Are y’all gonna help me, or not?” Carly demanded.

She suppressed a shiver as the two cops frowned, looking pretty sure that Carly was a harmless woman from Texas drawn in to this adventure by accident. But they were still mistrustful.

One of the policemen was named Kirk, the other Tyson, or Ty for short. Carly had learned that much about them.

They knew all about her, because they’d taken her driver’s license and checked her out on their computer. They knew Carly’s middle name, her birthdate, her address, her license number, and that she’d had the photo taken right after a dusty drive back from New Orleans where she’d been visiting cousins and so her hair had been a mess. She’d volunteered that last part.

No, the truck wasn’t hers, Carly confessed. She’d borrowed it from her next-door neighbor, which was true.

She had no idea if Dylan would vouch for her, but he’d never let Tiger’s mate be led off to jail, right? Tiger would strenuously object—he wasn’t afraid of Dylan, one of the few Shifters who wasn’t. Dylan had to know that.

“I’m really worried about Connor,” Carly told Kirk and Ty now. “He’s just a youngster. Please don’t let anyone hurt him. He won’t attack if he’s not provoked.” Carly mentally crossed her fingers as she said this. She had no idea what Connor might do in his rampage.

Kirk had already been on his radio telling the other two state cops who’d followed to not shoot the lion—he was a pet. He’d also alerted more park rangers, who were on their way with tranq rifles. They dealt with wild animals all the time.

“Keeping exotic animals isn’t exactly legal, ma’am,” Ty said in a kind but firm voice. The two officers hadn’t stumbled onto the fact that Connor was a Shifter—they thought him a real lion. In fact, they weren’t sure why they’d been recruited to help the men in the black SUV. They’d gotten orders to assist, and they’d assisted.

Carly opened her eyes wide. “Connor isn’t exotic. He’s one of the family.” Which was true.

Damn it, Tiger, where are you and are you all right?

Kirk’s radio clicked. Carly heard the voice come through—He’s heading for the old ranch house at the end of Vista Trail. We’re in pursuit.

She knew Connor had run off to distract the cops from Tiger and Carly, to divide and weaken their forces. But Connor would now have to evade capture himself.

“Y’all are saying there’s a ranch out here?” Carly asked in her best this-little-ole-Texas-girl-needs-the-men-to-explain-everything-to-her voice.

“Up at the top of this hill,” Ty pointed the direction Tiger had run.

All Carly could see were trees, rocks, and blue sky. It was gorgeous out here; the view down the slope showed pillars of rocks and peaks of mountains seemingly without end. Maybe she and Tiger could come back here one day and visit like tourists.

She breathed out. Making plans, even tenuous ones, helped her believe they’d all get out of this and safely home.

“Does the road go up there?” Carly shaded her eyes against the afternoon sun and peered worriedly through the trees.

“Yes, but you’re staying right here, ma’am,” Tyson answered. He was the friendlier of the two, and smiled now, so that his eyes crinkled.

“But I might be able to calm Connor down. He’s used to me. He’ll panic if he sees all those rangers and policemen. It will be less dangerous to y’all if I’m there.”

Kirk shook his head. “Not taking a civilian into a risky situation.”

Carly let her lip tremble, not hard to do in her agitated state. “We love Connor. If anything happens to him, I’ll just die. He’s a sweetheart most of the time. Likes to eat burgers and watch TV with us.” Again, every word the truth.

Tyson looked sympathetic. Maybe he liked animals too. “If she can help catch him …” he said to his colleague.

“Bad idea,” Kirk snapped. Carly was definitely not liking him.

Tyson considered. “If it makes a difference between this lion attacking and us getting a clean shot with a tranq rifle, I’m gonna risk it. You ride with me, Ms. Randal.”

“Sure thing.” Carly grabbed her purse and hurried after Tyson as he walked to his patrol car.

She hopped into the front seat of Tyson’s DPS car while he slid into the driver’s side. “We’ll have to take the lion to animal control,” Tyson said, apologetic. “But don’t worry too much. If he’s healthy and tame, there are places around who adopt big cats. They’ll probably let you visit him.”

What a nice guy, Carly thought with a pang as she tried to look sorrowful. She felt guilty for deceiving him, but not guilty enough to put Connor and Tiger in danger.

Tyson smoothly pulled out, his engine humming as steadily Dylan’s truck’s. This car, though, didn’t rattle and groan as Tyson did a one-eighty in the dirt and drove back onto the narrow road.

The pavement climbed, a cliff dropping away to the right, heart-stoppingly close to Carly’s door. She could look all the way down to a river glittering at the bottom of a canyon.

If Connor chose to lose himself here, he’d be difficult to find, Tiger even harder.

“Beautiful isn’t it?” Tyson asked her cheerfully. “It’s a great place for camping and hiking. Birding too, if you like that.”

Poor Tyson. He’d be asking her on a camping date before long. Carly might be amused at his interest if she weren’t so worried about Tiger and Connor.

“Yeah, it’s pretty.” Carly tried to sound offhand while she anxiously scanned the woods for any sign of Shifters.

Tyson turned the car onto a narrower road that led through trees, leaving the cliffs behind. After about a mile, he pulled into a wider dirt space and shut off the engine.

“Ranch house is just up this path. You might want to stay here.” Tyson opened the door and hopped out, carefully taking the keys with him.

No way Carly was sitting here while armed men went after her mate and Connor. She pulled herself out of the car as soon as Tyson disappeared beneath the trees and hurried quietly after him, holding her purse against her side so it wouldn’t flap around.

The path was overgrown but discernible. She glimpsed Tyson ahead of her, his dark blue uniform flashing between green pine needles and the white-gray twists of bare branches.

Not far up the hill the trees parted to reveal a small clearing with a house in the middle of it. It had obviously been painted and kept up at one time, but now the paint was peeling, the weather wearing down the wooden house and the gingerbread on the porch. The front garden was a crop of weeds with a few cultivated flowers struggling through.

Carly noted all this distractedly, because what mostly stood out about the house was the front door. It had been ripped from the wall and now lay in the weeds, wildflowers straggling around it.

From the opening of the discarded door, Carly heard roaring, which didn’t quite drown out the men screaming. Tyson slowed, drew his gun, and approached.

Carly put on a burst of speed and ran past him, up the steps, across the creaking porch floor, and right into the house. Tyson shouted at her, but Carly didn’t stop.

“Tiger?”

She heard her mate’s unmistakable growls, the deep, rumbling breathy snarls of an enraged tiger.

The entire place wasn’t that big—it reminded her of the farmhouse in the old Wizard of Oz movie. Carly looked into the three downstairs rooms and found them empty, dusty, and forlorn.

The staircase leading to the second floor didn’t look stable, but the noises weren’t coming from up there. They came from the open door under the staircase, from which a set of cement steps led downward.

Carly didn’t hesitate. Down she went.

The basement was a hell of a lot bigger than the upstairs. The walls that ran back into the hill were lined with stone, the ceiling shored up with thick timber beams. It made Carly think of the secret places Shifters built under their houses to store the wealth or treasured objects they’d accumulated over their lengthy lives. They made these spaces into their hideaways, where they could be themselves, with their families, away from human eyes.

The staircase emptied into a large, blank room lit by one overhead fluorescent light. Across this room was an opening that led to another chamber, the door that had closed it now torn from its hinges and lying discarded to one side. Tiger had definitely been here.

Tyson arrived at the bottom of the stairs, breathless, his pistol drawn.

“You need to stay behind me,” he snapped at Carly.

Not while Tiger was in trouble she didn’t. Carly trotted forward, peering into the next room to find it led to yet another one, with its door also on the floor.

Carly went inside and to the next chamber, also empty, also lit by one light. She moved cautiously, but quickly, the need to reach Tiger acute.

“Carly,” Tyson tried again.

First names already, is it? Carly thought without slowing.

Tyson let out a startled cry, and Carly heard more growling behind her. She turned in time to see a lion charge past Tyson then brush by her, heading into the bowels of the basement.

“Connor!” He was running to rescue Tiger, the big sweetheart. Except that was a sure way to get himself killed.

Carly hurried after him, following Connor through room after room. Every single one had once had a thick door with an electronic lock closing it off. Every single door was now a mangled wreck beside the opening it had sealed.

The rooms at last ended in one that must be a hundred feet long. By the flicker of a fluorescent light, Carly saw thick iron bars enclosing the far end of the room, with a solid wall behind that. No more doors.

Tiger stood in the middle of this room, fearsome in his half-man, half-tiger form, facing down at least a dozen men. Carly recognized the black fatigues of the guys from the SUV. They’d been joined by others, though she’d seen no one else come up the road. That meant the other soldiers had already been here.

Connor joined Tiger, who snarled warningly at the men surrounding them. One soldier brought up a tranq rifle and shot at Connor, but Connor wasn’t where he’d been a second before. He sprang from all four paws straight into the air, twisting himself around to land in front of another startled soldier.

The tranq dart flew past Connor and at Carly. She didn’t have time to duck, but the trajectory let the dart sail past her with an inch to spare, before it embedded itself in Tyson’s shoulder.

Tranqs for Shifters were strong. Tyson took one step before his legs folded up, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he went down.

His radio crackled, a voice demanding to know where Tyson was and what was going on. Carly ignored it but picked up Tyson’s pistol from his slack hand and tucked it safely back into its holster.

The man with the tranq rifle tried frantically to reload. Tiger knocked the gun out of his hands and the man to the floor after it.

Another of the soldiers raised a tranq rifle, a look of triumph on his face as he shot a dart straight into Tiger’s stomach.

Tiger grabbed the dart, yanked it from his furred flesh, and tossed it aside. The shooter’s eyes widened just before Tiger grabbed the rifle from his hands and broke it in half.

Tranqs didn’t always work on Tiger. He had to be shot multiple times before they even slowed him down. Connor called him a Super Shifter, and told Tiger he should wear a cape. Tiger never answered this, but last Halloween, he’d taken some cubs trick-or-treating through Shiftertown with a red blanket hanging down his back.

The laid-back, cub-loving Tiger was absent here. He had these guys terrified, but they were holding him at bay, keeping Tiger from reaching the cage at the end of the room.

Why?

Carly, unnoticed by everyone except Tiger, slipped around them all and made for the far wall.

The first thing Carly noted as she neared the cage was the smell. The stench of waste and unwashed being hit her with a slap.

The second thing was the sound. Tiger’s snarling and now Connor’s had covered the growls of the other animal in the room.

Those growls escalated to a near shriek as Carly drew near. The cage was in deep shadow, and Carly crept closer, wishing for a flashlight.

Something moved beyond the bars, a being that paced restlessly, a wild thing trapped. Occasionally that thing leapt against the cage. The bars rattled under the assault but held.

Back to pacing, the sound coming from the beast’s mouth frantic and enraged. Carly had become more attuned to wild animals after living for a year with Shifters, and she understood that beneath this creature’s rage and frustration was terrible fear and pain.

This was what Tiger must have sensed, the beast’s call for help that reached across eight hundred miles of desert.

“It’s all right,” Carly soothed as she took the last steps to the cage. “Tiger’s here to help you.”

The creature chose that moment to slam itself into the bars, inches from Carly.

In the dim light, Carly saw a body of thick fur, long, razor-sharp claws, and a red mouth with huge, gleaming teeth.

But that was not what made Carly step back in shock. What made her gasp was the fact that the fur was striped, and the eyes that glared at her with such ferocity were a wild, golden yellow.

Tiger eyes.