Rygan’s attention should have been entirely focused on the wolf strapped to a chair near the chimney, but it wasn’t.

For the first time, he saw Aisling with his pride - or most of it. Ola and Christine had taken the children to their room; the rest of them stood in the living room, snarling at the wolf.

Aisling should have stood out like a sore thumb, been an obvious outsider, made them feel uncomfortable. She didn’t. The others weren’t pushing her out with unwelcoming body language, except Kim, maybe, but she hardly counted. It seemed like Ace had a place amongst them.

His tiger agreed; it knew exactly what place it wanted her to have.

Rygan shouldn’t have been surprised when he read the animal’s desires, but he was. He’d known she interested him; he hadn’t realized that the tiger saw her as a potential partner. She was strong, and protective, too - otherwise, she wouldn’t have hunted that wolf for them. The animal saw her as an equal - a perfect Alpha.

Rygan narrowed his eyes. He saw everything his tiger pointed to, but he was the smart one here. He wouldn’t let lust, and the fact that she was the first female the tiger liked, cloud his judgement. She was a loner, probably because she liked it that way. She’d said it herself; she hadn’t been fond of living in a pride.

He’d fuck her - repetitively - while they lived in Lakesides. That much, he didn’t doubt. They might even date; he had no objection to wining and dining her, if she was into that sort of thing. But thinking of her as a potential Alpha’s mate was premature, to say the least. For Christ’s sake, he didn’t even know her last damn name.

“Aisling, do you have a chainsaw?” Ian asked, coming back from their SUV empty-handed. “I think we left ours in the old house.”

Their prisoner rolled his eyes.

“If you think that’s going to intimidate me…”

Ian snorted.

“It’s not to intimidate you. It’s to go through your bones so we can bag you up when we’re done.”

That made the wolf stop smirking, now that he realized there was no good cop who’d try to sweeten him up. They were going to kill him; how quickly depended on him.

“Look, we’ve all got things to do, so we’ll keep things simple. I’m quite happy to snap your neck and get it over with, after you’ve told us what we need to know,” Daunte said. “Or, we can remove your nails first, then cut your knuckles, dunk you, bleed you slowly - you get the picture. Tracy loves experimenting.”

The young brunette smiled sweetly. “I write suspense books,” she said with a wink. “Please say you don’t want to talk. I can always use some new material.”

The wolf got the picture; his eyes started to look around, hoping for something he could use, searching for a way out. With so many of them around him, he didn’t have a chance, and he soon realized it, because he tried to negotiate.

“Hey, I was just under a simple contract. Someone hired me to find the Wyvern pride and bring back proof, that’s all. If you let me go, I can tell them I found you on the other coast.”

Ian chuckled humorlessly.

“Or you could go back and sing like a canary. Sorry, man. Not taking that chance. Nothing personal.”

He sounded matter of fact, almost bored. Rygan often left the interrogations up to him because his clinical detachment, paired with his cool demeanor, were pointblank frightening.

“You said you were hired. You’re a loner.”

That came from Aisling, who spoke softly, sounding soothing and sympathetic. Looked like they had a good cop after all.

“Yeah…wait, I know you.”

“You might,” she conceded.

Suddenly, the guy seemed fascinating to Rye.

“Where was the listing posted?” Ace asked, before Rye could do anything foolish - like change the direction of the interrogation.

The question didn’t make sense to Rygan, but their prisoner replied, “The Lodge in L.A. Some suit came in, offering shit loads of money just for a tracking job.”

Aisling fetched her phone and brought it to her ear; while it rang, she turned to Daunte and told him, “That guy knows nothing, just kill him.”

The person she’d tried to reach on the line must have answered, because she started to speak.

“Hey, it’s me. There’s been a tracking contract recently. Yeah, that’s right. Cancel it.” A few second later, she thanked her contact. “You’re the best.”

Everyone was looking at her, except Daunte, who was bagging up the corpse of the wolf he’d just killed.

“How did you…”

“Not important.” They all highly doubted that; but, admittedly, it wasn’t the most pressing matter right this second. “If your enemies went to the Lodge, they can pay a pretty penny, and they won’t give up once they hear their contract was cancelled - I’ve just bought you time. You need to sort your shit before my town is turned into a fucking battlefield.”

The woman was glowering, understandably pissed, but Rye was relieved to see that the anger didn’t seem to be directed towards them.

“Look, Ace, we’ve tried to negotiate, we’ve tried to contact the wolves we are allied to, and we’ve tried to track them. But we’re a young pride,” Daunte said. “We’re not going to get far, not by ourselves.”

Admitting it sucked, but the Beta had said it like it was. They just didn’t have the right contacts; Rygan knew people of importance, but they weren’t associated with criminals, bounty hunters, and vengeful wolves. The most useful resource they had was Coveney, but the man couldn’t hack information if they didn’t know where to start.

The loner glared at Daunte until he said one simple word.

“Please?”

Her shoulders sagged. She flipped him off, and her phone was back to her ear.

“Hey, Knox. Listen, I need you to do me a favor. Name your price. I’m not the one paying.”

---

One hour. One hour - and a hundred thousand - was all it took, and they had answered. Names, details.

“I don’t even know the Vergas pack,” Daunte said, shaking his head.

“They’re pretty big in wolf circles,” Ian interjected.

Rygan nodded; he remembered hearing quite a few things about them.

“They’re purists; even their own kind finds them excessive. They don’t accept matings between wolves and other kinds of shifters, or humans. Wolves that can’t shift by puberty get killed, and the parents don’t have the right to give birth to other children after that. But they pretty much stick to wolf affairs.”

It didn’t make a blink of sense; why would they be after their pride?

He must have said it out loud, because Ace replied, “Their issue is your toddler.”

Those who didn’t growl protectively hissed; well, Kim didn’t, but no one cared.

“The youngest. She has wolf in her, right?”

They exchanged glances.

Honestly, Lola had always been hard to place, her scent and behavior didn’t quite fit any feline they could think of - not unlike Aisling, really - but Rygan had never wondered if she was a hybrid, because they were rare. Very, very rare.

The only way shifters could have children was if they were bound by blood, or mated. The blood ceremony that couples went through after getting married worked between shifters of the same species, or between a shifter and a human. No one knew why, but it didn’t completely bind shifters of different species - feline and wolves, or birds and bears. They sometimes married, but they never reproduced.

However, fated mates were a completely different matter.

---

Mated pairs were rare, although a little more common over the last century than they had been in the past - being able to travel the globe helped. But what he knew of the dozen mated shifters he’d met was that they’d all become infinitely stronger. There was a pair of mated Omegas who’d singlehandedly stopped the shifter wars down in Mexico. In Canada, two mated Alphas ruled the entire country; they were wolves, but every race, feline included, obeyed their commands. Of course, not every mated pair took political functions, but they had one thing in common: power.

Rygan knew that a cross-species mating could result in children, but there hadn’t been one for centuries, to his knowledge.

“Okay, so let’s talk hypothetically,” Tracy reasoned. “Let’s say I was a wolf, part of the Vergas Pack, and I mated a feline. I’d know that I, along with my mate and child, would be hunted down. So, I’d give my toddler to someone who isn’t likely to give it up to a pack of wolves - a pride of felines.”

Suddenly, it all made sense.

“Right, well, we can give them Lola, and they’ll be off our case, then.”

They all turned to Kim, who rolled her eyes and said, “Joke. Duh.”

Only, Rye wasn’t certain she had been joking. The woman was that shallow.

“They won’t get their hands on her,” Rygan stated. “Not while any of us are still breathing.”

He was purposefully looking at Ace when he said that, as if daring her to contradict him, telling them she was leaving them to their own mess. He half expected her to; but, instead, the woman nodded, sealing her fate.

Alright, Rye reluctantly told his tiger. The beast might have had a point. He had to agree that she might somehow make a suitable Alpha female, after all.

That was, if he ever convinced her to give him a chance. Oh, and also join his pride, when she obviously loved her freedom.

Good thing he’d never been one to run from a challenge.