Tiger released him. He led the way, moving in silence for such a big man, down the slope to rendezvous with Ronan and Broderick.

“That ass**le’s history,” Broderick said when Ellison whispered the news. “No one messes with our females.”

For once, Ellison agreed with him. When they played out the Challenge, Ellison would pound Broderick, but right now, Broderick wanted Maria out of there as much as he did.

Ronan had subdued the fourth guard, and he handed Tiger the holstered automatic weapon he’d retrieved. Tiger looked over the gun, and then silently handed it back. Ronan gave him a whatever look and buckled the second weapon over his shoulder.

Ellison took the radio from the guard he’d knocked out and the second one Ronan had and tucked both in his belt. He then searched his guy for a cell phone, switched it off, and threw it as hard as he could into the meadow.

“Here comes the car,” Broderick said.

They hid, the four peering through brush around the house, animals watching their prey. The black limo pulled to a stop in the semicircular drive, and Ellison’s pickup stopped behind it. The back door of the limo opened. Bodyguards emerged first, then a quiet-looking Pablo.

Maria’s shapely leg in jeans came out, followed by the rest of her, her white cotton blouse tugged by the breeze. She waited, looking unworried, for the next man, a smaller guy in glasses with graying hair.

The feral in Ellison rose up again. He knew, from the way the others treated him, that this was Bradley. His enemy. His prey. His kill.

The first bodyguard went into the house through the front door, the second signaling Pablo to follow. Pablo stopped, saying something, and the bodyguard pointed a gun at him.

Maria turned around, planting her feet, and started talking to Bradley. And talking and talking. She gesticulated toward Pablo and back to the limo, but she didn’t look afraid.

“What’s she doing?” Ronan whispered.

“Giving us a window,” Ellison said. Goddess bless her. “The bodyguard’s turned off the alarm. Let’s get inside before it’s on again.”

***

“Pablo’s the only one who’s ever wanted to help me,” Maria said to Bradley as they stood on the wide brick doorstep. The door to Bradley’s vast house lay open behind her, the bodyguard who’d opened it waiting impatiently inside it.

“So why don’t you leave the Shifters and work for him?” Bradley asked. He sounded mildly curious, not annoyed.

“Because he’s a criminal, and you can imagine what he wants women who work for him to do. I must get away from the Shifters, but not with him. I need money to do that. That’s why I’m here.”

Bradley watched her, again with little change in expression. Pablo had been right to say the man had no emotions.

“Let’s go inside, Ms. Ortega. My bodyguards get anxious if I’m out in the open too much. Mr. Marquez will be given something to drink in the living room, while we talk in my office.”

Pablo raised his hands, conceding, and walked inside. He’d balked at the doorway, pretending to be too scared to enter, and Maria had taken the cue. If she talked enough, and the door was open long enough, Ellison, if he’d gotten into position, would be able to slip inside. If not . . . well, she was back to hoping Pablo’s girlfriend had given them the right codes.

She walked into the house, Bradley came behind her, and the last bodyguard shut the door. The interior was vast, the foyer rising two floors straight up, with a wrought-iron railed balcony encircling the second level. Doors opened out from this balcony, which flowed in a circle around the twisting staircase.

The first and second bodyguards peeled Pablo off to a room beneath the balcony, while the third and fourth bodyguard led Maria upstairs following Bradley. Bradley ushered Maria into a room that faced the rear of the house, its window overlooking a meadow studded with bluebonnets, which were bursting into full spring ecstasy.

Bradley motioned for Maria to sit in front of a long empty desk, and went to a wet bar, where he poured cold bottled water into a glass with ice and brought the bottle and glass to her. The bodyguards took up positions on either side of the doorway.

“All right,” Bradley said, resting one hip on his desk. He looked almost congenial, except for the chill nothingness in his eyes. “You say you want to help me obtain Shifter cubs for my clients. How would you do it?”

“They make me watch the brats,” Maria said, wincing inwardly at the word, but telling herself to play it out. “I could bring one or two to a location where you could easily pick them up. If I had known you were coming when I was with Olaf yesterday, I would have kept the other Shifters away.”

“Hmm,” Bradley said. “You could get away with that once, maybe. What happens when the next set of cubs you’re supposed to be watching also get taken? They’ll be suspicious, don’t you think?” His tone held faint scorn.

He didn’t believe her. Maria shut her eyes, bunched her fists, and tried to look helpless and desperate. “If you pay me enough, I only need to do it once or twice. Then I can take the money and leave town—leave the country. I can guarantee three, maybe four cubs. The Shifter families don’t have that many kids, so you won’t get much more than that anyway.”

Her heart burned. If those precious cubs were lost, the entire community would be devastated.

“Might work,” Bradley conceded. “You’d have to make sure the cubs weren’t anywhere near any of the adults.”