"I wasn't going to hurt him! I swear it!"

Ash returned to consciousness to find Thunder licking his face.

A low growl sounded somewhere nearby, and he recognized his mother's low sound of ursine displeasure.

He was flat on his back on his porch, and his scalp stung. Dazed, Ash touched his hair. His fingers came away sticky with blood.

He turned his head to find Mom, in bear form, pinning down a naked, black-haired man who looked young enough to be a college student. The young man smelled like Nika, and he had the same gray eyes.

Dimitri Medved, thought Ash. This was the younger brother that Nika referred to fondly as "Mitya."

Mom's sharp teeth were bared in a ferocious snarl, and she had both of her big paws on the stranger's chest.

"I only came here to warn Nika!" Dimitri continued to protest.

And everything came back to Ash, along with the dreadful realization that squeezed all the breath out of his lungs.

"Nika!" he croaked.

Both Mom and Dimitri stopped and looked at Ash.

But it was Dane, grim-faced and armed with a rifle, who answered as he stepped up onto the porch. "She's gone. We saw a helicopter take off just as Mom and I got here. Sheriff Jacobsen is on his way."

Gone. Nika's worst fears had come true. Her clan had come to take her, just as she'd feared.

And for all his brave words, Ash hadn't been able to do a damned thing to stop them.

He had failed his mate, less than twenty-four hours since he had asked her to believe in him. And now she was gone again, taken against her will.

"Why didn't you kill me?" he demanded, glaring at Dimitri.

Mom made a sound of distress, and Dimitri yelped. Ash saw trickles of blood creeping out from under the long, curved claws digging into the young shifter's pale skin.

"I was never going to kill you!" Dimitri protested. "I swear to God, I didn't have anything to do with this crazy plan. My parents are both nuts! I only let Papa drag me along because I thought I could find a way to help Nika."

"Yeah, right," Dane said, in a hard voice.

Mom growled her agreement of his skepticism.

"No, wait. I believe him," Ash said, struggling to sit up.

He touched the long gouges running through his hair. Like most head wounds, they had bled copiously, but they didn't feel deep enough to require stitches. If Dimitri had wanted to kill him, he could have torn away Ash's face and opened his throat with one swipe of his paw.

But Dimitri hadn't. He'd hit Ash just hard enough to knock him out and drawn just enough blood to make his attack look convincing.

"Nika got a warning on her phone just before the helicopter showed up," Ash explained. He looked at his mate's brother. "She told me that you were the only family member she trusted. That you two had always protected each other from your parents."

Dimitri nodded vigorously. "I got into a lot of trouble for letting Nika escape from Seattle," he said. "So Papa was watching me like a hawk most of the way from New York. I was only able to text her after we switched from our family jet to that helicopter Papa rented at the Missoula Airport."

Mom finally eased up on her prisoner and sat back on her haunches. Dimitri sat up, his skin already beginning to turn blue, and hugged himself for warmth.

"I'm done with them. All of them," Nika's brother said in disgust. "It's like my parents are still living in the Middle Ages or something. But they're not in the old country anymore. This is America. You can't just kill anyone who gets in your way." He shook his head. "Not even Russian shifters live that way anymore. I want to help."

"Help, how? You injured my little brother and let your father kidnap Nika. So how exactly do you plan to help us now?" Dane asked sarcastically.

His normally calm older brother stank of rage, and Ash saw that Dane's eyes had gone shifter gold as his bear rose inside him.

Ash climbed painfully to his feet, bruised from head to toe after being tackled by a full-grown grizzly. Thunder pressed himself against Ash's legs, and Ash could feel his dog shaking. He put a comforting hand on Thunder's head.

"Good boy," he told his dog. "Brave boy."

Thunder's tail wagged briefly at the praise, and his shaking began to ease.

Nika's scent, laced with her terror, still lingered in the cold air.

I promised to protect her. Guilt tore through him like the vicious swipe of a bear's claws.

He took a deep breath. Time enough to beat himself up over his failure later. Right now, he had to pull himself together and think about his next step.

"I believe you, Dimitri," he said.

Two pairs of eyes, one golden and one gray, stared incredulously at him.

"Are you serious?" snapped Dane.

Mom, still in bear form, yowled her agreement with Dane.

"Totally serious." Ash looked at his mother and brother. "In fact, we need Dimitri right now. So we're going to go inside, where it's warm" —and where I have all of my computer systems— "and Dimitri is going get dressed and tell us where his father is taking Nika. And then I'm going to get her back."

* * *

East Hampton Village, Long Island, New York

Later, Nika remembered nothing about the flight from Missoula to her parents' estate in the Hamptons.

She awoke to the sound of the sea in her old bedroom at the Medved "summer cottage." Fuzzy with the aftereffects of the drugs she had been given, it took her a long moment to recognize where she was.

Pale gray walls, white ceiling, a long bank of double-hung antique windows with white-painted window frames, pale blue-and-gray bedding, and a matching woven rug on the polished hardwood floor…everything in this room felt cool and impersonal.

All her childhood belongings and her framed prints had been removed…probably thanks to Celeste, her mother's pet interior designer. The bedroom had been repainted and refurnished with expensive wicker pieces that looked like they'd come straight out of some designer magazine.

It looked like an advertisement for a bed-and-breakfast, not a place where people actually lived.

Her head was throbbing with pain. It felt like the worst caffeine-withdrawal headache she'd ever had, pressing against the backs of her eyeballs and sending bright sparks floating across her vision.

Ash! That thought brought her fully awake. She had a flash of the last she'd seen of her mate, unconscious and bleeding under Dimitri's attack.

Is he dead? She couldn't think of any way for him to survive an attack by a fully grown bear, especially if Ash couldn't shift. Papa had ordered Dimitri to kill her mate, and she couldn't see any way for her brother to refuse a direct order like that.

And yet…and yet…she could still feel a connection to him, a light touch in her mind, just like when they had been separated for all those long months. She'd never been able to read his mind or talk to him psychically or anything like that, but he'd always been with her somehow.

Maybe he wasn't dead, after all. But did she even dare hope, not with another familiar but dreaded scent filling her nose now?

"So nice of you to finally wake up," Mama said coolly. "You've caused us a lot of trouble, Nika."

Nika winced, her mother's voice splashing like acid against her soul.

She turned her head against her pillow and saw Mama sitting next to the bed. Her pale blonde hair looked impeccably styled and her makeup flawless, as always, but her blue eyes were cold as glacier ice, and her mouth was thin and tight.

"How long did you think you could hide that—" Mama pointed at Nika's belly with one manicured, pale pink nail "—from us? How could you let a defective do that to you?"

"He's not defective. He's my mate," Nika replied in a low, furious voice. "And how dare you attack us! You and Papa behaved like thugs, and you always have!"

A year ago, she would never have dared speak to Mama in that tone. But right now, she was too angry to care.

Anger was good. Anger kept the grief at bay. Nika couldn't afford to yield to the pain of her loss right now. Later, she would mourn her mate.

First, she had to survive this encounter and make sure that nothing bad would happen to her baby.

Instead of exploding with rage, Mama just laughed at her. "Listen to you, my little cub! How do you think we paid for your university education? Your medical school?" The laughter cut off. Her mother leaned in, her gaze burning into Nika like a pair of cold blue lasers. "Is this what you wanted, Nika? To become a pregnant drop-out and live on a farm in the middle of flyover country?" Mama sighed and shook her head. "Only one semester to go, and you would have been a doctor. Now look at you!"

"What are you going to do to me?" Nika demanded, her heart pounding.

She placed a protective hand over her belly. The baby kicked, reminding her that this might be her last living link to her mate.

Her eyes stung, but she quelled the impulse to break down. She couldn't afford to be that vulnerable, not here.

Mama looked her up and down. Nika remembered when those looks could make her feel six inches tall. But they seemed to have lost their power now.

"If you straighten out your act…nothing," Mama said sweetly. "Despite your childish rebellion, you still have value to our clan."

Nika swallowed hard. "You're really going to try to arrange another mating for me?" The thought of it made her feel sick to her stomach.

"Of course. I'm very close to finalizing an important deal for our clan with the Sandviken clan of Sweden. And now we have proof positive that you're fertile. That should add to your appeal…especially since you're from a pure shifter bloodline, undiluted by Ordinaries."

Sweden? On the other side of the ocean from the Swansons?

But Mama wasn't done. "And if you follow my advice and play your cards right, you'll be matriarch of the Sandviken clan before you turn fifty."

Nika swallowed her instant denial. Being the matriarch of a bear shifter family had been Mama's dream. Not hers. She wanted to be a doctor and help people, Ordinary and shifter alike.

"And what about my baby?" Nika asked, terrified of the answer. "Please don't hurt it."

Mama raised one finely shaped brow. "What kind of person do you think I am?" she demanded. "I would never hurt a child of my blood…even if it was sired by a defective."

Nika released the breath she'd been holding. Despite the dig against Ash, this…almost sounded like good news. Had she misjudged her mother?

Mama dispelled Nika's hopes with her next words.

"Don't worry, lapushka, I'll find the baby a good home once it's born…and maybe even allow you to see it occasionally." Her smile was sharp and triumphant. "That all depends on whether you're willing to behave yourself from this point on, of course."

Nika drew an outraged breath, then stopped to think.

No, that's not the right way to play this, she told herself, pushing down her initial rage. Be smart, Nika.

"Please, Mama," she said, forcing herself to humble herself. She let her desperation show. Mama would enjoy that. She always did. "I'll do anything. I'll be good. I promise!"

Mama reached out and patted Nika's cheek with fingers that were shockingly warm. Somehow, Nika had expected her mother's touch to be as cold as her heart. "See, I told your papa that you could be sensible, given the right incentive."

Nika bowed her head, pretending to surrender.

I won't give up, she vowed silently as Mama rose and left the room. I'll find a way to escape before my baby is born.