DJ’s truck ate up the miles as she sped through Dallas. Rod hadn’t wanted to leave her alone, but she’d finally convinced him that she was fine. He’d made it pretty clear that he was interested, but she had a rule about never dating someone she worked with.

Besides, a pair of hazel eyes and a wry smile dominated her mind at the moment. Everything he said to her had blurred the lines of reality. She knew shifters had their own society, but this was the first time she’d seen it in action. A special doctor, a weird hierarchy. Rod couldn’t stop talking about Ms. Cheryl and her influence in their world. He grew up in Houston, and she’d saved Rod’s sister after she’d been poisoned by silver. Most of her friends hadn’t made it, but Cheryl worked day and night until several had come through.

Rod thought he’d helped, but knowing that most of the shifters had died told her just how deadly this stuff really was to wolves. A quick google while she’d reheated leftovers told her nothing except a few lab experiments gone wrong. Mack had warned her long ago to not do searches about shifters since it flagged her on their radar. The way he feared the other packs was completely different from the way Rod and even Ren had talked about them. Her father had told her nothing before he died. To realize that there was this entire world going on around them floored her.

She was going to wait until dawn but couldn’t put it off. She sent a text to Rebecca without expecting a reply. When it came a few seconds later, she decided to go over there and see for herself if the actress was suffering from food poisoning or something worse.

The high-rise hotel was easy to find and even easier to find a parking space for. A hotel staff member waited for her in the lobby and escorted her up to the floor reserved for Rebecca Shay. When the elevator opened, she stepped out into a lavish apartment with a gorgeous view of Dallas. The doors slid shut behind her, leaving her alone with Rebecca.

A strange odor assaulted her nose and she followed it to a small hallway. “Rebecca?”

“In here.” The woman’s weak call came from a room at the end of the hall. Coughing followed the statement and DJ rushed forward.

The moment she opened the door, the same stench that reeked of Mack’s attack doubled her over. Her stomach clenched, and she forced herself to breathe through her nose.

“My God, DJ, do I look that bad?”

DJ took in Rebecca’s haggard appearance. Her friend’s once glossy hair clung to her face and neck and the shine to her skin had dulled to a pale, sickly pallor.

Rebecca’s laugh sounded brittle to DJ’s ears. “I can’t seem to shake this food poisoning for some reason.”

DJ forced herself to stand straight. “Rebecca, someone attacked Mack today. He’s in the hospital.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but it wasn’t me. I was here trying to keep down crackers and failing unsuccessfully.” Rebecca sat in an overstuffed chair and trembled from the effort it must have taken to stand. “You obviously knew that it wasn’t me, or you would have just accused me outright, so why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”

DJ sat on the edge of the bed and forced down the urge to throw up. The stench of silver burning flesh was so strong, she wondered how Rebecca could stand it.

“Rebecca, we’ve known each other for a long time. Five years, now, I’ve been your stuntwoman.”

“You’re not quitting, are you?”

“No.” DJ laughed a little. Mack had warned her time and again about meddling with shifters, about their reactions to being cornered, but she couldn’t help it. She needed to know. “Rebecca, I don’t think it’s food poisoning, well not in the traditional sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mack is a wolf, my father was a wolf. I can recognize their scent when I meet them, but you’re something else, right?”

Rebecca grew perfectly still and the hair on the back of DJ’s neck rose. The urge to run ate at her. For the first time, she feared for her own life at the hands of someone else, and it shook her to the core. DJ forced herself to remain perfectly still, even when Rebecca’s eyes changed to something bright yellow and more cat-like than she expected.

“You’re not running. I don’t know whether you’re strong willed or too terrified to move. I’m a lion shifter.”

“Okay, that’s awesome.” DJ pasted a grin on her face. “And explains your cravings for ultra-rare steaks on the few times we went out together.”

Rebecca laughed and the urge to run melted away. “That’s not the response I expected. You’ll have to forgive me for that. Big cats are rare since it’s hard to have children. We don’t turn people the way wolves can, so our numbers are much smaller. As a result, we’re very wary of being found out. So how did you know?”

DJ shrugged. “I’ve known for a while. You’ve done a good number of stunts. Stuff that would set me back for days left you with a few scratches. I don’t have the accelerated healing the rest of the guys on my team do. It might be because I’m second generation or something. My dad never turned into a wolf. Mack was the one who told me what I am.”

“He’s right. There’s no doubt you have wolf blood in you. The only reason we heal quickly is because of the accelerated metabolism needed to shift between one form and the next. It’s triggered by our first shapeshift. I’m guessing you never had one.”

“Nope. But I’ve watched others do it plenty of times.”

“That’s rare with the wolves, but we see it happen in our pride pretty often. Your kids will probably inherit the ability.”

“It’s a little early to think about kids, Rebecca.”

Her friend laughed and settled back into the chair. A little color had returned to her cheeks, but DJ feared it wouldn’t last long.

“So why did you want to know what kind of shifter I am? By the way, if you ever try that with anyone else, they may just rip you apart. You don’t ask, ever. The information is offered if they trust you. You just threw protocol right out the window.”

“Thanks for telling me, and I promise I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important. Are lion shifters allergic to silver?”

“Allergic? That’s an interesting way to put it. Why do you ask?”

“Because you smell like Mack, and I was told silver nitrate exploded all over him. I think you’ve been given something that’s making you sick.”

Rebecca blinked slowly, and that edge of danger returned. “Can you sniff out the source, then? Is it still here?”

“I could try. This sense of smell thing rarely hits me like this.”

“Please, do what you can.”

She rose to her feet and moved through the room, looking for a scent that wasn’t Rebecca’s. They all melded together, and she couldn’t distinguish one from the other. They walked slowly through the giant suite, but found nothing definitive. “I’m sorry, Rebecca.” She hated the frustration that ate through her.

“Do you know someone else who could find it? Silver only affects us in large quantities, and even then, it’s rare to develop an allergy like this.” Her words came in soft gasps. Even the walk through the suite had worn her down. “I need a shifter doctor, but contacting my family would involve my lion pride, and that could be bad for business. My dad is kind of an overprotective ass when it comes to me. It took years to shake him off enough to let me be an actress.”

DJ raised her eyebrows. I guess everyone has their own struggles to deal with. “There’s one in town. A Cheryl something-or-other.”

“Cheryl?” Rebecca rested on the arm of a couch, so she could catch her breath. “Cheryl is just Cheryl, and she’s here?”

“She’s with Mack right now. Let me call her. Is she famous or something?” She searched for the number to the hospital, hoping the nurse would get Cheryl a message for her.

“Famous? Our pride owes her a debt we could never repay.”

“Really?” She got through and spent the next ten minutes being transferred from ward to ward until they put Cheryl on.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Cheryl, this is DJ. You met me in Mack’s room.”

“You were the one with my nephew. Mack is stable, dear. He’s tough and will pull through, so get some rest.”

“Wait, ma’am!” DJ panicked when she thought the woman was going to hang up. “There’s another situation like Mack’s.”

“Another explosion?”

“No, but she smells a lot like him.”

“Burned?”

“No, that weird smell that makes me sick to my stomach. The stuff that was eating away at him and now her. I’ve smelled it before when I was given some cream for an arm burn. Mack couldn’t put it on me, but it had this weird scent that stuck with me.”

“Silver nitrate is odorless, dear.”

“Well, then it’s something else.” Did she not believe her? “She’s very sick. Please.”

“Is she breathing?”

“What? Yes. She’s talking and walking. Her breathing is labored, but she’s really weak.”

“Good. Put her on.”

She handed the phone to Rebecca. Immediately, the young woman was peppered with questions that she answered in rapid-fire succession. Her tone was subdued and respectful.

DJ sat in a chair and fought off the exhaustion weighing her down. Rebecca put the phone to her ear and she jerked awake, realizing she must have dozed for a second.

“Hello?”

“Where are you? I’m sending Ren to assess the situation.”

“She needs a doctor, not a fireman.” Her sleep-addled brain was making it hard to think.

“Ren has been saving people like Mack and your friend since he was nine. He didn’t become a fireman until his early twenties. There’s no one I trust more to help you right now. I can’t leave Mack until he wakes up. It shouldn’t be too much longer. Your friend isn’t critical, but Mack is. I remain where I’m most needed. Ren will help you. I’ll be along as soon as I can. Now tell me where you are.”

DJ gave her the information and Rebecca called the desk to give him access.

“What do I do in the meantime?”

“Get some sleep. You obviously need it. Mack was furious that I didn’t let him tell you to get some sleep for tomorrow’s big day. Now I’ve told you.”

“Ms. Cheryl. Thank you for everything you’re doing.”

“Thank me after this is over and everyone’s still breathing. If you’re right, this is going to get worse before it gets better.”

The woman hung up and Rebecca slid off the arm of the couch to the couch itself, sighing heavily as she did so. “If you’re right and I was poisoned…” her voice trailed off, but DJ knew what she was going to say.

“We’ll figure out who's doing this.” And when she found him, she was going to pound his face into the ground for hurting the people she loved.

“Want a drink while we wait? I’ve got water and some other stuff I haven’t been able to stomach for a while.”

“I’ll grab one later. Why don’t we get some rest until he gets here?”

Rebecca snorted, completely out of character for the actress’s usual persona. “Resting is all I seem capable of doing lately. I swear I’ll never complain about insomnia again.”

DJ laughed and let her head fall back against the seat cushion. Her whole body ached like hell. The quick shower she’d managed after she got home hadn’t helped much. If she stayed like this, her muscles would stiffen up and tomorrow’s stunts would be tougher. She needed to get up and stretch, move, do all the things she was supposed to do to maintain her flexibility.

Instead, all she could see were intriguing hazel eyes of a man she’d already said goodbye to once that day. Who was Rendall James, anyway? She definitely wanted to find out.