Her heart still raced in panic, her breath choking her. She knew, logically, that the Shifters inside the tunnels were her friends-except maybe Broderick-not the evil beasts who'd imprisoned her.

Even Broderick followed Shifter rules whether he liked them or not. He and the other Austin Shifters understood that they had to curb their feral tendencies in order to survive. Miguel and his pack hadn't.

"Maria."

Ellison was there, in front of her. He'd resumed his jeans, but he held his shirt crumpled in one hand.

In spite of her shakes, Maria couldn't help reflecting that Ellison was breathtaking. His jeans rode low on his hips, his liquid, tanned skin smooth over a hard body. A few red abrasions decorated his chest, and he had a solid bruise on his cheek. The worst wound was around his neck, where the Collar had burned his skin.

Her visions of the feral Shifters dissolved as concern replaced fear. "Are you all right?" Maria reached up and touched his Collar. The black and silver entwined metal was cool under her fingertips, but she knew it had been hot and painful a few moments ago.

Ellison's gray eyes went quiet under her touch, his gaze fixing sharply on her. "Yeah, I'm OK. What about you?"

Ellison always mitigated his alpha wolf stare for Maria, but even so, it was hard to take. Maria abruptly pulled her hand away. "I need to go home."

After a few more beats of stare, Ellison picked up the bag she'd left on the ground. "Come on then." He put his hand on her shoulder and steered her toward the path that would lead them back to the park. "Tiger's going to sit on Broderick a while, so you don't need to worry about him."

"I'm not." Maria couldn't explain what she felt, words leaving her, so she just walked.

Having Ellison next to her, warm and tall, comforted her beyond what she could think. His hand on her shoulder held strength, but gentled for her as usual, to rea.s.sure rather than frighten.

When Maria had rushed into the culvert, worry for Olaf overriding her fears, Ellison had just finished shifting. His naked body had been beautiful, with the fire of the wolf still in his eyes. Now he was Ellison again, soothing her, helping her.

Olaf, as a bear cub, scampered ahead of them then ran back, circling their legs, enjoying himself. His clothes and things were in Maria's bag, but Olaf showed no sign of wanting to change back to a human boy.

They walked back across the ridge and down to the park, Ellison's hand steadying her. A few humans they pa.s.sed did a double-take at the polar bear cub romping after b.u.t.terflies, though most people who used this park knew that it lay close to Shiftertown and had grown used to Maria walking with cubs out here.

Ellison was silent as they wound through the park and walked down the few blocks to Shiftertown. Olaf ran ahead of them through the open gates. He spied another cub in a yard down the street and charged to him, the little wolf rising to meet him.

Maria started a few steps after Olaf, but a Shifter woman came out onto her porch, laughing at the two cubs, and calling a greeting to Olaf. Everyone knew Olaf, and everyone liked him. Olaf and the wolf started a mock wrestling match, Olaf none the worse for his ordeal.

Ellison pulled Maria to a halt in the shade of a tall live oak, the tree screening them from most of the houses. His fingers were warm on her shoulder, but firm. He wanted her to stay there.

"You had a flashback in that culvert, didn't you?" Ellison watched her, knowing the truth, but willing her to tell him.

Maria evaded his gaze. "I don't want to talk about it."

"I think you need to talk about it a little." Ellison touched her chin. "You know you don't need to be afraid anymore, Maria. No one will hurt you, or make you do anything you don't want to. And not just because the Morrisseys say so. I won't let anyone hurt you. I'll break all their fingers if they even try."

He meant it. She'd seen how he'd been with Broderick last night-ready to kill the other wolf. But Maria could never know what to say to Ellison when he was being gentle and helpful. The only thing she could think of was, "You are all so kind to me."

"Hey, it's not kindness, sweetheart. At least not from me." Ellison's touch went to her cheek, the caress light.

Warmth spread down through her chest. Maria tried to speak, to explain, but her lips couldn't form the words. She still struggled to think in English, and Ellison didn't know much Spanish.

"You're here, Maria. Safe." Ellison traced her cheek, increasing the warmth. "Not in the dark anymore. You don't need to be afraid. And if you are afraid, you come to me."

Maria managed a smile. "And you'll make it all better?"

"I want to."

He leaned closer, and Maria's back met the bole of the big tree. Ellison smelled of sweat and a small bite of blood, and of himself. The feral Shifters-all of them-had always stank. Ellison smelled of warmth and goodness.

Maria turned her face up to him, rising on tiptoe to offer the kiss she wanted to give him. She couldn't think of words, but she could show him with this.

She found herself caught hard against Ellison's bare chest, his hand snaking under her braid, he leaning into her. His mouth fit clumsily to hers, his lips moving before Maria was ready. Their teeth b.u.mped, and Ellison lifted away, laughing a little, his eyes full of heat.

"Shifters don't kiss much," he said. "At least, I don't."

There hadn't been much kissing in the feral pack either. No tenderness, not even between the males and females who'd cared for each other.

"Nuzzling, yes." Ellison leaned to her again, his nose touching her cheek, his breath warm. "I guess when you have a lot of nose, you tend to use it."

Maria wanted to laugh. No, not to laugh. To go quiet while he nuzzled her cheekbone.

"I never kissed much either," she said. When Luis had wooed her in the moonlight, before she'd known he was a Shifter, she hadn't kissed him.

This was new to her, as was Ellison's gentleness. Luis had charmed her with his dangerousness, exciting to a naive and sheltered young woman like Maria. Ellison mitigated his strength for her, showing her he'd never let loose and hurt her.

"We can learn together," Ellison said, breath against her lips.

Maria formed an unpracticed pucker, her blood warming as Ellison responded with light pressure. His hand, shirt still dangling from it, went to the tree, his lips firming against her mouth.

Maria felt the strength of his entire body through the kiss, like a hum in the air between them as Ellison licked softly across her lips. She tasted salt and coffee on him, and a bite of himself.

She clenched her hands at her sides. She could barely breathe, nothing existing but Ellison's lips connecting with hers, his mouth tenderly prying hers open, his fingers working under her braid, loosening it.

Another kiss, another slide of his tongue between her lips. Maria flicked her tongue over his in answer, the velvet heat of it stealing her breath.

She should be afraid. She'd been afraid for such a long time. Ellison stood over her, his body against hers, pinning her with his mouth, his presence, himself. Maria should be afraid and want to duck away from him, to run, but she stayed, letting her hand steal to his chest.

She warmed as she contacted the smooth heat of his bare skin, the wiry curls that dusted his chest. She found his heartbeat, his heart drumming as rapidly as hers.

Maria slid her hand up to his neck, feeling the Collar around his throat, the raw skin it had burned. He'd been hurt, while he'd fought for Olaf, but he hadn't stopped until Olaf was safe. She didn't understand the whole story of what had happened inside the culvert, but she was too full of Ellison's taste and warmth to break away and ask.

He laced his fingers through her hair, caressing her neck as he deepened the kiss. Heat, sunlight, everything that was good and warm-Ellison.

Ellison slid his hand down her neck to her back, the other still supporting him against the tree, the softness of his dangling shirt brushing her shoulder. Maria leaned into his embrace, the sweetness of his kiss unknotting her stomach. She flowed into comfort, into wanting.

A small growl sounded, then air whooshed by her. Ellison broke the kiss, his legs bending as the whirlwind of Olaf smacked the backs of his knees.

"Hey." Ellison turned around, his big hand still steady against Maria. He'd never let her fall.

Olaf shook himself like a dog and rose up into the form of a small boy with white hair and dark eyes. "I'm hungry!"

Maria sucked in a breath, the taste of Ellison lingering and heady. "You already had breakfast, Olaf."

"But I want pancakes. Can we go see Sean? Where's Tiger?"

Olaf rarely spoke much-the poor kid had watched his parents be shot to death. To have three or four sentences in a row come out of his mouth was unusual.

"Tiger's walking Broderick home," Ellison said. He straightened up from the tree, but he didn't take his arm from around Maria. "We'll walk with Maria to Sean's house and hit him up for pancakes. All right?"

"Yay!" Olaf grabbed Maria's hand. "Were those men trying to kidnap me, Uncle Ellison?"

"Kidnap?" Maria's eyes widened, some of the warmth evaporating. "What happened?"

"Some men tried to grab me. I smacked them." Olaf danced back, swatting with his hands as he would his bear paws.

Ellison looked grim. "Guys in an expensive SUV," he said. "Their tranq gun was top of the line too."

Olaf had opened Maria's bag and was pulling out his clothes. "Why were they trying to kidnap me?"

"I have some ideas," Ellison said.

Maria bent down to help Olaf pull his shirt over his head. "We need to get him home."

"But Ellison chased them off," Olaf said, his rumpled head appearing through the shirt's neckband. "He fought them with his wolf." He growled again and punched the air, his shirtsleeves flailing. "And then Tiger came. It was awesome."

Maria grabbed Olaf's hands and thrust them inside the sleeves. "Home. Now."

She tried to berate herself for stopping to kiss Ellison instead of taking Olaf to safety, but the imprint of Ellison's lips remained on hers. The kiss had opened something inside her, as did the smile Ellison sent her now as he caught Olaf's other hand.

What had started to open, Maria never wanted to close again.

"You got the license number, then?" Dylan Morrissey, who showed his nearly three hundred years of age only by the gray-flecked hair at his temples, gave Ellison his powerful alpha stare.

Dylan was no longer leader of Shiftertown, but he was still one of the strongest Shifters around. As Lupine, Ellison should go into intense defensive mode under Dylan's questioning, but because the Morrisseys had accepted Ellison as friend long ago, and because Ellison worked for Liam as a tracker-bodyguard, investigator, enforcer-Dylan was going easy on him. Ellison pushed his instincts aside and answered.

"License plate number, make of the car, description of the guys. It's all in here." Ellison tapped his head. "Tiger saw them too, but he was in killer mode, so who knows what he remembers."

"Tiger and Ellison kicked b.u.t.t," Olaf said.

Olaf remained at Dylan and Sean's house. Maria, once she'd heard the full story, insisted that the cub shouldn't go home until Ronan could be there to take care of him. Ronan, alerted by Ellison, was on his way, and he agreed Olaf should stay at Dylan's, one of the safest houses in Shiftertown, until he arrived.

Maria played with snap-together blocks with Olaf, the kid building some kind of robot monster with it. From a movie, but Ellison didn't know which one. The only movies Ellison watched were Westerns. The remake of 3:10 to Yuma was his current favorite, even though it wasn't set in Texas.

Maria's black braid was mussed from Ellison working his fingers through it. He could still feel the amazing heavy silk of her hair, that and the taste of her. Honey, sweetness, fire. Maria.

She was resilient, protective, defiant, and soft all at the same time. Like a rose-fragile but tough.

Maria helped Olaf build the robot with confident hands. She'd seen the movie, because Maria watched every movie and TV show she could, and read every book she could get her hands on. To learn English, she said. She already spoke better than some Shifters who'd come to America twenty years ago.

"Can Sean do his magic and find out who owns the car?" Ellison asked. He mimed typing on a keyboard. Sean could do amazing things with an old computer and dial-up modem.

"Not really," Sean himself said, coming in from where he'd been cleaning up the kitchen. "I already tried it, and got nothing on the plate numbers. They might be fake. Finding out who owns a dark blue recent-model Escalade is playing needle in a haystack. If they drove a 1952 powder-blue Chevy Fleetline DeLuxe with a dent in the right fender, I might have more luck."

"There could be another way," Dylan said. He had the heaviest Irish accent of his family, and every word had a musical quality to it.

Ellison had the feeling he knew what Dylan meant, and Sean nodded. "You're talking about Pablo Marquez," Sean said.

"Didn't y'all run him out of town?" Ellison asked. "After he nearly got Ronan's mate killed?"

"He's been proving himself a useful man," Dylan answered in his quiet way. "He's got a stranglehold on trade coming into South Texas, and keeps the more dangerous of the lot at bay. He knows what he's doing."

High praise from Dylan Morrissey. Made sense, though, that a man like Pablo, overseer of transactions not exactly legal, would know about anyone else trying to stay under the radar in his town.

"I say we go talk to him," Ellison said.

"Aye," Sean said, a sparkle in his blue eyes. "Be good to intimidate . . . I mean visit . . . Pablo again."

"Agree," Ellison said. "Let's get Spike."

Maria rose from the jumble of big white toy blocks. "We'll wait for Ronan first. And then I'll come with you."

"No, you won't," Ellison said at once.

"If this Pablo knows who's trying to take Olaf, I want to ask him questions," Maria said, anger in her eyes. "I know a thing or two about people who s.n.a.t.c.h other people and take them away. I won't sit at home waiting for you to bother to tell me what's happening."

The thought of Maria anywhere near Marquez made Ellison's wolf start to snarl. "I'll tell you," he said, a growl in his voice. "I won't keep you in the dark. But you wait here-or better yet, go across and stay with Den."

Maria put her hands on her hips. "And wait how long? Besides, maybe I can ask him questions you won't think of."

"Maria."

They were a foot apart, Maria's eyes holding dark fire. She was scared, but not for herself. For Olaf. For the cubs. And that gave her the strength of angels.

"Ellison and Maria were kissing," Olaf announced abruptly. He put another block on his three-foot-high robot then stood up as Sean and Dylan swung around and stared at Ellison. Olaf looked up at Maria, innocence in his dark eyes. "Maria, does that mean you're mates?"

Chapter Seven.

The room went still. Maria watched Sean and Dylan fix their blue gazes on Ellison, waiting for him to respond.

Ellison went as quiet as they did. He was the outsider here, on their territory. He contrasted the Morrisseys with his gray eyes and light-colored hair, his taller body more rangy than the broader-shouldered Felines. He'd resumed his shirt, black cotton stretching over the torso that had been warm and bare in the May sunshine.

The two Felines wanted Ellison to answer, to tell them exactly what he'd been doing with Maria, the woman who was under their protection. The friendly ease in the room changed in an instant to threat and the threatened.

Maria had gone through too many tense situations between Shifters to stay calm about this one. She'd seen Miguel face off often enough against one of his lesser Shifters, looking at him the same way Dylan looked at Ellison now. Then had come violence, more fear.

She stepped in front of Ellison and bravely faced Dylan. "If I decide to kiss Ellison, it's my business."