Spike’s hot blood dripped all over Myka as he closed one huge hand around the cuffs and broke the chain from the hook. Then he was gone, leaping over the side of the truck to meet Gavan and his remaining two fighters.

Myka scrambled up, her wrists still encased in the cuffs, but at least they were free of the chain. She climbed over the truck’s tailgate, landing on shaking legs. The other two motorcycles roared up, the bikers ditching their bikes and running to help.

Myka recognized Ellison, minus his cowboy hat, and Dylan, clad only in a pair of jeans, his feet bare. They both joined the fight against Gavan and his two thugs.

Myka ran past them all to the open door of the pickup. Jordan lay curled in the middle of the seat as a jaguar, sleeping soundly, his little body limp. Myka lifted him as gently as she could and cradled him against her shoulder.

She turned back to the struggle. Spike was fighting harder than he ever had in the ring, his Collar sparking wildly in the darkness. So much blood streamed down him, black in the gloom, that it looked as though his tattoos were running together and raining down his body.

Gavan fought him, the two men changing back and forth from man to beast, dust and grass flying as they hit the ground.

“You killed my cub,” she heard Spike saying in a guttural voice. “You killed my cub.”

“No!” Myka shouted. “Spike, he’s okay.”

Spike didn’t hear her. He beat Gavan’s head into the ground, and Gavan, white-eyed, locked his hands around Spike’s throat and started to crush.

“Spike!” Myka yelled. “Eron! Jordan’s all right. I have him.”

*** *** ***

Spike heard her shouting through the haze in his brain. Since Liam’s phone call to Ellison that he’d found Jordan, Spike had been running on fear and rage.

Ellison had actually stopped the fight, walking between the two combatants. No one had ever done that before. The refs had started for Ellison, then thought better of it when they found themselves confronting the wall of Dylan instead.

Sean had vanished, no one knew where, and Gavan was no longer in the hay barn. Spike had been out of the ring, grabbing his clothes and running as the refs and spectators complained behind him. Didn’t matter. He had to get Jordan.

The follow-up call Dylan got that Connor had been beaten down and Jordan and Myka taken had unleashed a feral rage Spike had never known.

He’d known Myka was in the back of the truck racing toward them on the highway, feeling her presence as palpably as he felt his own skin. Getting buckshot in the chest was nothing to the pain of knowing Gavan had taken her, had hurt her, would hurt her. And the man had dared touch his cub.

He’d caught a glimpse of Jordan lying limply on the seat, fur covered in blood, and he’d ceased to think.

Now he punched Gavan’s face again and again. “You killed my cub. You killed my cub.”

“Eron!”

No one called him that but his mate. His beautiful mate.

“Jordan’s all right. I have him!”

Spike couldn’t look up to make sure this was true. But Myka said it, his mate, and he heard the relief in her voice, smelled it in her scent.

Gavan’s hold on Spike loosened. Spike kept pounding, the Shifter in him wanting the death of his enemy. He’d rip off the man’s head and drink his blood.

Gavan went limp. Spike went on thumping the man’s head against the asphalt, claws digging into his neck. Spike’s Collar was arcing, had been continually, biting hot fire down his spine, and he’d never felt it.

“You took my son. You took my son!”

Strong hands jerked him back. Spike fought, wild and crazed. He’d kill them all. They’d dared touch his cub, his son, his mate.

Her fragrance cut through his rage like rain on a dry earth. She flowed around him, her warm body, her touch, her voice that wrapped his senses and didn’t let go.

“Eron, it’s all right. Jordan’s fine. I’ve got him.”

Myka had Jordan. She’d found him, wrapped him in her arms, protected him. The mate of his heart had rescued his cub.

Myka’s small, soft hand guided Spike’s to the downy fur of Jordan’s belly. The connection, the three of them together, cleared Spike’s vision. He blinked, finding himself lying on the pavement, one hand on his cub’s sleeping body, Myka kneeling beside him.

“Mate,” he whispered. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’m here,” Myka said. She leaned to him, bathing him in her warmth, and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “I’m here.”

Pain like Spike had never felt before flooded his body, fire incandescent in his blood and along every nerve. But he kept one hand on his cub, twined his fingers through Myka’s, and knew he’d never felt better in his life.

*** *** ***

“Spike’s home for battered warriors,” Myka said, opening the door for Liam and Kim, Kim carrying Katriona. “Welcome.”

They lounged about Spike’s living room—Connor, Ellison, Ella, and Jordan. Spike was stretched out on the kitchen table while Dylan picked tiny pieces of shot out of Spike’s chest and legs. Myka’s cry that they should take him to a hospital was met with quiet stares. Arriving at a hospital with a gunshot wound meant alerting the police, Dylan said, and Spike didn’t need that.

“Shifters heal fast,” Spike had croaked as he’d staggered into the house, supported by Myka and Ellison. Dylan had at least given him a shot of local anesthetic before he started.

“Where’s Andrea?” Ellison asked as Liam, his face bruised and bloody, limped inside. Myka did not want to ask Liam what had happened to Nate. “Andrea and her healing juju? And Sean? What the hell happened to him?”

Liam’s face split into a grin. “Andrea’s a little busy. Sean’s with her.” The sparkle in his eyes was one of joy, and Kim smiled as hard as Liam did.

Connor leapt from the sofa. He looked worse than any of them—his face battered, one eye swollen shut, and he cradled his arm carefully across his chest—but he sprang to his feet with the vigor of youth. “Andrea’s having her cub!” he shouted.

“Holy shit,” Ellison said. “No wonder Sean vanished. The only thing that could make him take his eyes off Gavan would be a call like that.”

“He and Andrea are at the clinic with Ronan and his entourage,” Liam said. “Glory too. Waiting for the family to join them. Sorry, Spike.”