Steven returned and seemed calmer and almost happy.

She narrowed her eyes at him, hoping to figure out the reason for his change in mood. She darted quick glances around the warehouse. Had he caught Lucien? Her stomach tightened.

One of them needed to get out of this and she didn’t think it would be her. Then again, she had a secret weapon on her side.

Steven loped toward her, eyes blazing. “Okay, ready for a brand-new world?”

“Not really.”

One side of his mouth quirked up, but his eyes didn’t reflect amusement. “Still a smart-ass, I see. I am glad your predicament has not changed you. This fire will be good in a leopard shifter.”

“I don’t intend on becoming a leopard shifter,” she said, brazen and bold in the face of the waves of evil bouncing off him.

“I don’t think you have a choice.” He opened his mouth and leaned down to her throat.

“Is the throat the best place to bite? You might get drunk on my blood or the taste of my skin and it would be so easy to kill me.”

He straightened. “You are right. Your thigh is meatier and it will be harder to kill you.” He made as if to crouch in front of her.

“Then again, so much meat on my thighs to tempt you too far. Maybe my neck is the right place after all.”

He surged upward and grasped her throat in his hand. “Stop toying with me, little girl. I could snap your neck in two seconds.”

“And then you will die,” she rasped.

Steven released her, his gaze furious and his nostrils flaring.

Luckily for her, Steven cared more for his self-preservation than for shutting her up.

“Enough,” he roared.

“Wait!”

He ground his teeth and she felt his ire as if it were a living thing pushing between them. “What?”

“Before you try to change me and one of us possibly ends up dead, I have questions. First, why did you send Innocent after me? You knew you weren’t supposed to kill me.”

Steven stood back, arms crossed in front of his chest. “I thought it would be a fitting way to test you. You seemed to have befriended him and I couldn’t have that.”

A spark of panic lit within Ryenne. She had befriended others here. Eleanor, Jomo, and Teddy could also be in danger.

“Anything else?” he asked.

She swallowed past the fear. The longer she could keep him talking, the more time Lucien would have to heal. Maybe he’d survive this. Maybe he’d send help. Most of all, she wanted him to live.

“Who is Mr. Lord?”

“The leader of the Fangs, a group of shifters who think we have been mistreated in this world. We are strong and brave and more powerful than humans. We don’t deserve this life of hiding and suspicion and powerlessness.” His voice rose and he stood up straighter. “Shifters should rule this world, not humans. With Mr. Lord’s help, we will overcome our human oppressors.”

Someone had been reading too much political and social theory. Or fantasy.

“But who is he? Is Lord his real name? Where’s he from? What kind of animal is he? Why now?”

“You are full of questions, Miss Cavanagh, but I do not have any answers for you. I know as much as I need to about Mr. Lord. He is the way to a bright future for shifters. And now, it is time for you to join that future.”

He stepped forward but Ryenne’s gaze was distracted by shadows moving behind Steven. Lucien ran out of the darkness and threw himself at Steven, wrapping his arms around Steven’s thick neck with a shout.

Steven staggered backwards, grunting in surprise. He threw Lucien off easily—too easily. Falling on his side, Lucien winced and Ryenne could see the pain on his face. His gunshot wound must not have fully healed yet.

John moved in then but Steven waved him off. John froze and Steven pulled his leg back as if about to kick Lucien.

“No!” Ryenne shouted. “Please, no. Leave him alone. You have me. Turn me.”

“Ryenne, no,” Lucien rasped from the floor.

She stared into his eyes and her feelings for this man became clear. Despite her past with rogue wolves, despite the wall around her heart, her defenses had crumbled and she knew that if she had to watch him die, she’d die.

“I’ll be fine,” she whispered. At least she’d be alive, even if she became a monster.

“This is all very touching,” Steven said, nudging Lucien with a toe. “Can we get on with our real business now? John, hold him back while I bite her.”

“No.” Lucien leaped up from the floor and squared off against the two large Kenyan men. “You can’t have her.”

Steven laughed and the unpleasant sound curdled in Ryenne’s stomach. She might be the one tied to a pole, but she was the only one who could save Lucien now.

“Mr. Lord wants him alive so stop torturing him,” she said. “I’m who you want.”

John paused and Steven turned toward her. Lucien stood behind the Kenyans and shook his head. Concern etched every line of his face.

“Lucien, go,” she said to him in as calm a voice as she could muster. “Let yourself heal. I’ll be fine. I don’t want you to see me turn. I don’t want you in the way if I can’t control myself.”

“I can’t leave you.”

The simple words stabbed her heart. But Ryenne knew she couldn’t avoid the inevitable any longer. Hopefully, the plan she’d only rehearsed in her mind would work and she’d get out of this alive.

She smiled at Lucien. “The others are in danger, everyone at the compound we care about. They need you now more than I do.”

He cocked his head to the side and glanced between the two Kenyans.

Ryenne nodded. “Please go. I don’t want you to see this and I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to...” She was afraid to say their names in case Steven chose to hurt or kill one of them in order to hurt her. If she couldn’t stop him, as herself or as a leopard once he turned her, there was no telling what he might do in revenge.

Comprehension finally dawned in Lucien’s mahogany eyes. He blew her a kiss and walked backwards away from Steven and John. To get their attention off him, she banged her hand on the pole behind her.

“Okay, Steven, you’ve won. You’ve got me. Let’s get this over with.”

The smile that pulled his lips away from his lengthening fangs turned her legs to jelly.

Shit. Who was she kidding? Inside, the tough Barbie doll who could fight and wield weapons and hunt shifters was still the scared little girl who had seen her brother’s crumpled and bloodied body in a neighbor’s yard. And kept seeing it almost every night when she slept. She wasn’t so tough. Nothing scared her more than what Steven was about to do to her. To become one of the creatures who had killed Cody made her stomach turn inside out.

But she refused to let her terror show. She stood as tall as the handcuffs and pole allowed and faced her new reality.

John melted into the shadows, probably to get out of range in case she lost control as a new leopard shifter, as she’d warned Lucien.

Steven was suddenly at her side and she gasped. This was it. She forced herself to relax, to make him think she’d really succumbed.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she took a deep breath and waited until she felt his teeth graze her skin. Then, against all of her survival instincts—and hopefully, against his expectations—she pushed against him, into his bite.

His arms hadn’t yet worked their way around her body to hold her in place, when her sudden weight made him stagger backward. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she kicked his legs out from under him. His eyes went wide, and his pinwheeling arms couldn’t stop his fall.

While he was down on the floor, she stomped repeatedly on the sensitive parts of him she could reach, his belly, groin, and instep. He groaned and rolled away from her feet, one pant leg inching up and revealing a red-and-white tattoo. But in his dazed state, he allowed his upper body to get closer to Ryenne. One well-placed and particularly vicious kick to his head knocked him out cold.

With Steven temporarily out of range, she glanced around for John and caught her breath after the brief struggle with the leopard shifter. John could shoot her but he wouldn’t shoot to kill since Mr. Lord didn’t want her dead.

He advanced on her out of the shadows, pointing the gun at her. “Don’t move,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

She jerked against the handcuffs. “Not like I can go anywhere.”

He lowered the gun.

“Look, John, when Steven gets over what I did to him, he’s going to be pissed. Beyond pissed. In a blind rage and ready to kill me. If he kills me, Mr. Lord will kill him. And maybe you.” She shrugged. “Even if he doesn’t kill you, he won’t reward you for failing him. You lose Steven, you lose your chance at joining superhumankind.”

John cocked his head to the side as if considering her words.

“You’ve been with him a long time, haven’t you?”

He jutted his chin toward her. It seemed to be the Kenyan equivalent of a nod.

“Do you want Mr. Lord to kill him?”

“No.” He shuffled from one foot to the other.

“Then don’t let him kill me. Let me go.”

His sharp intake of breath could go either way.

“When he wakes up, we’ll both be in the shit. Come on, John. Take off the handcuffs.”

After what felt like minutes upon minutes, John stuffed the gun into the waistband of his dark pants and pulled the handcuff key out of his pocket.

She nearly cried in relief, but knew there was still a lot to do in order to get out of this situation alive.

John released her from the handcuffs. While rubbing the feeling back into her wrists, she staggered, held her head as if it hurt, and panted like she was having trouble breathing. There was nothing easier than to make a man believe a woman was weak.

John went to Steven and leaned down to check on him. With his attention diverted, she pulled a vial from her pocket and drank the contents. Then she darted to the table holding the rest of her weapons, and grabbed a stun gun. Then, without pausing, she threw herself feet first at John, kicked the gun out of his hand, and prodded him with the stunner. He sprawled, unconscious, next to his boss.

Rummaging in his pockets, she found her handcuffs and dragged him over to the pole. She cuffed him in the same position she’d occupied a few minutes before.

She glanced over to where she’d last seen Steven and bile rose in her throat.

He was gone. No longer in the pool of light surrounding her, he could be hiding in any one of the shadows at the outside of the vast room.

She looked for the gun and found it not far from her. She picked it up and walked through the warehouse, eyes peeled for the leopard shifter.

“You are too clever.” Steven stepped out from behind a huge rectangular table with sides to keep in the coffee beans. “But I’m done playing cat and mouse with you.” He shook himself and the air shimmered around him.

She’d seen this before. He was shifting.

Ryenne planted her feet and held the gun with both hands in front of her. Before she could get a shot off, a massive leopard roared in front of her.

A snarling, man-eating leopard.

It was no use trying to reason with Steven in his leopard form. She’d just have to take her chances. Hope the gun worked if she needed it. Hope she could squeeze off a shot before the leopard ripped her throat out.

There was no place for fluttering nerves, lack of confidence, doubts. There was only Ryenne and a leopard.

In a sudden burst, between one heartbeat and the next, the leopard pounced. He came at her with ferocious grace, a leap with power behind it. Power that would take her down and leave her throat exposed to his dripping fangs.

She squeezed the trigger.

The gun jerked in her hand as the bullet exploded from the barrel.

The leopard whimpered and fell, his trajectory changed by the thudding bullet.

The shot echoed around the warehouse.

Ryenne leaped backward, out of the way of the falling leopard, but his claws grazed her ankles as he fell, his head dropping onto his paws.