“None taken.” I shrugged. “I’m not a cat, anyway.”
Trumbull snickered and turned to lead us inside and down the long hall toward the common areas. “One shifter, one fae. I figure you two could sort them out better than we could.”
And that was the benefit of staying friendly with the guards—they pretty much let us rule our own kind.
“What do you know about them?” Clark asked.
Trumbull sighed. “Man, they were supposed to be low maintenance. A couple of cat burglars who banked on taking big-ticket items. Not this shit.”
As we rounded a corner into the intake room, I saw what he meant. The two women stood back to back, balanced on the balls of their feet, ready to move in an instant.
They were still chained together, but the rest of the chain, the part that had attached them to the other prisoners, had been sheared off. I squinted to see it a little more clearly and realized the links at the ends had been melted apart.
That impression was borne out by scorch marks on the floor around them.
My gaze flew up to their hands. Empty. Those burn marks were magical.
That shouldn’t have been possible. The manacles around their wrists and ankles were spelled. They were supposed to depress any magical ability until the prison doctor could surgically implant the inmates’ suppressors.
In fact, the shifter shouldn’t even be able to take her animal form, even though that was low enough on the magical scale that the suppressors didn’t normally interfere with the shifting ability.
Not to mention, if the other woman was a true fae, neither of the women should have had any kind of true offensive magical ability. Certainly not the kind that would allow either of them to throw fireballs.
The women skittered away from us, dancing lightly on the soles of their feet.
“Don’t come any closer,” the blonde said threateningly.
Trumbull, Clark, and I all stopped.
“That’s better.”
Clark all but reeled at the sound of the blonde’s voice.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Ignoring my fae counterpart, I held my hands up and away from my body before I spoke. “I’m the alpha of the shifter pack here on the island.” I tilted my head and jerked a nod toward Clark. “He’s the alpha of the fae clan. Officer Trumbull asked us to come in here and talk to you. What’s going on?”
The brunette tossed her hair and lifted one corner of her mouth in a snarl, showing the tip of a fang. That shouldn’t have been possible, either.
Her movement sent her scent floating across me and I almost swooned from it. She smelled like sugar and cinnamon and vanilla, like warm cookies baking. It was all I could do to keep from drooling.
Mine, my wolf insisted. I tried to shake off my response, but my inner animal dug in his heels. Mine.
Oh, hell.
This was nothing I had ever experienced before, but I knew instantly what it was.
That was a mate-bond response.
We belong together. The knowledge raced through my entire body. It was all I could do to keep from jumping forward to claim her then and there.
Shit. Mate-bonds weren’t supposed to be possible on the island, either.
“We won’t be separated,” she snarled, the words half-mangled by the partial shift of her mouth.
My wolf howled his agreement—until I realized that she hadn’t been talking about me at all, but about her blonde fae friend. Shut up, I told my wolf. We can’t do anything with her until we sort out this problem, and that can’t happen if you don’t settle down.
Feeling my wolf grumble, but then grow quiet, I flashed a glance at Trumbull. “Is there a problem with her chains?”
Trumbull shook his head. “They register fine on all our equipment.” He didn’t take his eyes off the two women.
As we spoke, other guards began rounding up the remaining prisoners and drawing them out of the room. When one of the guards got too close, the fae woman flashed a firebolt his direction. It hit the floor next to his feet and he jumped away from her. I was pretty sure she could have hit him with the bolt.
That means she doesn’t really want to hurt anyone—that’s good for us.
“Fae and shifters don’t stay in the same island sector,” I tried explaining gently.
The brunette snarled again, and a flare of magic swirled up into the blonde fae’s hand.
Okay. Wrong tack.
“What are your names?” Clark tried.
The women didn’t answer.
“Evangeline Gray and Mara Blackwood,” Trumbull supplied, gesturing first to the fae and then to the shifter.
”You can’t keep us apart,” Mara insisted, her eyes flashing orange. “It was part of our plea-bargain that we wouldn’t be separated.”
Trumbull took a step toward the guards’ cage, the office that held all the controls to allow him to shut down the facility.
Almost casually, Evangeline tossed a lightning bolt toward his feet, too. “Don’t do it,” she commanded.
Trumbull shook his head, but he stopped. From where I stood slightly behind him, though, I could see him pushing buttons on his walkie-talkie.
He was sending out some kind of message to the rest of the guards on the island.
If we don’t get this under control, it’s going to go sideways—fast and ugly. It was like Mara read my mind. As soon as the thought flickered through my brain, her head whipped around and she pinned me with those glowing orange eyes of hers.
Then she and Evangeline moved as if they were one organism—or at least as if they could read each other’s minds, too.
With a puff of pinkish-purple sparkles, Evangeline used her magic to boost herself up the nearest wall, running lightly straight up as if she had forsaken gravity altogether, until she reached the ceiling, holding her hands first out and then down toward Mara, who lifted her own arms to follow Evangeline’s progress.
At the same time, Mara shifted, flowing into her
