Tiger barely acknowledged her, and Carly realized after a moment that he didn’t know what she meant.

The next second, any words of explanation were pouring back down her throat, because Tiger changed into a . . . tiger.

He did it rapidly, easily, limbs sliding from human down into the bent haunches and massive paws of a Bengal. Fur rippled across his body, orange with black stripes, a tail extending to brush the floor.

He was gigantic, bigger than any tiger Carly had seen at a zoo. Her large bedroom was now a tight fit.

Connor sighed as he pressed his way around Tiger to the window. “He always does this. Shifts and then makes me open the windows and doors for him. Quiet now.”

Connor slid up Carly’s double-hung window, which gave on to the side of the house. Tiger put his paws on the sill.

“What’s he doing?” Carly whispered frantically. “He won’t fit.”

“He will. Watch.”

How the hell Tiger got out the window when he was twice the size of the opening, Carly never understood. As a little girl, she’d had a cat that could flatten herself to crawl into the two-inch-high space under her dresser, but this was even more startling.

Maybe it was the magic of being a Shifter, but damned if Tiger didn’t compact himself down and squirt through the window. He landed on the other side, went into an instant predatory crouch, and slunk into the darkness. Carly lost sight of him in a matter of seconds.

“Crap, I thought he’d wait for me.” Connor put his head and shoulders out the window and climbed through with far less grace than Tiger had.

“It’ll be okay, right?” Carly whispered. “Walker can’t hurt Tiger with his gun, and Tiger can’t hurt him.”

Connor landed on his feet outside. “Oh, I’d say Tiger can do whatever the hell he’s wanting to.”

“I mean, Tiger can’t attack him. The Collar will stop him. That’s what it’s for, isn’t it?”

“Shite.” Connor’s whisper was agitated. “Shite. Shite. That’s what he’s after. Stay here.”

Screw that. As Connor faded into the darkness, Carly grabbed her jeans and tugged them on, then stuffed her feet into sandals. She sat on the sill, swung her legs around, slithered through the window, and landed with a thump on a patch of grass that needed mowing. Carly reflected, as she started jogging toward the backyard, that at oh dark thirty in the morning, the air was at least cool.

She heard a muffled shout and then Tiger’s growl, long and low. The rage in the sound was unmistakable, a wild animal ready to kill.

“No!” Carly heard Connor’s agitated voice. “Crap. No. Stop it, now. Aw, Liam’s gonna kill me.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Snarling came out of the darkness, and Connor yelling under his breath, but nothing from the watcher.

Carly ran forward. Trying to keep out of sight meant she couldn’t see what not to trip over in the darkness, so she slammed into the patio chair she’d dragged to this side of the house a few days ago for a little sunbathing. Carly cursed as she went down, got up, rubbed her sore shin, and picked her way more slowly across the yard.

She reached the pitch-blackness near the fence to find a man on the ground and Tiger fully on top of him, his huge paw ready to rip out the man’s throat. Connor had his hands on Tiger’s back, pulling, without result.

Tiger’s Collar was silent, no sparking, nothing. The man under Tiger was Walker, his face a pale smudge in the darkness. His face was bloody, and he was out. Or dead. The man’s pistol, broken into pieces, lay on the grass next to him.

Carly saw all this in a frenzied second, then she joined with Connor trying to pull Tiger off him.

Tiger snarled, his face wrinkling with his deadly growl. His claws were poised on Walker’s neck, Connor’s tugs and pleas doing nothing.

“Don’t kill him, all right?” Connor was saying. “They’ll find out, they’ll get Liam, and the Goddess only knows what they’ll do to you.”

“What would they do to Tiger?” Carly asked in a frantic whisper.

“Take him, quarantine him, execute him, maybe. Today was bad enough. We can’t let anyone know anything about Tiger.”

Why not? Carly wondered. And why were Brennan and Walker this interested in him?

Not the time to ask questions. Carly sank her hands into Tiger’s fur, finding it surprisingly warm and silky. He had a scruff, like her childhood cat, folds of fur loose for holding. The thought flashed through her head that he must have been adorably cute as a cub, with his mother carrying him in her mouth. Did Shifters do that?

“Tiger, listen to Connor,” Carly said. “This guy’s not worth the jail time, or being executed over.”

Tiger’s growls rippled through him, vibrating through Carly. Walker lay motionless, the bruise on the side of his head explaining why he was out. Alive, though, thank God. She could hear his ragged breathing.

“If you hurt him,” Carly went on, “if they take you away, I’ll never see you again. I’d hate that. I want to see you again.”

Another huge growl rumbled, and then Tiger changed. The fur under Carly’s hands rapidly became human flesh, and in a few seconds, Carly found herself sitting on her damp lawn with her arms around a large, well-muscled, naked man.

Tiger pulled her close, his strength undiminished, the heat of his body intense against the cooling night. His hot skin was smooth under Carly’s fingers, and she couldn’t resist running her hands down his back.