“There’s only eight of them. What the fuck can they do?”

“Did you clear this with dad?”

The man scoffed and made a deep phlegmy sound in his throat. “Fuck no. This is me showing initiative. This’ll pull me up the ranks and make sure I’ll be next in line for at least third.” He sucked his teeth and then made a clicking noise with his tongue. “Look. I did what I did to keep them from claiming her. It’s better this way till I figure out what to do.”

The raspy voice of the man who had hit her in the face so hard she saw bolts of lightning crashing through her vision roused Cass from her sleep. Her head hurt so bad she couldn’t even lift her chin from her chest. She wanted to talk but the fear of what her face would feel like after that butthole had almost ripped her jaw off made her keep her mouth shut. Someone had tied her hands behind her back, and the sticky feel against her wrists let her know they’d used tape. With her head still down, Cass fluttered her eyes open to get a look at where she was.

She knew it was a basement. The dank scent alone let her know that. And even though they were inside it was chilly. Grey cement floors ran all around her, four brick beams stood from floor to ceiling as if holding up the old hardwood ceiling. Despite the boulder that was rolling around her brain, Cass lifted her head to see who was in the room with her.

Fur-man. That son of a whore was jabbing his fingers toward a young man who had his back to her. A shake in her kidnapper’s voice made Cass more concerned than him bringing her here. Keeping her away from Jax and Damon so they couldn’t claim her was one thing, but he sounded nervous. Scared. Unsure of what he’d done but committed to seeing this through. That made him dangerous.

She’d heard that same shaking novelty in her voice when she’d slapped the nurse who told her not worry about Andrew. That woman should have thanked her lucky stars that Cass was more concerned about her husband dying in front of her than giving in to her instinct. Cass would have broken every bone in that witches body if she’d had the strength, and hearing it now in the man’s voice worried her.

“They will look for her. You can’t just—” A loud crack echoed through the room and the boy talking let out a mumbled cry.

“I can do what the fuck I want! This is me taking the lead. Hell, this may make me a contender for second. And if that doesn’t work, well, there are enough of us to start our own pack. You said you wanted to help, so help. We’ve got bears, wolves, and a boar. We outnumber the ghosts. They don’t even know where we are.”

If her will was enough, Cass would make sure the ghost shifters knew exactly who was behind this and made them all pay in blood.

Pay in blood? Cass didn’t think thoughts like that, but right now with her hands tied behind her back while she sat in the most uncomfortable chair ever freaking made, she wanted them to suffer.

Cass focused her eyes as the men shifted to look at her. Fur-man pointed at the boy’s face as if silently telling him that he’d hit him again if he wanted to. The boy stood with his hand gently rubbing his cheek. Neil. It was Neil from the grocery store. He’d been slapped so hard that blood dripped from his nose. When Fur-man realized she watching her, he stopped talking and walked toward her.

“I’m sorry I hit you,” he said, deep voice leveler than it had been when he was talking to Neil. “No man should ever hit a woman. Everything’ll be square once we figure out what to do with you. You already know Neil here so I’ll let him stay here with you so you won’t be alone. We got a man posted at the door at the top of the steps. If she needs something,” he said, looking at Neil, “just give a holler. Water, bathroom break. Just say the word. I’ll be back. Gotta get this deer piss off me before the others get here.”

He gave Neil a severe look and then walked off, and the boy’s eyes trailed behind him. Anger, regret, revenge. Cass could see all those emotions flashing in his gaze as he watched douchebag.

Neil shifted from one foot to the other and then went to stand by one of the brick columns. He was doing everything in his power not to look at Cass.

“Neil. Can I have some water, please?”

Cass had about zero seconds to get Neil on her side. She thought he was friendly yesterday when he’d offer to let his dad drive her home in the falling snow. But now, he was part of this. Part of the group of shifters that sought to keep her from her mates. Part of the group of shifters that had threatened to bring a war to them. Sure, she was okay when she was just a plain old human who greeted him at the market. Now she was a threat.

“Why’d you do it, Neil?” How she wished she had a piece of paper and a pencil so she could write instead of speak. With every word she spoke Cass’s jaw seemed to unhinge and hinge with each passing syllable. But she couldn’t keep quiet. Not when he was looking at her with such guilt. “Are they going to kill me? Is that what you want, Neil?”

He shook his head and looked up toward the stairs as if wishing he could escape from her questions. When he looked back to her his eyes were crinkled at the sides and he pursed his lips. He hadn’t meant for this to happen.  “No. I don’t want you hurt. I just told everyone that they’d found you.” He moved away from his standing spot and walked behind her, opening a cooler with a soft pop and then closing with a poof. Neil came to stand in front of her holding a bottle of water. He untwisted the cap and held the bottle to her mouth as she tipped her head back. “I thought it was a good thing. They’ve been waiting for you. My dad is going to be so mad at me.”

The mention of his father seemed to ignite him. He flushed red and took a deep, shaking breath. He was here by default. But when her mates got here, which she was hoping and praying they would very soon, they were going to kill everyone. She knew that deep in her bones. She’d do the same for them.

Cass took a few messy pulls from the water, spilling some of the cool liquid down her chin. “Got any ibuprofen?” she said, working her jaw back and forth to ease the ache. “Feels like he tried to break my jaw.”

“Brennon shouldn’t have done that.” Neil shook his head and stood up, leaving the water bottle on the floor next to her chair. “He shouldn’t have done any of this. I mean, my dad was hesitant when he heard about you, but he was kind of happy. Most of the shifters were, not just us ravens. We don’t know everything about the ghosts, but they ain’t bad. They were the main ones to help when New Rose was hit by a flood a few years back. Aiden came and helped me and my dad rebuild the fence to the barn and replace the roof. Damon and Jax donated money to help the town build some weird kind of irrigation thing so that Main Street won’t flood anymore.”

Cass remembered that flood. Her neighborhood had been safe, but the people one block over had to have major work done on their houses. Flooded basements, collapsed houses, mold. She hurt for the people affected by that tropical storm and thanked her lucky stars that she lived where she did.

“What are they going to do to me?”

Death was Cass’s first guess, but if they were going to kill her she would have been dead by now. What else was there?

“They’re going to vote when everyone gets here. The most popular idea is for someone to claim you. Then the ghosts can’t make you theirs.”

All the air seeped from Cass’s lungs. One of them would claim her? She couldn’t breathe and her heart threatened to beat its way through her sternum. Didn’t claiming a mate involve sex?

“Neil. Are they toying with the idea of someone taking me against my will?” Cass started pulling at the tape surrounding her hands, but the dang material wouldn’t give. “They’d better fucking kill me, Neil, because when I get my shifter strength I’m going to track down all of you and eat you.” Cass bared her teeth and tried to stand up from the chair.

They may have her, but she wasn’t going to make this easy for them.

“Miss. No. No. Sex doesn’t have to be involved to claim someone,” Neil said, holding up his hands and giving her a few steps of space. “I didn’t mean to scare you. One of them will just bite you and turn you. Then you’ll belong to that pack. They just don’t know whose going to do it.”

Fuck that. That idea was a no-go either. “Still going to eat you,” she said, managing to get some height from the chair. “And you’re in on it. I hope your dad is pissed. My mates are going to kill you all, no matter what dumbass up their bites me.”

Cass was tired from all the movement that gave no help, but she still fought to free herself. To do what? Have the shifter at the top of the steps tell her to sit her butt down? Have Neil call out for help because he was too weak to do anything else?

Her mates deserved redemption. And if she was the one person in the world that signaled that they’d receive it Cass would do all she could to get back to them. Besides, she wouldn’t let anyone claim her against her will. She belonged to her damned self.

Neil walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked over and felt sullied by his contact.

“Miss, if I could get you out of here I would.”

“Then go get Jax and Damon.”

“They won’t let me leave.”

Well dang, that took all the fight out of her. He was a prisoner here too, just like her. She started looking around the room for a back door. Anything. Nothing but walls, a ceiling, and a floor. And a sunlight hiding in the back.

Cass motioned her chin toward the spot where rays of sun were shining through. “Neil. Is that a window back there?” She whispered and hoped that the shifter upstairs watching the door couldn’t hear them.

Neil walked to the back of the large room, eyes glued to a window she couldn’t see. He stood with his hands on his hips, looked back at Cass, and then back to the window.

“Umm,” he said, his discomfort palpable. “It’s small. And… you’re… not?”

Cass chewed the inside of her lip for a moment and silently counted to ten. She wanted to wring his skinny little neck. If it meant getting free of those would-be mate stealers upstairs, well then she’d give it a go.

She blew out a heard breath and was wishing he would see her tied hands behind her as she gave him the finger. “Let me loose,” she whispered. “If I can’t shove myself through the window then you’re going to have to go by yourself and get my people. Can you do that?”

What if her clan was still unconscious on the floor and they didn’t even know she was gone? “No,” she said to herself. “Teague seems smart enough to figure something out.” He was smart enough to pick up on her being pissed off when he opened his mouth about a possible war, and he knew she had been taken.

By the confused look on Neil’s face, Cass thought he was really going to refuse her. Was he really going to let a little thing like her size throw out this awesome plan? Cass looked down at herself and then made a pathetic growling sound. She knew she was no small woman, but she knew she was shaped like a freaking hourglass, and that hot hour-telling shape of hers was going to fit through that window no matter how small it was.

Neil walked over and started pulling at the tape behind her, and with the last rip of the tape, he was nice enough to massage some circulation back into her hands. Someone who wanted her dead wouldn’t have done something as nice as that. He helped her stand up and she kissed him on the cheek.

They were going to get out of this, without her being claimed by another pack or group or whatever the heck they called themselves. If prayers counted for anything, Cass would be a member of the ghost shifters clan before the week was up.