Marlo’s airplane had flown over earlier, not too low. The Shifters had watched the plane, but because it hadn’t circled or returned, let it go. Cassidy had made herself not look up, remaining inert, uncaring.

She couldn’t help her slight jolt when she heard it again.

Cassidy masked her interest with a yawn, but the guards came alert. One leaned down and spoke into Miguel’s ear.

To Miguel’s credit, he didn’t wake up trying to tear his guard’s head off. He opened his eyes, listened, and shifted back to human, fully awake.

“Your friends?” he asked Cassidy. “You think that the human and the Collared bear are coming to rescue you?”

Cassidy stayed wildcat and didn’t answer.

Miguel got up and started for her. “I think it’s time to make the mate-claim stick.”

Damn. If he started on her, Cassidy would have to fight him. Fighting him would tax her strength and energy, which meant she might not have enough left for the dash out with Xavier. Plus her Collar would go off.

She drew a breath, trying to stay calm, and tried to draw on the techniques Jace had been teaching her to override her Collar. Cassidy knew she wasn’t anywhere close to mastering it yet—the Morrisseys in Austin had been working on this for years, Cassidy only a few weeks.

Still, she closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and tried to clear her mind.

“Bring her,” Miguel’s voice grated through her thoughts. “And kill the human.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Cassidy opened her eyes and snarled. No time for meditation. She’d just have to fight through the pain.

She struck at the bear and the wolf that closed in on her. Her paw ripped across the bear’s face before she felt the tingle of her Collar. But she couldn’t stop for that. She had to protect Xavier.

The wolf went for her throat. Cassidy gave up and let herself go. She became a ball of snarling teeth and claws. She struck and bit, swiped and ducked, using her Feline reflexes to out-jump, out-smack, out-leap her opponents.

Idiots. Miguel should have sent a Feline to take down a Feline. Bears and wolves outweighed her and had more brute strength, but Cassidy’s agility kept them from pinning her.

She fought hard until Miguel’s paw caught her on the side of her head. His bear was huge, almost as big as Shane. Cassidy stumbled, stunned, and her Collar bit pain deep into her.

Still she fought him. She couldn’t let Miguel kill Xavier.

Miguel roared. He was finished playing. Cassidy struggled on against him and the wolf, her claws leaving deep gouges. The second bear had retreated, his face a bloody mess.

Miguel clamped his giant maw on the back of Cassidy’s neck, huge teeth breaking through her fur. He started dragging Cassidy toward the dark doorway, from which issued a stench of fear and sweat.

The wolf was joined by a second, both of them circling on huge paws around Xavier. They were going to kill him.

Cassidy struggled, snarled, lashed, bit. Miguel held her fast. Damn him.

She did not want to go through that doorway. Despair and fear reigned there. Not that door, not that door…

Bright, blinding light. The whump of an explosion. More light. Cassidy’s eyes screwed shut, and Miguel grunted and dropped her. Cassidy tried to scramble away, only to be stopped by a paw whacking her down to her side.

More light. A flash of brightness so intense it blinded her even though Cassidy had instinctively shut her eyes.

And then the stench. Not Shifters. Sharp raw smells—ammonia, gasoline, and pepper. So much pepper. Not pepper spray, but an explosion of nose-assaulting chiles, the kind that could burn your skin and make your eyes and nose run for hours.

To throw that over a Shifter…

She heard yowls and snarls, howls. Confusion.

Over it came another explosion of light, and in the middle of the light—as well as her streaming eyes could see—a man.

Not a Shifter. He was an upright man with black hair and eyes like midnight. He held a shotgun in competent hands, and he blasted Shifters left and right. Behind him came a very, very angry grizzly.

The Shifters weren’t dying. They were falling, groaning, weeping, howling. Whatever Diego was hitting them with was making them insane with pain.

Two large paws locked over Cassidy. Miguel. Still up, still fighting.

He dragged Cassidy to the darkened doorway, caught her by the scruff of her neck, and tossed her inside. Cassidy shifted at the last second, the change painful this time, and caught the doorframe with both hands. Miguel shifted at the same time, rising tall to face Diego.

Diego just looked at him, no emotion, no fear, nothing in his face. He’d come to do a job, and he’d finish it. No questions.

“The woman is mine,” Miguel shouted at him. “No matter what you do to my Shifters, she’s my mate. I claim her.”

“I reject the claim!” Cassidy yelled.

Her shout would have been good enough for civilized Shifters, but Miguel only smiled. “The claim is mine unless this puny human here wants to Challenge.”

Diego would have no idea what that meant, but apparently he didn’t care. Diego brought up his shotgun and aimed it at Miguel.

“Consider this a challenge,” he said.

He fired. What hit Miguel was not a bullet, but scattered shot that smelled and burned. Miguel got it full in the face.

While Miguel was howling, Diego charged forward and grabbed Cassidy.

At the same time, the room filled with still more light, blinding and hot. A tall, lean man appeared in the middle of it—Stuart Reid.

Before Cassidy could register shock, Reid bent over Xavier and came up with the man across his shoulders. Another white-hot flash, and both were gone.

“Run,” Diego said into Cassidy’s ear, but his voice was still very calm. “Marlo set explosives. This wreck is coming down.”

“No, wait.”

Cassidy had glimpsed something important on the other side of the darkened doorway when Miguel had tried to throw her through it. She shook off Diego and charged through to stairs that led down into cool earth. The stench came from below.

What she’d seen on the stairs in the one moment she’d had to glance at them had been a child.

The cub had been about five years old, just old enough to shift, and he’d been naked and filthy. As she neared the bottom of the stairs, the smell got worse, and Cassidy found what she’d feared she’d find.

A big room—large enough, thank the Goddess, or Cassidy would have found worse than she did—spread out before her. Frightened eyes turned her way as she charged in.