Maria was like these flowers, which could lie dormant for long stretches of time, then burst out with amazing, pa.s.sionate color. Ellison's thoughts flashed to Maria clinging to him in the pond, her legs wrapping him, the feeling of being inside her, watching the water bead on her skin as her head went back in pleasure.

Once they finished with Bradley, Ellison was carrying her to his bed. Period. They'd talk about mate-claims, and forever, later-after he satisfied himself and her with a long night of sweet, hot lovemaking. Ellison would have to go slow with her, he knew that. Slow goodness would be a fine thing.

The guard on his side of the house pa.s.sed two steps away, never seeing Ellison crouching in the gra.s.s. Ellison rose silently behind him, letting his hands change to his Shifter-beast's. Those hands went around the guard's neck, one jerk cutting off his air, rendering him unconscious.

Ellison lowered the man to the ground, plucked up the frightening-looking automatic sidearm, and hoped he could figure out if the thing had a safety.

He never heard a footstep, but suddenly Tiger was beside him, appearing in the gra.s.ses where Ellison had stood only a moment before.

"He has Maria," Tiger said.

Ellison had opened his mouth to swear, but he sucked in a breath. "What? You mean Bradley?"

"He took her inside the long car and drove her to the house."

Ellison's entire body went cold. He'd never been so cold. Numbness spread from his heart down his spine, paralyzing him.

He has Maria.

"Pablo was supposed to protect her," he said, lips stiff.

Tiger didn't answer. He never did when he knew it was useless. At least he didn't offer any meaningless plat.i.tudes.

"He's a dead man." Ellison said. He started forward, ready to stride down the little slope to the house, but Tiger put a hand on his arm.

Ellison registered that Tiger rarely offered his touch, so this was unusual, but the thought was dim. Ellison's body was tight, the feral in him ready to kill.

"Your plan is good," Tiger said. "We stay with your plan."

Ellison struggled to breathe. At that moment, he couldn't remember what the d.a.m.n plan was. Bradley had his mate.

No, Tiger was right. Sneak up on the house, disable the alarm, slip inside, find Bradley, and choke off his empire at the source. They had the guards' guns. No one needed to know that Shifters had been here at all.

Ellison nodded. "Yes," he managed to say. "We stay with the plan."

Tiger released him. He led the way, moving in silence for such a big man, down the slope to rendezvous with Ronan and Broderick.

"That a.s.shole's history," Broderick said when Ellison whispered the news. "No one messes with our females."

For once, Ellison agreed with him. When they played out the Challenge, Ellison would pound Broderick, but right now, Broderick wanted Maria out of there as much as he did.

Ronan had subdued the fourth guard, and he handed Tiger the holstered automatic weapon he'd retrieved. Tiger looked over the gun, and then silently handed it back. Ronan gave him a whatever look and buckled the second weapon over his shoulder.

Ellison took the radio from the guard he'd knocked out and the second one Ronan had and tucked both in his belt. He then searched his guy for a cell phone, switched it off, and threw it as hard as he could into the meadow.

"Here comes the car," Broderick said.

They hid, the four peering through brush around the house, animals watching their prey. The black limo pulled to a stop in the semicircular drive, and Ellison's pickup stopped behind it. The back door of the limo opened. Bodyguards emerged first, then a quiet-looking Pablo.

Maria's shapely leg in jeans came out, followed by the rest of her, her white cotton blouse tugged by the breeze. She waited, looking unworried, for the next man, a smaller guy in gla.s.ses with graying hair.

The feral in Ellison rose up again. He knew, from the way the others treated him, that this was Bradley. His enemy. His prey. His kill.

The first bodyguard went into the house through the front door, the second signaling Pablo to follow. Pablo stopped, saying something, and the bodyguard pointed a gun at him.

Maria turned around, planting her feet, and started talking to Bradley. And talking and talking. She gesticulated toward Pablo and back to the limo, but she didn't look afraid.

"What's she doing?" Ronan whispered.

"Giving us a window," Ellison said. G.o.ddess bless her. "The bodyguard's turned off the alarm. Let's get inside before it's on again."

"Pablo's the only one who's ever wanted to help me," Maria said to Bradley as they stood on the wide brick doorstep. The door to Bradley's vast house lay open behind her, the bodyguard who'd opened it waiting impatiently inside it.

"So why don't you leave the Shifters and work for him?" Bradley asked. He sounded mildly curious, not annoyed.

"Because he's a criminal, and you can imagine what he wants women who work for him to do. I must get away from the Shifters, but not with him. I need money to do that. That's why I'm here."

Bradley watched her, again with little change in expression. Pablo had been right to say the man had no emotions.

"Let's go inside, Ms. Ortega. My bodyguards get anxious if I'm out in the open too much. Mr. Marquez will be given something to drink in the living room, while we talk in my office."

Pablo raised his hands, conceding, and walked inside. He'd balked at the doorway, pretending to be too scared to enter, and Maria had taken the cue. If she talked enough, and the door was open long enough, Ellison, if he'd gotten into position, would be able to slip inside. If not . . . well, she was back to hoping Pablo's girlfriend had given them the right codes.

She walked into the house, Bradley came behind her, and the last bodyguard shut the door. The interior was vast, the foyer rising two floors straight up, with a wrought-iron railed balcony encircling the second level. Doors opened out from this balcony, which flowed in a circle around the twisting staircase.

The first and second bodyguards peeled Pablo off to a room beneath the balcony, while the third and fourth bodyguard led Maria upstairs following Bradley. Bradley ushered Maria into a room that faced the rear of the house, its window overlooking a meadow studded with bluebonnets, which were bursting into full spring ecstasy.

Bradley motioned for Maria to sit in front of a long empty desk, and went to a wet bar, where he poured cold bottled water into a gla.s.s with ice and brought the bottle and gla.s.s to her. The bodyguards took up positions on either side of the doorway.

"All right," Bradley said, resting one hip on his desk. He looked almost congenial, except for the chill nothingness in his eyes. "You say you want to help me obtain Shifter cubs for my clients. How would you do it?"

"They make me watch the brats," Maria said, wincing inwardly at the word, but telling herself to play it out. "I could bring one or two to a location where you could easily pick them up. If I had known you were coming when I was with Olaf yesterday, I would have kept the other Shifters away."

"Hmm," Bradley said. "You could get away with that once, maybe. What happens when the next set of cubs you're supposed to be watching also get taken? They'll be suspicious, don't you think?" His tone held faint scorn.

He didn't believe her. Maria shut her eyes, bunched her fists, and tried to look helpless and desperate. "If you pay me enough, I only need to do it once or twice. Then I can take the money and leave town-leave the country. I can guarantee three, maybe four cubs. The Shifter families don't have that many kids, so you won't get much more than that anyway."

Her heart burned. If those precious cubs were lost, the entire community would be devastated.

"Might work," Bradley conceded. "You'd have to make sure the cubs weren't anywhere near any of the adults."

"I could. They watch me pretty carefully, but they also consider me only a servant."

"They'll punish you if the cubs you're looking after go missing."

"They will." Maria drew a breath and took on a resigned expression. "But they won't kill me. I'd be ready to go after the second drop."

"And you want-what? Maybe ten grand a cub?"

Ten grand. If Bradley was willing to pay her that much to lure cubs away, how much more must his clients be paying to receive them? She felt sick.

"I think that will work." Now to have him let her and Pablo out of the house so Ellison could continue with his plan. She rose. "Adios, Mr. Bradley. I'd better have Pablo drive me back, before the Shifters punish me for staying away too long. It's my one day off a month."

"You can go, certainly." Bradley's mouth turned up at the corners. "But I'll have Mr. Marquez stay a while as my guest. You give me the first cubs tomorrow, and I'll let him go home then."

Maria contrived to look worried, then she gave him a nervous smile. "He won't like that. But all right. I'll do it. I can . . ."

Shouts cut off her words. The bodyguards came alert and hurried out the door, and Bradley's half smile vanished.

The cold he'd exhibited before was nothing to the iceberg he became. All humanity left his eyes, and he came off the desk, walked back to the wet bar, and calmly took out a pistol.

Maria's heart stopped, certain he was about to shoot her dead.

"Get under the desk," he said in clipped tones, then walked past her out of the room.

Maria heard the unmistakable snarl of a wolf, then the roar of a bear and the uncanny, breathy growl of a tiger. Then shots firing, the chug, chug, chug of a semiautomatic.

Her heart pounded in fear. But the animal snarls only escalated, and one of the bodyguards cried out. Maria raced out of the room.

Below the balcony, two wolves fought to tear a gun out of one bodyguard's hands. Ronan rose to his full Kodiak bear height, bringing his paw down on a second bodyguard. He didn't even have to use his claws.

The man collapsed, and then a puddle of blood spread out from under him. Ronan blinked his bear eyes at him in surprise, then at Pablo, who stepped out from the living room, a large gun in his hand.

A giant Bengal tiger was flowing up the stairs. One of the bodyguards at the top, face paling, shot him. Once, twice.

Tiger came on. The man stepped back. "Mother fu-"

Then Tiger was on him. The weapon flew wide. The remaining bodyguard brought his gun around to shoot Tiger again, but Maria sprang into him from behind.

She wasn't big enough to take the man down, but he at least misfired. The bullets sprayed into the ceiling, bits of plaster and dust raining down on them.

Tiger opened his mouth, his teeth gigantic, spittle running down them, as he turned to the remaining bodyguard. The light in his yellow eyes wasn't sane.

"Tiger!" Maria yelled. "No!"

Tiger jerked his head up, caught by her voice, but the rage didn't leave his eyes. He snarled once again, but Ellison was there, leaping into him, knocking him away from the man.

Tiger roared in fury, but Ellison growled, and Tiger finally loped away back down the stairs.

Ellison turned to the bodyguard. Ellison's wolf was huge, his hair up along his neck, his ears flat with his red-eyed snarling. The bodyguard dropped his weapon and fell to his knees.

"Please. I got a wife. I got kids," the man said. "I just work here because it pays good."

Ellison stopped his charge an inch from the guy's face, jaws snapping in irritation. Maria reached down and picked up the gun. It was heavy, and she didn't know how to hold it. The danger locked in the firm piece of metal scared her, but she figured it was better she had it than the bodyguard.

"Go home," she said to him. "Hurry. Where's Bradley?"

A second wolf and Ronan came up the stairs, the staircase creaking under the Kodiak's weight. Bradley was nowhere in sight.

"He hasn't come past me," Pablo called from below.

"He has a panic room," the bodyguard said, still on his knees. "Through that door and at the end of the hall." He pointed. "Sealed tight. He holes up there when things get bad."

"Thank you," Maria said. "Go now."

The bodyguard hauled himself to his feet. His face was gray, eyes filled with fear. "Thanks. Thanks." He stuttered the words then turned to go past Ellison, Broderick, and finally Ronan.

Ronan couldn't resist giving a little growl and swatting at him. The former bodyguard hurtled down the stairs, ran past Pablo, who only watched him without interest, and sprinted out of the house.

Maria opened the door the bodyguard had indicated, then felt teeth on her wrist. Ellison had his mouth, ever so gently on her arm, looking at her with admonishment. Stay here, he was saying. Maria sighed and stepped back to let the Shifters go through first.

The hall ended in another innocuous door, but it hung partway open, revealing a steel door behind it. The second door had no handle, only a keypad.

Maria reasoned that a man like Bradley would have been too cautious to use the same code for his panic room as his front door. But the combined might of two Shifter wolves and a Kodiak bear was soon breaking the seal on the door. Tiger stood back, growling under his breath, tail swishing the slightest bit over the hall carpet.

"Tiger, what's wrong?" Maria asked.

Ellison glanced up. Tiger's warning rumble escalated, and then he roared.

Ellison, Ronan, and Broderick sprang away from the door as it gave, the wolves diving flat as Tiger did. Ronan, too big to do anything but back up, knocked over a delicate gilded side table, the trinkets on its top shattering.

The steel door burst open, and two large, sleek wildcats hurtled out, straight into the wolves and Ronan.

Maria screamed. Tiger rose, but instead of rushing to aid the others, he ran at Maria, herding her back onto the foyer's balcony. Once she was there, he turned and sprinted back down the hall.

What was Bradley doing with Shifters?

Her chest constricted. Oh, mother of G.o.d. What happens to the cubs when they get too big to handle? she'd asked Pablo.

The cheetahs had been wearing Collars, so not feral. Stolen, she guessed, from a Shifter family somewhere. How long ago? Had the clients given them back to Bradley once they tired of them? Had they been here all this time? Prisoners? How many more did he have?

The hallway was a confusion of fur and snarling, yelps and roars. She saw Ellison fall, cheetah claws raking across his fur. He was up in a second, wolf maw closing over the cheetah's neck. He could break it in the next moment.

"Ellison!" she shouted. "Ellison, they're cubs!"

Chapter Fifteen.

Ellison showed no sign of hearing, but the second cheetah, squirming away from Ronan, knocked into him. Tiger was roaring, but not fighting. Maybe he understood. Tiger was always so protective of the cubs.

Maria had seen Scott crazed from his Transition, striking out before Ronan or Rebecca could stop him. If these two were going through the same thing . . .