“She likes it when you scratch under her chin,” Diego said. “Come on. She won’t hurt you.”

Christine came closer. Cassidy remained still, her purrs filling the living room. Christine put a hesitant hand on Cassidy’s head. Cassidy didn’t move, just let the girl explore. Christine started to pet her.

“Oh, she’s soft,” Christine crooned. “I didn’t think she’d be so soft.” Her face glowed in delight.

Cassidy whuffed a little, turning her head to nuzzle Christine. Christine pulled back, but not as nervously as before.

Cassidy kept herself pressed to Diego’s knee, Christine tentatively petted, and Jackie watched like a mother bear ready to defend her offspring.

Cassidy was the calmest of all. She let Christine pet and stroke, the girl getting bolder. Finally Christine put her arms all the way around Cassidy and hugged her. Cassidy remained still, making no moves that would startle either Christine or her mother.

Cass is so good with kids. Diego thought of her with Torey, the tigerish Shifter cub who’d lost both parents. Cassidy had dashed back for the cubs and women trapped in the basement of the factory, refusing to go without them. He remembered her grabbing up the last cub and hauling him out of there, making sure none got left behind. She’d raised Jace too after Eric’s mate died in childbirth.

She takes care of everyone else’s kids. She’d be so happy with her own.

Diego couldn’t stop the vision coming to him of Cassidy holding a little boy that looked back at Diego with eyes so like his own.

“Can we keep her?” Christine asked, still hugging Cassidy.

Jackie said, “Christine!” and Diego laughed.

“What?” Christine asked, in all innocence. “Geez, Mom, I was only kidding.”

After they left Jackie and Christine, Diego drove Cassidy up to his favorite spot, a deserted side street a little way up Sunrise Mountain.

From here, the valley floor spread before them, hotel lights dancing way to the west, calm residential lights to the east, south, and north, a tower light from the air force base blinking not far away. The night was clear, and stars were dense overhead.

Cassidy stretched in the seat next to him. “Thank you for showing me this. It’s beautiful.”

She was beautiful, with the stars reflected in her eyes. “Jackie really liked you,” Diego said.

“Good. I liked her.”

“So, what’s on your mind?”

Cassidy turned her head on the headrest, looking at him. “Why should something be on my mind?”

“Because I know that when you get very quiet, you’re thinking deep thoughts,” Diego said. “What’s up? And don’t say nothing. I know that trick.”

Cassidy studied the city lights a moment before she spoke. “I heard Jackie yelling at you for going to Mexico. I was thinking that if you’d died, I would have had to face Jackie—and your mother—and tell them what had happened. And how I’d have to confess that I provided the transportation and encouraged you to go.”

Diego shook his head. “You couldn’t have stopped me, Cass. If you hadn’t introduced me to Marlo, I would have found some other way to get down there. I was going, with you or without you. Trust me on this.”

“I know but when I heard Jackie, I realized the other side of it, about how fixed I’d been about finding whoever had hurt Donovan. What if I’d decided to kill Reid when we caught him, right in front of you, in my living room? Would you have arrested me and taken me in, or let me go? I’d have forced you to make that choice. That wouldn’t have been fair to you.” She folded her arms and stared fiercely out into the desert. “So stupid, and yet I could only think of grinding my heel in Reid’s face.”

“We’re both idiots,” Diego said. “I should have known that Enrique wouldn’t give me that information for free, and I should have checked it out better before I rushed in. Enrique ragged me on the phone for hanging out with Shifters, so it must have made him laugh to send me into a nest of them. And I ran right in, Cass. I almost got you killed. And my brother. Mamita’s not letting me hear the end of that.”

Cassidy blew out her breath. “What are we going to do with each other?”

Diego knew what he wanted to do. Had wanted since he’d seen her walk out of her house in that dress and those shoes. “What did you have in mind?” he asked.

Cassidy’s glance smoldered when she looked at him, but she didn’t say what he wanted her to say. “Help me help Stuart Reid get home?”

Her question took him by surprise. “You mean help him cross back to Faerie?” Diego drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Do you have some idea how we can? The physics of it?”

Cassidy shrugged. “I can talk to people, figure things out. Shifters are very resourceful.”

“Yeah, so I noticed.”

“But really, will you help?” Cassidy took his hand and raised it to her lips. “I don’t want Donovan to have died for nothing.”

“I get that.”

He liked how her breath felt on his fingers. Diego caressed her cheek, his arousal demanding attention.

“This mate-claim thing,” he said. “I’m not quite clear on all of it. Explain it to me.”

Cassidy released his hand. “It’s part of Shifter law, created when we were first free of the Fae, and territory and dominance disputes were common.” Cassidy stretched again as she talked, so distracting. She had the sexiest legs in creation. “The mate-claim ensured that a female wasn’t just grabbed by any and all males and used until she died. When a female is mate-claimed, that means all other males have to leave her alone. The female either accepts the mate-claim, which means she and the male are joined in the mating ceremonies under the sun and under the full moon. Or, the female can turn down the claim and be free for the next male who wants to claim her. But the mate-claim marks the female as off-limits. If another male wants her, he has to Challenge.”

“Tell me about that. The Challenge.”

“It’s a fight—in the old days, to the death. Now it’s just a fight until one male gives up, but they can be pretty dangerous. The winner gets the mate-claim. The female retains the right to reject the claim of the challenger.”

Diego rubbed his lip. “So when I said to Miguel, Consider this a challenge, he… considered it a Challenge.”