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"That is not—" I stop.

Because the honest answer is I never asked myself.

I claimed her. I marked her. I decided. The way I decide everything. And the questions she asked me, what am I here, am I ever going to work again, will I disappear, I answered with silence, and then I answered her silence with a command.

Do not run.

I told her not to run. I never asked what she needed to stay.

"Mama—"

The door slams open so hard it cracks against the wall. One of my men, Dmitri, white-faced, breathing like he's sprinted across the entire compound.

"Vor. The annex. The prisoner—" He swallows. "Pavel is gone. The inhibitor cuff was opened with the key. Your mate's scent is all over the room, Vor. And his scent is all over hers."

It's not rage. Not anymore. I ripped past rage, so far beyond rage that it comes out the other side into a cold so absolute it feels like the center of winter.

She didn't run.

She promised me she wouldn't run, and she didn't. My mate kept her word, and I sat here wasting precious time while a traitor's hands were on her.

"Georgy." I snap the orders. "The helicopter. Now. Dmitri, the tracks?"

"Snowmobile stolen from the service shed. Heading southeast, toward the border road. He has maybe forty minutes on us."

"Then we catch him before he reaches it." I am already moving, my tiger pushing against my skin. "Konstantin's orders about Linc stand. But Pavel?" My fangs press against my gums. "Pavel is mine. No one touches him but me."

We catch them eleven kilometers from the border road.

Pavel has her on the back of the snowmobile, her wrists bound with a strip of bandage, a gag pulled tight across her mouth. The bruise rising on her cheekbone is visible even from the helicopter. My tiger batters my ribs, but I make myself watch the ground, the trees, the distance between her and the traitor. If I lose my head, I lose her.

Georgy puts us down ahead of the snowmobile, the rotors whipping snow across the road. Pavel brakes too hard and slews sideways. He hauls Cienna off the seat, tears the gag from her mouth, and clamps his forearm around her throat. His other hand holds a knife against her side. My men spread out behind me, weapons raised, but I lift a fist to stop them. One shot that goes wide is one shot too many.

"Stay back, Brusilov!" Pavel shouts. "She's my passage out. The bears will take her, and they'll let me go."

"They'll kill you the moment they have her." My voice is steady. I have never hated the sound of my own calm more. "You betrayed their people as well as mine."

"Then I'll take my chances." He jerks Cienna closer. She winces, and I see red marks where the scarf has cut into her wrists. "You come closer, and I cut her."

My mate meets my eyes over his arm. Fear shivers through our bond, sharp enough to make my teeth ache. Beneath it, something else gathers. Her cougar. I know the moment Cienna decides, because her gaze steadies and she stops struggling.

Trust me.

She drops her weight. Pavel curses and tightens his hold, but her shoulders are already changing beneath his arm. The bandage snaps as her hands become paws. Tawny fur spills over skin; the shape of her neck shifts, thickens, slips from the grip meant for a woman. Pavel yells and snatches at her, catching only a handful of fur. My cougar twists and slashes his forearm before springing clear, four paws striking the snow. She runs toward Georgy, who steps between her and the road.

Now.

I shift before my next footfall. My Amur tiger hits the snow at a run, and Pavel barely has time to raise his knife. He slashes as I close; the blade opens my shoulder, hot pain cutting through the cold. I hit him low, driving him away from the snowmobile. The knife flies from his hand. We tumble into a drift, and he claws at my face as his own shift begins, bones straining beneath his coat.

I do not let him finish.

My jaws close around his shoulder. He screams. I release him only to rake my claws across the leg he tries to plant beneath himself. He collapses, half man and half tiger, snarling and begging in the same breath. His shifter blood works to mend him. I give it no time. Each time he gathers himself to rise, I knock him down again. Each time he reaches for the change, I break his concentration with another blow. He is strong enough to heal, strong enough to know exactly what is happening, and nowhere near strong enough to stop me.

I could end it now. One bite. A clean death.

Then I see Cienna beside Georgy, trembling on her paws, part of the bandage tangled around one foreleg. I remember Aleksej on the operating table. The men who died in the ambush. My mate dragged through the snow like cargo.

Pavel rolls onto his back. "Ivan," he wheezes. "Please."