Wild Cat (32 page)

“Miguel’s down,” Cassidy said. “He’s finished. You’re free.”

“No!” The alpha’s cry was anguished. “You bitch, what did you do to my
mate
?”

She launched herself at Cassidy, shifting along the way.

Cassidy shifted again, her bones aching, her Collar already slowing her down. But she knew how this had to end. She had to defeat the alpha, become alpha herself, before the rest of the women would follow her.

The female, an Ursine, was unhampered by a Collar, but she’d been weakened by living down here in the darkness. In the real world, she wouldn’t have had the dominance Miguel had given her here.

The fight was swift. Cassidy’s Collar snapped and sparked, pain biting deep. Cassidy tried to close her mind to it and pinned the female with her paw. She fought the instinct that made her want to snap the woman’s neck, telling herself that whatever this woman had become, it wasn’t her fault.

Cassidy knocked the female’s head on the stone floor, and the woman groaned, the fight going out of her. Cassidy rose to her full height and shifted, pretending that the change wasn’t agony.

“Miguel mate-claimed me,” she said. “I just defeated your alpha, and unless someone else wants to challenge me,
I’m
alpha. And we’re going.
Now.
”

Animal instinct was amazing. The females sat for a stunned moment, then the idea made it through their brains that Cassidy had strength and power and, most of all, could protect them. Even the human females figured that out.

They got up, gathered their cubs, and started for the stairs.

“Diego,” Cassidy shouted upward. “We’re coming!”

“Hurry it up,
mi ja
,” Diego said, still sounding amazingly calm. “Marlo’s a pyromaniac.”

Cassidy herded the seven females and dozen cubs up the stairs. She’d have to come last, she knew, letting them know no one was getting left behind.

Cassidy caught the last, slow, crying little boy and sent him up the stairs after his mother. She grabbed the fallen alpha, who’d shifted back to human, slung her over her shoulder, and started up the stairs.

The Shifters were regrouping, looking for Miguel. Diego was propelling the women out of the gloom, Shane returning to help.

“Cass!” Diego shouted at her. “Hurry!”

Miguel was coming around. He saw Cassidy dash by with his mate over her shoulder, and came up with a roar.

Cassidy ran past Diego, who was walking through the big room as though he had all the time in the world. She emerged from the factory into sunlight and heat. Shane charged by her, crying cubs clinging to his back. Xavier was already out by the jeep, leaning heavily against it, Reid next to him. Some men from the village were there as well.

The bartender from the cantina saw the females coming toward them, gave a cry of joy, and launched himself at a dark-haired young human woman carrying a small boy. Father and daughter. Arms went around each other, the two crying and hugging.

Cassidy laid the alpha female on the ground next to the jeep then started back to the building. Diego hadn’t come out yet. She hurt too much to shift, but fear kept her running on her cut and bleeding human feet.

Before she made it halfway back, Diego emerged. He was dirty and bloody, his clothes ripped by claws, but he walked steadily toward her.

Behind him, the factory blew. Marlo’s charges, one after the other, sent the remaining walls of the factory heaving outward, and an orange ball of flame rose high into the hot sky.

Diego shouldered his shotgun as he reached Cassidy, then he put one arm around her shoulders and gave her a swift kiss on her lips.

“Hey,
mi ja
,” he said, his smile warm. “Need a ride?”

D
iego didn’t get a chance to speak to Reid until they reached the airstrip.

“How did you do that?” Diego asked Reid. Reid stood with him and Xavier under a corrugated tin shelter as Diego checked Xavier over. “How did you know exactly where we were and how to get in?”

“GPS,” Reid answered. The man looked none the worse for wear, not even scratched or dirty. “Your pilot gave Eric the coordinates of the factory. I landed myself on the roof, looked things over, and figured out the fighting was worst in the main room. Got in there, saw your brother wounded, and pulled him out.”

“Thanks, Reid,” Xavier croaked. “I owe you.”

“You owe me nothing,” Reid said, and walked away.

Xavier groaned a little as he propped himself against the big water cooler Marlo had provided. “Reid is weird, but I’m grateful to him. Stop worrying about me,
hermano
, and go find out who those other guys Eric brought are.”

A second, smaller plane sat on the end of the dirt runway. This one had contained Reid, Eric, a couple of Eric’s trackers, and some Shifters Diego hadn’t met.

The Shifter that seemed to be the leader had dark hair going gray at the temples, blue eyes, and the hardest stare Diego had ever seen.

“This is Dylan Morrissey,” Eric said when Diego reached them. “From Austin. His son’s the Shiftertown leader there. I asked him here to check out this feral problem.”

Dylan looked Diego up and down, nostrils widening as he inhaled Diego’s scent. He obviously tried to make Diego look away, but Diego was getting a little tired of this game. He met Dylan’s gaze squarely and stayed put.

Dylan held out his hand, conceding. “Well met.”

Diego took his hand. Dylan pulled him forward and slid one strong arm around Diego’s back. A hug, but not quite. More an I’ll-trust-you-for-now-but-don’t-fuck-with-me kind of greeting.

“Diego blew up the ferals,” Shane said. The bear had put a T-shirt on over jeans of the right size, and he grinned, showing all his teeth. “It was awesome.”

“He blew up their base,” Dylan said, sounding less impressed. “Whichever ones survived will try to regroup and start again, especially if the leader survived. I’ve come to prevent that.”

“You by yourself?” Diego asked.

Dylan nodded, the man radiating self-assurance. “With a few of my trackers. I’ll have my mate join me if I have to come down on the Lupines. They won’t want to deal with her.”

“I believe you,” Eric said. “I’ve met Glory.”

“Plus I brought Collars,” Dylan said. “They’ll take them.”

“What about the females?” Cassidy moved to stand beside Diego. Someone had given her a dress decorated with bright red flowers, and her tall, sexy curves made the shapeless garment look good.

“They’ll go back with us,” Eric said. “I claimed them.”

Diego gave him a sharp look. “Wait, what? What does that mean?”

“Their males are defeated, and I’m a clan leader,” Eric said. “As leader and alpha, I can claim as many mates as I want. Don’t worry—it’s just a technicality to take them back safely to our Shiftertown. They’re now off-limits to other males, and once I get them back home and put Collars on them, I’ll release my claim. I promised them I wouldn’t kill their cubs, so they’re fine with me so far.”

He’d promised not to kill their cubs.
Dios mio
.

“How do you plan to explain to the humans in Las Vegas that five new women and all those kids are suddenly living in your Shiftertown?” Diego asked.

Eric smiled, but there was no humor in it. “You let me worry about that.”

“That lead feral, Miguel,” Diego said. “He said he mate-claimed Cassidy.”

Both Eric and Dylan turned intense gazes to Diego. “Did he?” Eric switched his stare to Cassidy. “Did Miguel survive? We haven’t looked at the casualties yet.”

“Diego Challenged him,” Cassidy said.

Again, both Eric and Dylan looked at Diego.

Cassidy laid her hand on Diego’s shoulder. “In front of witnesses, including Xavier. And I’d say he defeated Miguel, whether Miguel survived or not.”

Eric wasn’t smiling anymore. Dylan watched with keen interest.

“Anyone want to tell me exactly what you’re talking about?” Diego asked.

Eric shrugged. “It’s a little unorthodox. But Shifter law is Shifter law. Miguel made the mate-claim. You Challenged, you won. That means the mate-claim for Cassidy transfers from Miguel to you. Cassidy is yours to take as mate, if you still want her.”

D
iego didn’t understand, Cassidy saw as they flew back north. She was exhausted, sick from the pain of her Collar, and worried about the females and cubs.

Five of the seven females had been Shifter, the other two, human women from the village. The cantina owner’s daughter she’d seen welcomed with open arms back to her father, but the other woman had been shunned by her family. They claimed she’d been defiled by Miguel, and they didn’t want her back. Cassidy saw the heartbreak in the poor woman’s eyes, and she burned with anger for her.

Dylan, however, said the woman could go back to his Shiftertown—his son’s mate was human, and that son was Shiftertown leader. The woman would be protected. Cassidy saw that the young woman was miserable, but she accepted the offer. She didn’t have much choice. Diego asked the question about papers for her, and Dylan quietly said he’d take care of it. Cassidy believed him. Dylan was a take-care of it kind of male.

Eric would help the Shifter females, but Cassidy felt responsibility for them too. Her fighting and defeating their alpha meant something, even though Cassidy had done it to expedite the situation. She’d have to help Eric find them places to live and make sure they didn’t have too much trouble adapting to Collars and to Shiftertown—and Shiftertown adapting to them.

For now, Cassidy let out her breath and snuggled a little closer to Diego. She so needed a nap…

Diego closed his arms around her. She turned sleepily to him, rewarded with his warm mouth on hers.

He stroked her hair—which had to be filthy—and kissed her lips again. “I almost lost you,” he whispered. “I almost lost you, Cass. And Xavier, and it would have been my fault.”

Cassidy sat up, his hurt winding around her. “It’s not your fault the feral asshole Miguel decided to take over a human town. You didn’t know he was down here.”

“Enrique must have set me up—I’m betting he knew those Shifters were there.”

“Possibly. But look at it this way. You saved the town.” Cassidy batted her eyelashes at him and put on a sugary voice. “My hero.”

Diego didn’t smile. “You let your vengeance go when you had the chance to kill Reid. I hung on to mine, and you nearly died for it.”

Cassidy snuggled into his shoulder again. “I let it go because Reid was so pitiable. In your case, the guys who shot your partner terrorized a town, and then were terrorized by the Shifters, who were even worse. You solved both problems, and it’s finished.”

“I know.”

Diego didn’t sound elated, but Cassidy understood. He’d held on to wanting to bring Jobe’s killers to justice for a long time; he’d let it drive his life. The obsession of it kept him from seeing anything else. Now Diego’s tunnel vision was gone, and he didn’t know where to look.

Cassidy knew how he felt. The hunters who’d actually shot Donovan were still out there, but they were pathetic excuses who had been coerced by Reid, who himself had been driven by desperation. Life was more complicated than simply a kill for a kill.

D
iego didn’t speak much the rest of the trip, and he and Cassidy were both too busy to talk during the unloading. Cassidy had to help look after the females and their cubs—the cubs were both excited and terrified.

Diego left them at the airstrip to take Xavier to the hospital and the drug runners he’d arrested to jail, while Cassidy and Eric faced the task of getting the women and cubs back to Shiftertown undetected. Marlo helped with that too. The man had amazing resources.

Nell came out to meet them when they reached Shiftertown. She didn’t even wait for Eric’s explanation but waded in to the women and cubs with her no-nonsense attitude. The women had been so beaten down by Miguel that they were pitifully grateful for someone to tell them what to do.

It was late—actually early in the morning—by the time Diego arrived in Shiftertown. Cassidy had been able to grab a shower, but she ached all over, the aftereffects of her Collar making themselves felt.

“You should sleep,” Diego said, after kissing her.

“There’s still a lot to do.”

Diego caught Cassidy as she sagged. “Cass. Bed. Now.”

She stopped protesting when he lifted her and carried her into the bedroom. Relaxing in Diego’s arms wasn’t a bad thing.

Diego set her on her feet in her bedroom and started stripping her clothes from her. She’d already given the flowered dress to Nell, who’d admired it, and now Cassidy wriggled out of jeans and a sleeveless shirt.

Diego caught her in a long kiss. He’d showered too, sometime in the chaos, and smelled like soap and aftershave.

Why did remembering Diego walking away from that factory while it blew behind him, his face streaked with sweat and soot, excite her even more? The Shifter in her liked it. Battle was an aphrodisiac, Diego a warrior.

Cassidy tugged at his T-shirt until it came off, then she skimmed fingers over his hot skin. She was still sick and dizzy from her Collar, but touching Diego made her feel better. Cassidy leaned into him and rubbed her cheek on his chest. She heard his heartbeat beneath her ear, the even thrum that meant he was alive and hers.