooms—Tiger could hear their quiet breathing behind the doors.

The house was dark except for a night-light in the kitchen. Althea hadn’t set the alarm so they could open windows to the softer air of the night, and now the door opened and closed without a sound.

Slinging Carly’s bag over his shoulder and taking her hand, Tiger led her down the walk to the street, keeping to the shadows of trees and shrubs. The night was pleasantly cool, the humid highs of the afternoon gone.

If Tiger hadn’t been planning to hide for the rest of his life, the walk would be pleasant. Carly’s warmth stretched to him from her hand, and the new life inside her called out to him.

Carly didn’t speak. She didn’t look back either, or cry. She was resilient, his mate.

At the bottom of the street and around the corner lay a twenty-four-hour convenience store. Tiger scanned the lot with its few cars, and the man who was crushing out a cigarette and walking inside. Tiger didn’t see Walker, but Walker, like Shifters, knew how to keep out of sight.

Tiger kept Carly in the shadows as he looked around, but he didn’t scent Walker. He smelled the musty smell of humans inside the store, the tang of exhaust as cars went by, the dregs of the man’s cigarette, and the sudden, sharp smell of fear.

Beside him, Carly gasped. “Oh my God, that guy’s robbing the store.”

Tiger looked to where she did, and saw the store clerk taking things out of the register with quick, jerky movements. The man who’d put out the cigarette was now holding up a long weapon.

Carly hissed in frustration. “And damn it, you crushed my cell phone.”

Tiger silently lowered the shoulder bag to the ground. “Stay here.”

“Tiger,” Carly whispered frantically as Tiger pulled on the baseball cap over his hair and started across the small parking lot. She didn’t follow though. She was that sensible.

Tiger kept to the sticky shadows of the building, walking through noisome trash until he slid inside the front door. The clerk saw him but made no indication.

Tiger moved noiselessly up behind the lanky man holding a shotgun. Why did humans like guns? Did they fear so much to fight close to?

He stood right behind the robber, who never heard or sensed him until he felt Tiger’s body warmth. Then the robber jerked, and the gun went off, but not before Tiger had grabbed the weapon and yanked the barrel to point upward. The clerk dove behind the counter, and the slug lodged in the ceiling.

Tiger jerked the weapon out of the robber’s hand and snapped it in two. At the same time he kicked the robber’s feet out from under him, sending the startled man to the stained floor.

The robber started up, a knife in his hand, so Tiger broke his hand. Screaming in pain, the man collapsed to the floor again.

Tiger broke the shotgun into a few more pieces and poured the bullets onto the man’s chest.

“You can call the police now,” Tiger said to the clerk.

The clerk climbed up from behind the counter and leaned on it. “Thanks, man,” he said, gasping. “I thought I wasn’t ever going to see my kids again.”

“Go home and hug them,” Tiger said. “You should work somewhere safer.”

The clerk shrugged, giving him a scared smile. “No choice.”

“There’s a bar just outside Shiftertown. Go there and tell Liam to hire you. Tell him Rory sent you.”

“Liam. Right.” The clerk was wide-eyed and terrified.

Tiger looked at the robber, who was holding his hand and spewing curses and threats. Tiger leaned down, carefully raised the man’s head by his hair, then thumped it against the floor with just enough force to knock him out. Then he walked out of the store.

Carly waited for him where he’d left her, her eyes wide with worry. “Tiger, don’t do that. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Tiger looked her over. “I think you are too young for them.”

“I don’t mean . . . Never mind. I hear sirens. We need to leave.”

“The clerk called the police. I think he will be all right, and maybe find a safer job.”