I could have done with one of these twenty years ago, Rose thought, gripping the pearl around her neck in a sweaty hand.

She’d been worried about how they were going to sneak up on the mansion—she didn’t know what sort of magic the warlocks had at their disposal, but she had to assume that they had some way of detecting approaching shifters. But it turned out Neridia had an answer to that problem.

“These pearls of concealment will hide us,” she’d said, opening a casket in her treasury. “The Master Shark made them many, many years ago, for himself and my father, so that they could sneak out from court and adventure together. One of them kept me safely concealed for many years, until I was ready to accept my destiny. I am certain that even warlocks will not be able to penetrate their power.”

Despite Neridia’s confidence, Rose hadn’t been entirely convinced that any mere pearls—even ones as big as grapes—could really be magic. But it seemed the sea dragon had been right.

After Neridia’s knights had dropped them off at Shifting Sands Resort, there hadn’t been any sign that the warlocks had detected their arrival. They’d been able to meet with Scarlet, the resort manager, who had provided them with a staff vehicle and detailed instructions on how to get to the old abandoned mansion. She’d also introduced them to a strange, shy woman who’d peered at them through tangled, white-streaked hair.

“I know how you can get in,” she’d whispered, and Rose’s heart had bled at the fragile, trembling bravery radiating from her. “Where the cages are. You have to stop the tattooed men. They’re giving the island bad dreams.”

Rose didn’t know what Gizelle had meant by that, but however strange her manner, her information had been accurate. Following her advice, they’d been able to sneak through a hidden crack in the high walls surrounding the property. Now they crouched behind thick bushes in the overgrown garden, eyeing the mansion itself.

“There’s the side gate,” Virginia whispered, her breath tickling Rose’s ear. All six of them were huddling close together to make sure that the magic of the pearls covered them all. “Gizelle said the menagerie is right through there.”

“I can sense Chase,” Connie said. “He’s definitely in there. Can everyone else feel their mates too?”

A pang went through Rose as everyone—apart from herself—nodded. She would have given anything to be able to reach Ash.

Not our mate, her swan said. It arched its neck, feathers bristling. But we will still get him back.

“Any word from the decoy group?” she asked Neridia.

The sea dragon’s blue eyes went distant as she communed telepathically with her warriors. “Nothing—wait! The Knight-Commander says there are people on the beach. He’s certain he just spotted Ash.”

“It worked,” Hayley breathed, looking relieved. “Corbin took the bait.”

“Remind them not to engage the warlocks,” Rose said anxiously. “This really isn’t the time for a glorious charge.”

“Don’t worry, I picked my most sensible men for this task.” Neridia made a slight, rueful face. “Well, as sensible as honor-sworn knights can be. But in any case, none of them will do anything rash. They’re pretending they haven’t seen the warlocks. The Knight-Commander says they’ll try to draw them further away down the coast, but he fears Corbin will quickly become suspicious when they don’t land.”

“Then we’d better not waste a second.” Ivy cracked her knuckles. “I think it’s time to stop being subtle.”

There was a pause, and Rose realized they were all looking at her to give the command. She could feel their emotions—fear, yes, but mostly iron-hard determination. They were ready.

She stood up straight, lifting her chin. “Let’s get our mates.”

Ivy grinned like a shark. Without another word, she sprinted in the direction of the side gate, her green-streaked hair flying behind her.

Halfway there, she jumped. Her curvy body shimmered, lengthening and shifting. Emerald wings caught the air.

A shout of alarm rose from somewhere inside the mansion, but the wyvern was already opening its jaws. It breathed out a thick white cloud of acid. The side gate disintegrated, wood shriveling and falling away.

“Come on!” Rose yelled, hauling Neridia up.

It was probably the slowest attack in the history of warfare. Neridia and Connie did their best, but since they were carrying four babies between them—one due to make an appearance any day—it was more of a waddle than a charge.

But with a rampaging wyvern clawing down the walls, the warlocks were far too preoccupied to even notice the small group of women. The startled shouts turned into screams as Ivy disappeared through the hole she’d made.

Rose helped Connie over the smoking stones, leaving Virginia and Hayley to haul Neridia through. A sudden glare of light made her flinch. Spots danced across her vision as a searchlight beam swept across them.

The circle of light swung wildly across the courtyard, fixing on Ivy. The wyvern’s scales glittered like cut emeralds in the harsh white glare.

“Dragon!” someone yelled from on top of the walls. “It’s a dragon! Someone bind it!”

Dozens of running footsteps converged on them. Rose sensed a thick, black fog of greed and hunger.

“Ivy, get out of the light!” Rose yelled, dragging Connie forward as fast as she could.

The wyvern whirled, but with only two legs, it was clumsy on the ground. It couldn’t escape the pinning stare of the searchlight. It breathed out a blast of acid, forcing the first group of warlocks back, but more lunged out of the shadows behind it. One robed man leaped, snatching at the wyvern’s folded wing.

“Ivy, watch out!” Rose screamed.

The wyvern abruptly disappeared. The warlock’s fingers closed, not on scales, but on Ivy’s bare wrist.

“Got you,” the man crowed—and then his eyes widened. His mouth worked, soundlessly.

“Surprise, asshole.” Ivy twisted free as the warlock collapsed. She pushed up her sleeves as he collapsed. “Anyone else want to try?”

A couple more warlocks took her up on the offer. They very quickly discovered that there was a very, very big problem with binding a shifter whose skin could sweat deadly venom.

In the space of seconds, the tables were turned. Ivy’s teeth bared in a feral grin as she chased fleeing warlocks in a lethal game of tag.

“Not too fast, Ivy!” Rose hurried after her, the others at her heels. “We have to stay together—”

Rounding an empty cage, she found herself face-to-face with a robed man. He yelped, cringing—and then his eyes widened as he realized she wasn’t Ivy.

“There’s more of them!” the warlock yelled at the top of his lungs. “More shifters!”

Fast as a snake, he grabbed for her arm. Sheer terror froze her in place as his fingers brushed against her skin.

No, no, no! Her swan beat its wings in panic. Not again!

Then she was stumbling, falling, as Connie shoved her out of the way.

“Not her!” Connie cried, offering her own arm. “Take me instead!”

The warlock didn’t need to be invited twice. With a snarl of triumph, he seized Connie’s wrist.

Nothing happened.

The warlock blinked. He stared down at his own hand as if it were a gun that had just inexplicably misfired.

Which meant that he wasn’t looking when Hayley brained him over the head with a rock.

“That’s for my mate,” Hayley growled as he collapsed. She stomped across his prone body, not being too careful about where she put her feet, and pulled Rose up again. “Come on, we’re nearly there!”

Rose gasped, adrenaline still making her heart vibrate like a hummingbird. Dizzy, she tried desperately to orient herself.

The courtyard was a madhouse of searchlights and screams. Ivy darted in and out of the shadows, her deadly touch dropping warlocks like flies. Virginia and Connie supported Neridia, helping her over the uneven ground as they searched for their mates.

Rose’s breath seized in horror as a warlock lunged at the three women. Either he was more observant than his colleague, or just luckier, because he ignored the two humans. Barging Connie aside, he grabbed for Neridia.

Neridia’s chin lifted. She gazed down at the man with regal poise.

The warlock made a strange gurgling noise. Releasing the sea dragon, he sank to his knees, clawing at his throat. A gush of water spewed from his mouth.

Calmly, the Pearl Empress stepped round him, leaving him to drown on dry land.

“Hugh!” Ivy cried out. Abruptly abandoning the warlock she’d been pursuing, she whirled—and froze.

Rose tried to turn to see what she was looking at—but stumbled on feet that suddenly seemed like blocks of wood attached to her legs. Numbness spread up her limbs. Beside her, Hayley gasped, apparently paralyzed as well. Out of the corner of her eye, Rose could see that Neridia, Hayley and Virginia had been caught too.

“I have them!” A woman with long, flowing black hair strode into Rose’s field of view. Shining silver runes wound up her left arm.

And behind her…

Ivy made a high, keening sound, like a trapped animal.

“Oh, no,” Rose whispered.

The unicorn hobbled painfully behind the witch, all grace lost. Its left foreleg was matted with dried blood. Every time the silver, cloven hoof touched the ground, its white flanks shivered with pain.

But it still carried its head high, refusing to be bowed. Even though all the light had been snuffed from its horn, its eyes still burned with unquenchable spirit.

Spotting Ivy, the unicorn called out, a fierce, clear cry. They both strained for each other, but neither could break their invisible bonds.

Hugh wasn’t alone. Griff was there too, in griffin form, towering over a slender warlock with a narrow, scholarly face. Beside Rose, Hayley caught her breath in a sob of pain. The griffin’s head turned, eagle eyes widening as it saw her.

“Virginia!” Dai shouted. He was in human form, supporting John Doe.

Seeing his own mate, the sea dragon shifter broke into a frantic, staccato song in his own language, more like organ music than speech. Neridia sang something back, her voice breaking with yearning.

“Will you shut that animal up?” the robed woman snapped at one of her colleagues. “I can’t hear myself think.”

The man made a jerking gesture, and John Doe’s song cut off. Dai tried to speak again, but was silenced by his own warlock. In the abrupt hush, the witch swept the courtyard with a scornful stare.

“Panicking like chickens,” she said scathingly, to the men who’d been fleeing for their lives mere moments ago. They crept sheepishly out of the shadows, hanging their heads—though Rose noticed that they all still stayed well away from Ivy. “Anyone would think you’d never seen a shifter before.”

“We haven’t seen one like that before, Magus!” one of the chastised men protested, pointing at Ivy. “It’s some kind of dragon, but—”

The witch rolled her eyes. “I’m not interested in feeble excuses. Just hurry up and bind the wretched creature, before the High Magus returns and sees this mess.”

Several of the acolytes stepped back. The one the witch had picked out went pale. “B-but, Magus,” he stuttered. “No one can touch it. Everyone who’s tried, well…” He trailed off, gesturing helplessly at the collapsed forms scattered around the courtyard.

The witch tilted her head, looking interested. She walked closer to Ivy, dragging Hugh along behind. Ivy’s jaw worked as though she wanted to spit, but the witch’s magic held her motionless. All she could do was glare at the woman in pure hatred.

“Interesting.” The witch tapped a fingernail against her lips for a moment, evidently thinking. Then her mouth curved in a smile. Silver light shimmered around her fingers as she reached out to caress Ivy’s cheek. “But no great obstacle. I shall simply neutralize its venom—”

The witch stopped. An expression of great puzzlement spread across her face.

She looked down at the gleaming horn protruding from the center of her chest.

“The unicorn is loose!” a warlock screamed.

“Yes!” Rose shouted in triumph, as the magic holding her abruptly disappeared. “Yes!”

She’d gambled everything, based on a single, newly-recovered memory. A recollection of a gun, swinging up to point at her…and the Phoenix, exploding out of his cell in response.

And she’d been right.

Nothing could stop a shifter from protecting his mate.

Chaos erupted as Hugh flung the witch’s limp body aside. Warlocks scattered in all directions, desperate to escape the rampaging unicorn. The black binding around its foreleg had completely vanished. Its horn flashed like a blade, sparks trailing behind it. Ivy shifted into her wyvern form again, fighting back-to-back with her mate.

“No!” the warlock next to Griff howled as a couple of acolytes tried to grab Ivy’s wing. “That’s a mated pair! Don’t try to bind them, you fools!”

“Hit them with everything you’ve got!” Dragonfire swirled around a warlock’s upraised hands. Dai snarled in rage and pain, clutching at the runes around his wrist, but he clearly couldn’t stop the man from drawing power from him. “All of us, together, on the count of three!”

John’s knees buckled as his warlock summoned a crackling ball of lightning. Griff writhed like a cat trying to escape a harness as his warlock too drew power from him.

“One!” Dai’s warlock shouted. All three took aim at Ivy and Hugh. “Two! Thr—”

Virginia, Hayley and Neridia stepped between the warlocks and their targets. The women linked hands, forming a human shield.

Griff’s warlock’s eyes widened as he realized he was threatening his shifter’s mate. “Oh, sh—”

He didn’t get to finish the sentence. The griffin’s gleaming golden beak snapped shut, silencing him forever.

And suddenly the courtyard was very, very full of dragon.

John’s huge, finned tail swept his warlock, a dozen acolytes, and quite a lot of the nearest wall into oblivion. Dai vaporized his own warlock with a single, precise blast of fire, then ducked his head. Virginia scrambled up onto the dragon’s neck, clinging onto his curving horns. John picked up his own mate, cradling her protectively in webbed feet.

“Chase!” Rose shouted, looking around frantically. “We have to find Chase!”

Connie was already running, awkwardly, arms supporting her pregnant belly. Leaving the dragons to finish destroying the last few warlocks, Rose pelted after her. They ran down the row of cages.

“You!” Connie yelled in fury. “Get off my mate!”

A warlock was frantically clutching at Chase’s mane, trying to scramble up onto the pegasus’s back. At Connie’s shout, he fell off. Chase danced away, snorting, black hooves striking sparks on the flagstones.

The warlock scrambled to his feet, making a grabbing motion at thin air. Chase bucked and twisted, as though caught on an invisible leash.

“He’s mine,” the warlock gabbled. His hands were upraised defensively, but no magic snapped around his fingers. “I know who you are, I know how this works. As long as I don’t touch you, he can’t break free. And you can’t touch me, or he’ll die. You’ve got no choice but to let me go.“

Rose hesitated…but Connie didn’t.

Without breaking stride, Connie kicked the man squarely in the balls. As he folded over, she shoved past him. Her hand touched Chase’s gleaming hide.

The runes around the pegasus’s foreleg flared—and vanished.

Chase kicked the warlock too. Only this time, in the head. The man flew ten feet through the air and hit a wall with a very final-sounding crunch.

Rose’s breath whooshed out of her lungs in relief. “How did you know that would work?”

“I didn’t,” Connie gasped. She wrapped her arms around the pegasus’s neck, burying her face in the sweeping black mane. “Oh Chase, Chase.”

The pegasus shimmered, shrinking into human shape. Chase enfolded his mate in a fierce hug, leaning his forehead on the top of her head.

“I’m all right.” His voice was hoarse and rasping. “The others?”

“We’re here,” Hugh said from behind Rose. “Except Ash.”

She turned, and saw him limping toward them, Ivy at his side. All the others were there too. John and Griff were back in human form, holding hands with their mates. Dai was still in his dragon shape, alert for any danger.

“Come here so I can heal that,” Hugh said to Chase. The unicorn shifter looked exhausted, but he still reached for Chase’s wounded arm. “I’ve already fixed up everyone else. You and Griff have to fly our mates out of here, the rest of us will try to free—”

Dai roared a warning. They all ducked, the men instinctively grabbing for their mates, as the red dragon’s wings swept protectively around them.

Fire exploded against the tough crimson webbing. The dragon roared again, this time in pain. For the flames to burn through even his scales…it could only mean one thing.

“It’s Corbin and Ash!” Rose hurled herself to the front of the group, spreading her arms wide. “Everyone get behind me!”

“What-?” Griff started.

“No time to explain, just do it!” Virginia hammered her fist against her mate’s armored scales. “Shift, Dai! You’re too big a target!”

Dai shrank back into human form, just in time. Another fireball blasted through the space his head had just been. Both his arms were blistered and burned. Hugh grabbed him, his hands lighting up with a silvery glow to heal the wounds.

John tried to step in front of Rose, his knightly oaths no doubt demanding that he shield them all with his own body, but Neridia pulled him back. All the women were yanking at their confused mates, hauling them into a corner of the courtyard and forcing them to crouch down.

Left alone at the front, Rose spread her arms wide, trying to make herself as big as possible. All around, the menagerie was burning. Fire leaped from shattered timbers and licked along tangled, overgrown creepers. Heat washed across her face, but she held firm.

In the shifting orange light from the inferno, she faced down Corbin.

The warlock was still backlit by the fading glow of a portal. His left hand gripped Ash’s right wrist, fingers spread, digging cruelly into the black runes of the binding.

Ash was on his knees, one hand braced against the ground, the other painfully twisted up by the warlock’s iron grasp. Blood poured down his right arm. Rose knew he was fighting Corbin with every ounce of will, but he couldn’t stop the warlock from drawing on his power.

Hellfire snaked around Corbin’s tattooed runes. The warlock raised his free hand, searing flames gathering around his clenched fist. The seething red light illuminated Corbin’s twisted, outraged face. It was the expression of a man watching all his plans crumble into ash, a man with nothing left to lose. Hand crackling with power, he stared straight at her.

Rose met his hate-filled eyes without flinching.

Yes, she silently willed him. Do it.

She wouldn’t be able to get out of the way, she knew. If Corbin threw that incandescent fireball at her, it was possible that not even the Phoenix’s power could call it back.

But whatever happened to her…Ash would be free.

With a snarl, Corbin opened his hand—but not to attack her. Instead, he swept his arm round in a wide, horizontal arc. A wall of fire cut between them, leaping up to shield the warlock and his familiar. Through the roaring flames, Rose caught a glimpse of him turning away, starting to sketch glowing lines in mid-air.

A portal.

“He’s going to get away!” Hayley cried out.

Virginia caught Dai as he tried to surge forward. “No! It’s too hot, you won’t make it!”

The magical fire burned white-hot, so intense that their shadows stood out stark and black behind them. The flames curled and writhed like a nest of snakes. They stretched unnaturally, forming a dome, completely enclosing Ash and Corbin.

For a moment, Rose saw Ash’s face through the inferno. He was looking right at her, as if nothing else existed in the world.

He was her mate. And she knew, knew, that he would never hurt her.

“Rose, no!” Connie screamed.

Too late. She was already running, flat out, dodging their attempts to grab her.

Without hesitation, she hurled herself into the flames.