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She hummed. “Well, I do like elephants.”
His lion made a disgruntled noise in his head.
“But I guess I’m partial to big cats, and the lion pride would be amazing to see. Even if it’s through bars on a safari tour.”
His lion was now preening like a peacock.
“How about you?” she asked, looking up at him.
He gave her a quick peck, slowing down as they reached the aviary. “I like the lions too, but really I like all the animals. I think the birds are pretty cool also.”
“And the baby animals.”
“Them too.”
He entered a code to unlock the employee door and held it open for Rhomi. He’d let Auden and Jess know that they were stopping by to check on the jackal before they headed to the apartment for the night.
They walked through a dimly lit hall to the clinic. He grasped the handle and pulled the door open, using his free hand to flip on the light. He was about to ask Rhomi if she wanted to stay at his apartment or if she wanted him to stay at hers when she let out a sharp cry of alarm.
“I just saw…you…you’re human?”
In the jackal’s cage, the jackal had turned into a woman.
He could feel that Rhomi was starting to panic as she sputtered through another disconnected sentence of disbelief.
He grasped Rhomi and turned around with her, cutting off her view from the jackal who was clearly a shifter. No fucking wonder he’d been so concerned with her safety—his lion knew subconsciously she was a shifter in need of help.
“Baby, calm down,” he said, holding Rhomi close.
“I don’t…I don’t understand?” Rhomi lifted her head to look at him, and then her eyes rolled back and she slumped against him.
“Fuck.” He pulled her closer with one arm and grabbed his phone from his pocket. Finding Cael’s number, he pressed the button. As the call connected, he looked over his shoulder at the naked woman and said, “You okay?”
“I’m trapped in a cage and you saw me shift, but you’re not bothered by it? Are you…shifters?”
“I am, but not my mate. Damn it.”
“What, dude? It’s late,” Cael said when he answered.
“Sorry, but get the hell up here. Immediately. To the aviary clinic.”
“What’s wrong?”
“She’s a shifter. A fucking shifter.”
* * *
“You could let me out,” the female said. She rattled the cage a bit, clearly unable to get her hand at the right angle to undo the latch.
Mercer shook his head. “I’m not doing shit until the alphas get here.”
“How about some clothes, then? I’m naked.”
He kept his back to her as he lifted his still-unconscious mate in his arms and carried her out of the room. There was a bench in the alcove, and he set her on it, leaning her against the wall. Squatting down, he stared up at her, his mind racing over what had happened. It was bad timing that they walked in when they did and she saw the truth of shifters before he was ready to tell her.
Because what she witnessed changed everything, including her ability to freely roam the park or leave.
Fuck.
