“Are you sure this is the best route? Briers?”

“Best I can do, sir. Traffic’s all backed up the other way. If you take the next left—”

Lance cursed. They were still a block away from the intercept site. If Briers’ intel was correct, then this was their best shot at recovering the egg.

Or it was a trap. That was always an option.

Either way, if they didn’t get there in time, they’d never know. And they’d lose their chance.

“There’s no time,” he barked. “We’ll do it on foot.”

“Sir, even with the re-route, it’ll be faster in the car—”

“I know a shortcut.”

Lance paused, his hand on the car door handle.

There were four agents in the van with him. Tori Bradford, one of the night-shift meerkat shifters from the office, was in the driver’s seat. In the back with Lance were Parker, Yelich—and Zhang.

*All of you, follow me.*

Zhang might be a green recruit, but for this mission, he needed trackers. And no one tracked better than a shark. She’d be more useful on the front line than providing backup from the van.

*Shields up!*

The other agents obeyed his telepathic order immediately, flickering out of sight. Lance grinned and reached for the dragon-scale shield strapped to his upper arm. The scale pressed down onto his skin, and the world around Lance shimmered as he dropped out of sight.

So long as the scale was touching him, no one would be able to see, hear or smell him, unless they were shielded, too.

It was dragon magic. Julian Rouse’s magic. The same magic that whoever had stolen the dragon egg wanted to exploit.

Lance jumped out of the van, signaling for the others to fall in behind him as he ran into the building the car had been stuck outside.

He knew this building. At least, he knew it ten or fifteen years ago, when it had been a burnt-out shell, and he’d been friends with the woman who bought and restored it into a glitzy hotel.

He’d thought he had known her, too. Francine Delacourt. But he hadn’t, not in the end.

Lance shook his head, dislodging old hurt. He’d seen the blueprints for the new build, and now he navigated by them, slipping invisibly past guests and staff into a warren of employee-only corridors that eventually burst out in an alleyway near the station entrance.

He glanced at the station clock as he ran down the stairs to the nearest platform. The train should just be arriving. Motioning for Parker and Zhang to fall into position behind him, he raced down the final few steps.

The platform was almost empty. A dozen or so wilted late-night travelers were slumped at intervals along the platform, waiting disinterestedly for the train to stop.

Lance mentally filed the facts as he noticed them. Their arrival time. The rush of air that heralded the next train’s approach.

The presence of civilians. If this all went wrong, they might be at risk.

He slowed, all senses on high alert, and six figures at the end of the platform caught his eye.

They were all wearing heavy dark fatigues, standing poised for action as they waited for the train to arrive.

Lance’s snow leopard snarled as he took in the grim, impassive looks on their faces. They reminded him of his time in the military, but they didn’t resemble soldiers. More like mercenaries, well-equipped and ready to jump for whoever was paying their fee.

None of the other passengers seemed to notice them. Which meant they must be shielded, same as Lance and his team.

Briers’ lead had paid off. The enemy hadn’t set a trap with those poorly forged video feeds; they just hadn’t covered their tracks properly.

*What the hell’s this? They’re here already?* Yelich’s psychic voice trumpeted in Lance’s mind.

Lance shook his head. The black-clad figures were watching for the train with predatory intensity. *They’re backup, or our thief’s been double-crossed and we’re dealing with more than one group. Either way, we need to get in there.*

Six enemy agents. Oh, and however many of the enemy were waiting on the train that this group was here to meet. And Lance had two agents, one green recruit, and Briers’ eye-in-the-sky support once he reset the security cameras.

“Sir.” Briers’ voice crackled in his ear. “I’ve lost the feed for the station. I’ll do my best to get it back online, but—”

Make that two agents and one green recruit.

Lance cut Briers’ excuses short with a brief order, then sent a telepathic message to Zhang and Parker.

*There. At the end of the platform. Move out.*

Six to four? He’d faced worse odds, and with less hanging in the balance.

The train appeared at the end of the platform, and the other late-night commuters started to show some signs of life. The enemy agents didn’t so much as glance their way.

They hadn’t seen Lance or his agents yet. Which meant they had the element of surprise.

Lance unholstered his gun and led his small team down the platform as the train slowed to a stop. A hydraulic hiss told him the doors were about to open, and the six enemy agents’ laser focus told him that his target was in that final car. If they could take out the platform team before whoever was on the train joined them—

He was expecting more mercenaries. A small, tactical team, who had taken out the driver and grabbed the egg and were now rejoining the larger group.

Instead, a woman appeared in the car door, directly in front of the enemy forces. She glanced up, her face tight as she checked the platform.

Even from twenty feet away Lance saw her eyes, stormy gray-blue and bright despite her clear exhaustion. She had dirty-blonde hair, pulled back into a strict bun, and was wearing a long coat that looked several sizes too big for her.

Head down, arms wrapped around herself, she stepped down onto the platform. Straight into the group of mercenaries.

Lance’s snow leopard rose up so fast Lance felt claws burst from his fingers. He swore, corralling his snow leopard’s form but keeping its heightened senses.

Danger! his snow leopard snarled.

Lance was already running. His snow leopard urged him on, faster, faster.

He was still ten feet away when one of the mercenaries shrugged, knelt, and tossed something under the car. As he stood up, the others closed in on the woman.

And the world turned to fire.

Lance’s human brain put the pieces together as his snow leopard braced his body for the blast. The mercenary had thrown a grenade. In the middle of the goddamn city. If there had been any other passengers in that car—

Help her! his snow leopard snarled.

The far end of the car had exploded. The air was full of fire and shrapnel. Smoke billowed from the blaze in thick, noxious clouds that clawed at his lungs.

Lance plowed into the mercenaries, all his senses focused on the woman who’d stepped off the train a moment before the explosion. She’d been knocked to the ground by the blast and was kneeling with one hand on the ground, the other wrapped around herself. Alarms went off in Lance’s head.

She’s hurt. Get her out of here. Now!

He didn’t know whether the voice in his head was his leopard screaming at him, or the other way around. Moving with feline grace, he knelt and pulled the woman into his arms.

Lance shouldered a mercenary out of his path as he rose and turned back towards the stairs. He could smell the man’s scent even through the smoke, a rank combination of old meat and sweat that made his snow leopard puff up defensively. The mercenaries were shifters. Some sort of predators.

Lance didn’t stick around to find out more. Under the smell of smoke and the shifter merc’s stench, another scent was dancing across his senses, and his world shrank down to the warm body pressed against his chest.

Smoke choked Lance’s lungs as he raced back up the platform. He was dimly aware of Parker and Yelich falling on the six mercenaries and Zhang leaping into the smoldering car, but the knowledge was distant, like some small part of his brain was taking notes for later.

The woman in his arms coughed, her whole body shaking. Lance swore. If the smoke was burning his shifter lungs, it would be all the worse for her.

He ran up the stairs six at a time, not slowing down until clean air hit his lungs.

Above ground, a crowd had gathered, half commuters still coughing up smoke, half interested onlookers. Every time a new figure emerged from the station entrance, which was still belching smoke, the crowd surged forward, gathering up the newcomer and pulling them back to safety.

The crowd stayed put as Lance carried the coughing woman out onto the sidewalk. He was still shielded and, since she was touching him, so was she.

The woman clutched white-knuckled at the front of his shirt.

“What the fuck just happened?” Her voice was serrated with shock. Stormy blue-gray eyes burned into his, bright with terror and—

Danger, his snow leopard had told him. Understanding struck Lance like a bolt of lightning. Danger was right. The woman in his arms was his mate.

Lance had spent every waking hour since the Diaz affair feeling like the ground was crumbling under his feet. Now the whole Earth seemed to tilt under him. If I’d been there a second later…

“It’s all right,” he said, his voice rough. “You’re safe.”

“Huh?” The woman shook her head. Her eyebrows shot together, making her eyes look even stormier. “I—the train—oh shit—”

She broke off and started to cough uncontrollably.

Lance carried her to an empty bit of sidewalk away from the crowd and set her gently on her feet, holding her until she stopped coughing and caught her breath.

“There was an explosion,” he started to explain, and she glanced up at him, her eyebrows drawing together.

“What?” she asked sharply.

She was still holding onto the front of Lance’s shirt with one hand. Lance’s snow leopard preened. Either she was just steadying herself, or… was it possible she felt the connection between them, too?

A cool night breeze was whisking away the smell of burning metal and plastic from the station explosion. Under it, he could smell his mate’s own scent, like sun and salt and the smell of cut grass.

“There was an explosion at the end of the platform,” he repeated. “You were close to the blast. Are you hurt?”

“What?” She stared at him, and then released his shirt to rub the side of her face. “I can’t hear a thing!”

Ah.

Lance closed his eyes briefly, feeling like an idiot. His shifter healing meant his ears were barely ringing any more, but she was human.

*Boss! We need backup! We’ve found something, but—shit!*

All at once, the rest of the world reappeared. Sirens blasted, and his mate’s scent was joined by the gunpowder crackle of dragon.

He made a split-second decision. His mate was safe, and alive; and he had a mission to complete.

“I need to go,” he said reluctantly. “There are ambulances coming. Get them to check you out. I’ll…”

He trailed off. I’ll find you, he wanted to say. But right now, he couldn’t let himself think that far.

“Seriously, I still can’t hear you!” his mate shouted back. She licked her lips nervously. “Look, I’m sure there are other people who need help, okay? I’m all good!”

And I need to go. Lance gave her a reassuring smile and, every atom of his being screaming at him to stop, turned and loped back down the stairs to meet up with his team.

I’ll find her again. Later. When all this is finished. When the ground under my feet is solid again, he reassured himself.

The fight was over quickly. Lance’s team had backed the mercenaries into a corner of the station, but there were too many of them. They broke through Yelich and Parker’s defenses a moment before Lance joined the fray.

Heavy-duty sprinklers turned the smoke and flames into steam, and as the air cleared, the enemy disappeared like sea mist.

Lance bit back a curse and ordered his team back to the van.

“Tell me we’ve got good news,” he barked as he slid into his seat. Zhang and Parker turned to him, while Yelich ground her teeth in the corner.

“I should have shifted,” she muttered. “Like to see them get through my hippo.”

“And I’m sure the humans would have liked to see a hippo suddenly appear in the subway,” Lance replied. Yelich snorted, but the frustration on her face eased.

Lance turned to Zhang. “You found something?”

Carol had held back during the fight. At first, Lance had thought it was because of her lack of experience. It was only as they’d trudged back up to the street that he’d seen what she was carrying.

Now, she looked down at the black case on her lap, her eyes like pools of midnight.

“I found this under one of the seats at the near end of the car,” she said. “There was nothing else there. No one else, either.”

And that’s strange. Lance felt another sixth-sense shiver of unease and made a mental note to follow it up later. The enemy had sent in a team to grab the egg, then left it on a subway car for another group to pick up at another station? Either that was the stupidest plan he’d ever heard, or he was missing something.

“It’s locked,” Zhang muttered, tugging at the lid, and Lance took the case from her.

“Allow me.”

The fight might be over, but Lance’s snow leopard was still alert and close to the surface. Like Yelich’s hippo, it was champing at the bit to be let loose.

Lance concentrated. Heavy, sharp claws sprang out of his hands, and he removed the case’s hinges with two sharp flicks.

“Let’s see what we have here…”

His heart was already rising, anticipating success. He flicked the lid of the black case open.

Zhang gasped. “Oh, God, no,” she whispered, and Lance wished he could do the same. His jaw set so hard he could feel the tendons in his neck stand out.

There was no life inside the case, no hope for Julian Rouse and his broken family. Just smashed fragments of shell.

“What happened?” Briers’ voice crackled over the comm, startling after his long silence. “What’s going on?”

“The egg’s broken,” Lance replied, his voice clipped. Professional. He stared blindly into the case.

He’d failed. He’d let one of the eggs, a potential life, be stolen—and now that potential was gone. Smashed.

He felt sick.

Parker leaned forward, his long face pensive. “Now, this doesn’t seem right,” he remarked, his nostrils flaring.

Lance’s snow leopard sniffed, too, not wanting to be one-upped by the bloodhound. The sizzle of gunpowder filled his nostrils, overlaid with something like black pepper. He scratched his nose, resisting the urge to sneeze.

“That’s just the shell, there. Now what’s happened to the rest of it?” Parker sat back, frowning.

Lance stilled.

Inside him, his snow leopard’s eyes gleamed as the memory of a scent filled his mind: sunlight and cut grass, with a hint of salt.

And the bright gunpowder spark of dragon.

“I know where it is,” he said.