Eric’s tone held rage, ferocity, and fear. “Brody told me she went back into your apartment, and then she vanished.”

“What are you talking about? How could she have vanished?”

“I don’t know, but it stinks of Fae all over your damn apartment. What the hell, Diego?”

“Dios, Eric, I don’t know. Cass ran off before I could stop her. Weren’t your trackers supposed to be protecting her?”

Eric growled—a wildcat growl, nothing human. “We can point fingers all day, but we have to find her.”

“No kidding. I have an idea where to start looking.”

“Yeah, so do I. Meet me out there, all right? Bring as much backup as you can.”

Diego shut off the phone, his heart racing like crazy. He turned around to find his mother and Xavier staring at him, having heard every word.

“Go find her, Diego,” Mamita said.

“I intend to. Xav, can you help?”

Xavier didn’t even cast a longing glance at the chilaquiles. “Sure thing. Let me get my stuff.”

Diego put his hand on his brother’s shoulder, walked him out of the house, and spoke to him in a low voice. “Do you still know how to make pipe bombs, like you did when you were in that gang?”

Xavier looked offended. “I told you, I wasn’t in the gang—” Xavier broke off as Diego shot him a don’t-bullshit-me-now look. “Yeah. I remember.”

“Good. Put something together.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Diversions and a damn good scare. And firepower if we need to take this guy down.”

Xavier grinned. “You got it, Diego.” And he went to get ready.

Cassidy woke to find herself flat on her back on cold, hard stone. Her hands were bound and stretched above her head; her feet were likewise bound. She was naked and in her human form.

She had no idea where she was. She could tell only that it was a dark place, cold, smelling of stone and mud. And Fae.

There he was. Across the room, backlit by a few candles—why candles?—was Reid. Tall, thin, but with black hair and dark skin. Fae, definitely, but like no Fae she’d ever heard about.

Cassidy clenched her hands. The chains were solid but she was strong, and if she could shift to her wildcat…

She relaxed her body and summoned the shift.

And screamed as her Collar went off. But not just the Collar. Electric pain shot through her from wrists to ankles, wrapping her like white-hot bands of wire. They would slice her in half, and she would die in so much pain she’d welcome the darkness.

Dimly she saw Reid turn to her, eyes glittering black in the candlelight. Cassidy forced herself to calm.

Diego. Think about Diego. His warm smile, the way he spoke in liquid tones, the things he whispered to her as he lay with her, touching her, kissing her.

The strong warmth of the mate bond. The mate bond that shouldn’t exist.

Cassidy took a deep breath. When she exhaled, the arcs of pain slowed, then stopped.

The mate bond warmed her, tried to soothe her hurts. It wouldn’t be able to completely—nothing would. The only thing that would calm her thoroughly was the touch of Diego, her mate.

Reid came to her. He’d changed to more casual clothes than he’d been in when they’d confronted him in his apartment—jeans, a gray hoodie jacket, and no shirt underneath. He looked like an ordinary human, except for that smell of Fae.

Cassidy’s instinct to kill rose again. She suppressed her urge to shift, knowing that would only bring back the pain. But she had to break out of these chains.

Reid didn’t speak to her. He leaned over and ran his gaze along her bare body, as though contemplating where to make the first cut.

Cassidy snarled and lunged. She felt the shackles give. And then her Collar went off, and again the escalating pain swept her body.

She slammed her eyes closed and fought off the pain one breath at a time. When she could speak, she said, “What did you do to me?”

“Wired your Collar to a Taser,” Reid answered in calm voice. “When it goes off, it triggers the Taser and sends a shock along the chains.”

Goddess, help her. “Do you get off torturing Shifters? Does it get you high?”

“No.” Reid sounded, if anything, anguished. “I hate it.”

“Oh, that’s nice. Then why are you doing it?”

“I need you to bleed out without fighting me. It’s nothing personal.”

Cassidy jerked upward instinctively, then gritted her teeth and sank down before her Collar could go off again. “Well, it’s personal to me.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But you’re Shifter.”

“And to you Shifters are animals. Bred to do your fighting and hunting so you don’t get your hands dirty.”

Reid’s eyes flashed in indignation. “I didn’t breed you. My people didn’t. That was the hoch alfar, the full-of-themselves bastards. Playing with nature to prove they could. I am glad the Shifters broke from them and made them pay the price.” His anger and derision rang true.

Cassidy stared at him in confusion. “Your people? What do you mean, your people?”

“The dokk alfar.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Enlighten me,” she said.

“There isn’t time. I have to kill you, Cassidy. I’m sorry, but it’s the only way.”

“Like you killed my mate?”

Cassidy drew another breath as her Collar started to tingle, tried to calm herself into the mode she assumed as second in command to Eric.

“Tell me,” she said, in the most composed voice she could manage. “Tell me why you’re doing this, if you hate it.”

Reid sounded less derisive, more broken. “They threw me out of Faerie, the hoch alfar. Your blood, I told you, Shifter blood, will send me back there. Nothing else will. I’m sorry.”

He lifted a long iron-bladed knife that glittered in the candlelight and touched it to Cassidy’s stomach.

Eric, Jace, and Shane were already parked on the dirt road halfway up the mountain when Diego and Xav arrived in Xav’s F-250. Diego knew without Eric mentioning it that all his trackers had already fanned out, covering the hills around the rock outcropping where the sharpshooter had pinned them down the other night.