Ellison morphed back to his human self, landing panting, upright on his feet. “Run, you idiot,” he said to the remaining man. “I can’t stop him.”
The human remained rooted in place, staring in horrified wonder as Tiger unfolded from the giant Bengal and became a giant human, his eyes still yellow with fury. The dart stuck out of Tiger’s muscled chest, and Tiger contemptuously yanked it out.
“Leave. The cub. Alone.” The words were guttural, harsh, inhuman.
The man blinked, gulped a breath, and finally turned to flee. Ellison grabbed the tranq rifle out of the man’s hands as he ran by. Ellison raced after him but stopped inside the shadows of the culvert while the man sprinted after his friends into the bright light of morning.
Ellison watched him scramble into a waiting high-end SUV, a cage obvious in the back. The vehicle squealed away, leaving the faint bite of exhaust in the warm spring breeze.
Tiger ran a few steps past Ellison and stopped, not bothering to keep his large, naked body out of the sunlight. “You let them go.” He turned back and bent his angry gaze on Ellison. “They were going to hurt the cub.”
“No, they were going to steal the cub,” Ellison said. He leaned against the cool tunnel wall to catch his breath. “I don’t know what that’s about.”
“I would have killed them first.”
“I know.” Ellison gathered his courage and reached to place his hand on Tiger’s formidable bicep. “If you’d killed any of them, hell would rain down on Shifters, and you’d be captured, and possibly killed and dissected. Connor’s trusting me to keep you out of trouble, remember?”
Tiger jerked away from Ellison’s touch. “They can’t hurt the cubs.”
Tiger was ferociously protective of all cubs—he’d lost the only one of his own, the humans wrenching it away from him before he could properly know it or say good-bye. Liam speculated that he transferred that grief into being crazily protective of the cubs in Shiftertown.
Ellison shared that obsessive protectiveness—most Shifters had it—but Tiger took it over the top.
“Trust me, big guy, there are other ways,” Ellison said. “We have their equipment, and I got a good look at them and their SUV. We’ll find them and persuade them it’s a bad idea to mess with us. Kidnapping Shifters is against human law too, and Kim knows cops who are sympathetic to Shifters. We’ll get them.”
Tiger looked unconvinced. But at least he turned away and went back into the tunnel.
Broderick was just finishing fighting his way out of the net. “Bastards, fucking bastards. Why didn’t you kill them?”
Ellison didn’t bother explaining a second time. “Where’s Maria?”
Olaf, still a bear, was dancing around, growling and beating the air, doing a little victory hop as though he’d chased off the bad guys single-handedly. The joys of being a cub.
“Maria is safe,” Tiger said.
As soon as the words left his mouth, Maria’s voice came up the tunnel. “Olaf? Is Olaf all right? What is happening?”
Maria followed her voice, her words dying as she ran into the light of the LED lanterns and found herself facing three large, naked Shifters and one cavorting polar bear cub.
Ellison watched her expression turn from concern for Olaf to shock at the three tall Shifters with animal rage in their eyes, and then dissolve to stark, remembered terror. He’d seen the same look on Deni’s face last night when she hadn’t recognized Ellison, her own brother. Maria was reliving a moment of her captivity.
She shook it off in the next second, grabbed Olaf by the scruff, and started dragging him back down the tunnel the way she’d come. The little bear dug in his feet in and wailed in protest, but Maria was relentless.
The heightened senses of Ellison’s wolf felt her grief and fear, her fight for sanity. He wanted to find the Shifters who’d hurt Maria and grind them to powder.
He motioned for the other two to stay back, and ran down the tunnel after her.
Chapter Six
Maria didn’t stop when she heard Ellison calling her name. She continued walking swiftly, pulling Olaf with her. The bear still protested, but he’d quit fighting her, seeming to understand that she’d won.
Maria didn’t halt until she reached the sunlight and the spot where she’d dropped her big shoulder bag to go running inside after Olaf. She leaned against the stone wall outside the culvert, absorbing the warmth of the concrete, and closed her eyes.
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.