Miguel laughed again. “None of those rituals exist here. We just mate.”
“Taking off my Collar might kill me,” Cassidy said. “Then I wouldn’t be much good for producing cubs, would I?”
“I’ll let you push out a few first, just in case.”
Cassidy pretended to ignore that. Her heart was pounding, but she tried to suppress all emotion. No rage or fear. Miguel would be able to scent her fear and use it to break her.
Cassidy glanced around the barren room again. Wind blew through chinks in the ceiling high above. “This works for you, does it? Coming together, living in harmony, all Shifter races as one. Are you having more cubs, then, a better rate of survival? If so, where are they all?”
The slightest flicker of Miguel’s eyes told her much. They weren’t having the number of cubs they thought they would.
Because they’d gone feral. Feral didn’t mean the same thing as wild. It meant the animal instincts taking over, the human side being suppressed until the animal ruled, no matter what form the Shifter was in. Shifters were half beings, at their very best when each aspect of them worked in balance. Going too far in either direction wasn’t good at all.
These Shifters had probably found each other after humans started forcing Shifters to take Collars. They’d have escaped before Shifters were put into Shiftertowns, choosing to stay wild, thinking they could beat the humans at their own game.
Nice idea to try to make it together. Shifters taking the Collars had found, to their surprise, that living in communities, even restricted ones like Shiftertowns, let them stop fighting for survival and learn to live. Shifters together had gotten stronger, their fertility rates higher, the incidence of losing females in childbirth much lower. Cubs had safe places to grow up now.
These Shifters had tried the same idea, but without Collars to keep the fighting down. Different species instinctively fought each other, but Collars, Shifters had found, let them live side by side in some kind of peace. That way Shane and Brody and their mother could be friends next door instead of Eric and Cassidy having to fight them every time they walked out the door.
The dominance fights in this Shifter enclave must be horrific. And ferals were even worse at reproducing than Shifters who’d lived alone in the wild. Life was hard on a female Shifter, as was childbirth.
“This is how you introduce fresh blood, is it?” Cassidy asked, as though simply curious. “Kidnapping females and mate-claiming them?”
“We went out to defend our town against incomers,” the bear said. “You were an opportunity.”
Cassidy had been trying to save Xavier’s life. The last thing she’d wanted was for Diego to watch his brother die.
She glanced around surreptitiously, taking in the floor space, the exits. Windowless walls rose around them, with only one main doorway leading out into the night. The ceiling soared above her, pieces of it missing. It had to be a sixty-foot climb to the top. The light came from battery-operated lanterns, and the cooking fire was a gas camping grill. All stolen, she surmised.
A dark doorway stood beyond Miguel and his guards, the farthest point from Cassidy. The smell behind it was stuffy, enclosed, and it was also filled with pungent fear. Cassidy’s hackles rose, instincts telling her she did not want to go in there.
Miguel nudged Xavier with his foot. “Who’s the human?”
“My pet,” Cassidy said. Shifter females in the wild had sometimes taken human male lovers, referring to them as pets. She figured Xavier wouldn’t mind the lie if it kept him alive, if he were even awake to hear it. “You don’t get to have him.”
“Maybe I’ll just kill him,” Miguel said.
Cassidy coolly met his gaze. “If you let me keep him, I’ll consider the mate-claim.”
“You don’t consider anything, Feline. I mate-claim you, and that’s that.”
“But if I get to keep my human male, I might be nicer to you and not hurt you as much.”
Miguel chuckled. “I like you, Feline. We’ll see. You be good, and you can keep your pet.”
“How about some clothes?” Cassidy asked. “It’s getting cold.”
“I don’t have any to spare. I’ll have one of my females get you some tomorrow. If you’re cold, you’ll have to stay shifted.”
Cassidy didn’t want to shift. She could think more clearly as a human, and she knew that the way to win with Miguel would be to outthink him. The feral bear had the edge on her in terms of animal strength, plus Miguel was smart. How else would he have maintained dominance here, keeping three species of Shifters from killing each other? He’d have to be cunning and a quick thinker, even if things hadn’t turned out the way he’d hoped.
Cassidy sighed. She stretched, letting her cat take over, and ended up sitting on her furry haunches.
She tamped down her fighting instincts with great effort. Her wildcat wanted to attack, but the minute she did that, Miguel and his boys would be on her, and five against one wasn’t good odds. As much as these Shifters needed females, she sensed that they would kill her to stop her escaping. Even if they wouldn’t mean to kill her, she’d be just as dead.
Cassidy closed her throat to keep herself from growling, and she lay down next to Xavier. He was still out, his face pale, and she wanted to growl again in worry. She curled around Xavier to give him as much of her body heat as possible, but she remained awake, and watchful.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Come on, Diego. Wake up.”
A huge hand batted Diego’s face, and Diego cracked open his eyes.
He found himself on a dark dirt road, a jeep on its side not far away, with two men in biker vests lying limply next to it. A naked and mud-streaked Shane stood above Diego, about to hit him again.
“Stop,” Diego said, voice hoarse. “I’m awake.”
“Those ferals took Cassidy.” Shane sounded like he wanted to cry. “And your brother. Cass could have gotten away, but she stayed with Xavier.”
Son of a bitch.
Diego got himself to his feet. His head hurt, badly, but he wasn’t dizzy. Yet. The shotgun lay not far from where he’d fallen, and Diego scooped it up as he walked toward the jeep.
He looked down at the drug runners he’d come to arrest. “Are they still alive?”
“Yeah. Bastards tried to leave us here.”
“They know all about running away,” Diego said. Adrenaline was flowing through him, dulling pain, honing Diego’s thoughts to focus on one goal.