He finished making his way out of the tape, reached under his shirt, and pulled out the thin undershirt he’d managed to stuff inside before the Shifters had caught him and thrown him down. The shirt had belonged to the tiger, and all Crosby had to do was take it to his commander. Mission over.

* * *

The art class for the Shifter kids was held in a community center near the gallery. Armand had arranged everything with his usual efficiency.

Carly and Armand started off with a tour of the gallery, showing the cubs the different styles of the artists, from representational art and sculpture to the abstract. Armand talked about texture and how to view a picture with rich texture from the side to get the full effect.

At the community center, Armand demonstrated various techniques, explaining that creating art was not always about simple drawing or blotching paint on canvas. He showed them how etchings were printed, and let the kids pull sheets through the printer to reveal the picture of a wildcat he’d prepared.

Next Armand stood them in front of easels and showed them how to hold pencils and paintbrushes, and then let them choose the medium they liked best for their own projects. Armand was very good at teaching kids how to make art fun.

Carly watched them with interest. Ten Shifter kids had come, from Cherie, nearly twenty-one, to Jordan, Spike’s son, aged four. Cherie enjoyed herself drawing tall, long-legged angular women who looked a little like Yvette. Jordan happily dragged a brush loaded with paint all over his page, leaving thick red and yellow splotches, which he looked very proud of.

Carly thought the cub with most potential was the little polar bear Olaf. He’d chosen watercolors, and had at first painted his entire sheet of watercolor paper black. Once that dried, he scraped away the dried paint with a palette knife to reveal patterns of the white paper underneath, like a negative. The lines resembled large bears, but they were incomplete, featureless. Olaf contemplated them with the dark-eyed seriousness with which Carly had seen him observe the rest of the world.

“That’s very nice, Olaf,” she said after Armand had bustled out of the room, going for more supplies. “Unique. Can you tell me about it?”

Olaf kept studying the painting-drawing, palette knife in hand. “My parents,” he said.

Who were dead, Ronan’s mate, Elizabeth, had told Carly. Ronan had discovered Olaf, an orphaned Shifter cub no one knew what to do with, and had taken him in.

Poor kid. Carly opened her mouth to praise his painting again when she smelled smoke.

Cherie smelled it too. She raised her head, her nose wrinkling, her sudden fear showing Carly how young she still was by Shifter standards. Cherie was looking around for an adult Shifter, someone to keep her safe.

Carly saw the ceiling above Cherie give. She grabbed the girl and yanked her out of the way just as a fireball came down and flames exploded through the room.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The room in which Armand taught was in the middle of the two-story building, and had no windows. The explosion shattered the lights, turning the bright space to night, lit by roiling gas-fed flames. Cubs screamed, easels clattered to the floor, and little pots of turpentine popped under the heat, feeding the fire.

Out! They had to get out.

Confusion and noise took over. Carly inhaled smoke and heat, and she gasped for breath, coughing. Dimly she remembered that when people died in a fire, it was often from smoke inhalation, long before the flames reached them.

But she couldn’t see to find the doors, couldn’t remember where the doors were. If the building had emergency systems, like lit-up exit signs or sprinklers, she saw no sign of them.

They were trapped.

Carly heard the high-pitched keening of Jordan, calling desperately for his daddy, Cherie’s sobs of terror, and cries and calls from the other kids. Nothing at all from Olaf.

Stop. Wait. Carly closed her eyes, blotting out the horror. She needed to remember what the room had looked like moments before the explosion. Where everyone was. Who’d been there, who hadn’t.

Armand had stepped out to fetch more supplies. Spike and Ellison, who’d accompanied the children, had been wandering in and out of the building. Carly knew enough about Shifters by now to know that they were watching out for danger. But the danger had been inside the room, in the ceiling above it, not outside.

Spike and Ellison, and Armand, would see the flames or the smoke. They’d come and call for help. Meanwhile, Carly had to find the door and get the cubs out.

Oblong room, doors at either end. She and Olaf had been in the center of it, Carly facing the east door, Olaf staring at his picture. Carly had leapt to jerk Cherie out of the way of the falling ceiling, but had Olaf moved in time?

“Olaf!”

Olaf still made no noise, and bile rose in Carly’s throat. She couldn’t breathe, she had to get out, to save the cub inside her.

Her fire-safety training, which Armand made all his employees take, cut through her fear. Smoke rose. “Down! Everybody down! Crawl toward the walls, find the doors!”

Carly’s voice, ringing with authority, cut through the screaming. The cubs, used to obeying the alpha Shifters, dropped to the floor, their yelling dying to whimpering.

Carly got to her hands and knees and started across the room, groping for any of the cubs along the way. After a few moments, she found her hands full of soft but wiry fur, then the white face of a small polar bear looked out of the hell at her.

“Olaf.” Carly exhaled in relief, then regretted breathing out. Breathing in hurt. “Find the door, Olaf. Or at least the wall. Can you do that?”

Olaf turned around and started walking but stopped abruptly when Carly let go of him, and waited. Carly caught on after a second—Olaf wanted to lead her to safety.

Carly held on to his fur again and let him pull her along, she half crawling alongside him. She passed another cub on the way and scooped him up, setting him on Olaf’s strong back.

Olaf made it to the wall, then put his shoulder to it and slid along the wall until he found the door. Lungs nearly bursting, Carly pushed at the door, but it wouldn’t move. Jammed? Or locked?

“Cherie!”

Cherie could turn into a grizzly bear. If the door was stuck, even a half-grown grizzly would be of more use than a human, a polar bear cub, and another child paralyzed with fear.

“Cherie, we need you!”

Cherie didn’t answer. Olaf made a little growl in his throat, then he scampered back into the fire. Carly shouted after him, but in a few seconds, Olaf returned, his mouth around Cherie’s hand.