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A net came down over the female, plunging her into darkness. Panic had no sooner flooded her than something sharp dug into her flank. Her vision went hazy as the world seemed to get further and further away.
She was being lifted. Moved. Fast. But any emotions she might have felt were swiftly snuffed out as her awareness faded and faded.
Her human fought to surface and help. She failed. The drug was seeping the strength from them both.
The female’s vision turned black as her world tilted. Then she was out.
Luke’s cat growled at the human pointing a gun at him. The male frantically pressed the trigger, biting out harsh curses when no bullets fired. He charged the pallas cat, the gun raised like a club. A blur of red and orange crashed into his side like a battering ram, knocking him down.
The cat pitched forward, swiping his claws along the human’s throat, severing arteries. The bearcat nodded at him and then ran off, landing on the back of a human who was crawling toward an abandoned gun; burying her claws into both sides of his neck.
Another human rushed past him, stinking of fear. A mamba twined fast around his leg and pulled him to the ground. A devil shifter then leaped at him, her mouth agape. She snapped her powerful jaws closed around his nape.
The cat glanced around, searching for his mate.
A hot impact punched his shoulder. Agony rippled along his foreleg. A warm wetness gathered in his fur.
Instinct made him seek cover. He fled toward—
Panic and dizziness reverberated along the mating bond. He staggered, dazed. A bullet sank into his back leg. Then another, making it crumple beneath him. He hit the ground just as another bullet buried itself in his flank. But he didn’t care about the threat or the pain … because he knew his mate was now unconscious.
Dread pumped through him, spurring him to stand. He tried. Fell.
A human stood over him, weapon aimed to fire. Wheeler. He sneered. “I should have known you were all shifters. Should have seen it. I didn’t think—”
A large avian descended on him, raking at his face and eyes.
Wheeler dropped the gun with a guttural scream, his hands flying up to slap at the bird.
The cat would have again tried to stand, but his human half forced his way to the surface.
Grinding his teeth against the agony drumming through him, Luke snatched the pistol from the ground and turned it on Wheeler. He didn’t fire. Didn’t need to. Because Vinnie appeared in his human form and sliced the human’s throat.
“Always did hate that bastard,” said Vinnie, dumping the body on the ground.
Still flooded with panic, Luke dropped the gun as he said, “Blair’s unconscious somewhere. One of these shitheads must have hit—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t try to get up yet,” ordered Vinnie, crouching at his side and putting a hand on his uninjured shoulder to pin him down. “Someone get Helena!”
“I need to find Blair. She’s passed out somewhere.” And Luke couldn’t see any sign of her anywhere.
“She’ll be found. Aspen, Bailey—get Blair. She’s out cold. Be quick about it. She might need healing.”
The two females nodded and disappeared. It was then that Luke took a moment to study the scene. Bodies littered the ground—necks broken, arteries severed, stomachs sliced open, skin bitten and clawed. There was blood everywhere, slick and shiny.
Only a few humans were still alive, and it was clear that the only reason they weren’t yet dead was that shifters were having fun with them. One human had multiple pallas cats crawling over him, biting and hissing. Another was weakly wrestling a wolverine, trying to punch it in the snout even while bloody and broken. A fourth human was sluggishly army crawling along the ground, swollen lumps on his face that looked like snake bites, while a devil shifter savagely bit into his scalp.
It had been a slaughter for sure.
Luke looked around frantically, a stone lodged in his chest as he waited for either Aspen or Bailey to reappear, carrying his still-unconscious mate.
Just then, Helena appeared at his side. “Please tell me the bullets are out,” she said, examining his wounds. “Damn, this one’s not. Sorry, Luke, but this is gonna hurt.”
He grunted. “Not anything I haven’t felt be—mother of fuck.”
Tate crossed to him, his lips twitching, covered in streaks of blood but no wounds, so the Alpha had already been healed, apparently. “Stop whining.”
“Whining? Fuck you, asshole. Make yourself useful and find my mate. She’s unconscious somewhere.”
His amusement dimming, Tate nodded. “Got it.” With that, he left.
Luke drew in a breath as Helena’s healing energy began to crackle through him. His injuries faded before him until they disappeared altogether, and then the pain itself was also gone. “Thank you.”
He jumped to his feet … and his heart stopped at the grave looks that both Aspen and Bailey wore as they came toward him. “What is it?”
