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 God. 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 . . .
They’d stop at nothing to fight their perceived enemies, their killing instinct wound high.
Bradley must be behind them, in that room. Or was he? Would he have run into a room from which there was no escape?
Maria looked swiftly around, taking in the layout of the hallway relative to the rest of the house. She turned and hurried down the stairs and looked out the front door, the gun awkward in her hands, but she feared discarding it. The other guards were subdued, not dead.
Ellison’s pickup remained in the driveway, but the limo was gone. Had the driver fled? Or had he driven around to pick up Bradley, who could have escaped out the back? Maria moved through the house again, looking around for another way out—faster than trying to run around the vast building and encounter who knew how many walls or other obstacles.
In the rear of the ground floor, Maria found a kitchen, a huge, elegant room with stainless steel appliances and warm wooden cabinetry. Maybe she should show it to Pablo, and have him take photos for his girlfriend.
A door from this led out to a wide area between the house and five-car garage, a building that looked as though it had once been a stables. An iron stairwell snaked down the house next to the kitchen, a fire escape. High above was an ornate door, closed, that led back into the house.
Bradley wasn’t on the fire escape. He was running across the yard toward the garage. The limo raced up from the other side of the house, dust flying as the driver headed to help Bradley.
Maria raised the gun. It was not very big, but square, like a machine gun with a very short barrel. She aimed down at the limo’s tires and squeezed the trigger.
Three bullets spurted from the weapon, and the kick nearly knocked her off her feet. The shots came nowhere near the tires—they popped into the ground by the limo driver’s door and open window.
The limo stopped, the driver staring at Maria with fear on his face. She lifted the gun again, her hands shaking.