I snatched his hand out from under my shirt, squeezing his wrist as I pulled.

Bones ground together, and Miguel gasped. His right hand tightened around my neck, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.

“Watch yourself, mi amor.” His breath teased my ear as I tried desperately to suck in one of my own. In my panic, I squeezed his wrist harder, almost horrified to hear a tiny crack as one of his bones fractured.

Miguel flinched but didn’t loosen his grip. “You don’t breathe again until you let go,” he whispered, nudging my earlobe with his nose. His nails bit into my neck, seconds from breaking through my skin.

Marc hissed and took a step forward, but there was nothing he could do until Miguel released my throat. So I let go.

Miguel’s left arm dropped out of sight, and his opposite hand relaxed around my neck. I drew in as much air as I could, fighting not to hyperventilate now that I could breathe again.

Marc’s tail whipped back and forth across the ground in warning, but Miguel didn’t seem to notice. “Is this your tabby?” he asked. “Are you the stray I smel ed all over her? And I do mean all over.”

Marc growled and inched forward, but Miguel only chuckled, dismissing him for the moment to address Vic. “If this tabby belongs to him, which one was yours?”

Vic’s teeth gnashed together. He didn’t answer, but even in the poor light I saw the muscles of his jaw bulge.

“Wel , since the big guy has Abby’s pretty, red curls, I’m guessing Sara meant something to you. That little kitty was something special.” His accent thickened as his words ran together. “Do you know she spit in my face? And bit me?”

Vic growled. It wasn’t the same sound Marc had made, because a human throat couldn’t produce such a low pitch. Stil , it was a great approximation for someone on two feet.

“Each girl is special, of course,” Miguel continued, wrapping his free arm around my rib cage, heedless of his injured wrist. His thumb brushed the underside of my breast through the nightshirt, and I couldn’t suppress a shudder.

He liked it. Miguel liked forcing a reaction from me. He pressed me tighter against him, his breath brushing my neck. “Yes, they each have their own style.

Some fight up until the very end, like your Sara. Or I guess she’s our Sara now, no?”

Fury flashed in Vic’s eyes, and Parker put a warning hand out to calm him.

They were waiting for a shot at Miguel, and were clearly running out of patience.

But then, so was I.

“Some are too scared to resist at al , but those are mostly the human girls. I think that’s why Luiz likes them. Then others—like little Abby—make a lot of noise at first, hissing, and crying and trying to crawl away. But once you get in one good thrust—” he rammed his hips into me, and I would have lost my balance if he hadn’t been holding me up “—they kind of give up, like there’s nothing left worth fighting for. And Abby was fresh. Untouched. Muy dulce.” Very sweet.

Lucas’s arms bulged as his huge hands curled into fists. His cheeks flushed in outrage.

Marc slipped silently forward while Miguel was focused on Lucas, but Miguel caught the movement, even on the edge of his vision. “Uh-uh,” he said. “Don’t come too close. I don’t want to have to break your tabby’s neck. At least not before I’m done with her.” He slid his free hand down my stomach and beneath the low waistband of my borrowed pants, careful with his injured wrist. His fingers hovered just above my pubic bone.

My hands clenched around material from the sides of Carissa’s pants, and I took shal ow breaths, afraid the slightest movement of my stomach would nudge his hand farther down. Only the memory of fighting to breathe kept me from removing his hand myself.

“She and I have unfinished business. Don’t we, mi amor? ”

Yeah, I thought. Your death.

His grip forced my chin even higher as his lips brushed my ear. “But I tel you what,” he said, now speaking to Marc. “If I don’t like my free sample, I’l return her.

Used, of course. But then, we strays are accustomed to secondhand goods, aren’t we?”

If Miguel thought he could bait Marc with jabs at his heritage, he was wrong.

Marc had long since developed emotional cal uses, and remarks like that didn’t even faze him. But sticking a hand down my pants did.

Marc hissed, arching his back as his tail swished furiously. He took several gliding steps toward us, his fur glistening in a beam of moonlight shining through a hole in the clouds. He leapt to one side and landed gracefully on al four paws, several feet from the guys on the path.

Miguel turned toward Marc, now keeping al five of them easily in view.

I stared at Marc, confused because his movements seemed pointless and panicked, like a hostage dancing during a bank robbery. But his eyes never left mine. He was up to something. We had come to a standstil . Miguel wasn’t going to let me go, and they weren’t going to let him take me. So something had to change.

“Skittish, kitty?” Miguel asked, chuckling at what he mistook for nervous indecision on Marc’s part. But Marc never did anything without a reason, even if no one else understood his motive. What the hel was he doing?

Marc hissed again, showing off long white canines, both top and bottom. His ears flattened against his head as his whiskers arced forward. Leaves crackled as he pierced them beneath his claws. He was posturing, doing everything he could to keep my attention.