Eric studied her, and Iona looked straight back at him.
“Shane, Neal, guard outside the rear door,” Eric said. “Brody, Jace, Xav, the front. I’ll stay in here and liaise.”
Iona mouthed, Thank you. Eric returned her light kiss. “You’re a radical.”
“I hope so.”
Eric gave her a deeper kiss, then went out the front door. The other Shifters, looking surprised but a bit relieved not to have to be in the actual birthing room, left as well. Xav paused to kiss Cassidy’s cheek and clap his brother on the shoulder. “Good luck,” he said to Diego.
“This is why I want you here,” Cassidy said to Iona as Xav followed the others out. “The female voice of reason. That and I just feel better with you around.” She stopped and sucked in a loud breath. “Oh, not long now.”
Iona still felt a bit intrusive as the morning wore on, but Cassidy seemed relaxed and happy with her there. Cassidy had nowhere to lie but the table, but she didn’t appear to mind. Diego pulled up a chair next to her, and their clasped hands rested on her belly as they talked to each other in low voices.
Eric returned. He held Iona in the circle of his arms on the vinyl sofa under the window, the two of them cuddling while they waited.
“Is it always like this?” Iona whispered to him. “Why won’t they at least let her have a bed until it’s time?”
“Shifters are allowed this room, no others,” Eric said. “I’ve attended many births here—which is a good thing, love.”
“I’ll be fine,” Cassidy said from across the room. Iona still wasn’t used to Shifter hearing, which could pick up a whispered word at a hundred feet. “Eric and you are here, Diego’s with me, and I have guards outside the door. The cub will come, and we’ll go home and have another party.”
“After you rest,” Diego said sternly.
“Hey, I’m robust.”
“Have you picked out a name?” Iona broke in.
“Amanda Kirsten,” Cassidy said promptly.
“If it’s a girl,” Diego said. “If it’s a boy, Carlos Robert, after my father and hers.”
“Nice,” Iona said.
“It’s a girl,” Cassidy said with conviction. “But I guess we’re going to find out.” She sucked in another deep breath, then let out a wail.
Iona was on her feet. Cassidy pushed Diego’s hand away and fought to get up and turn over on her hands and knees. She wailed again.
“Call the doctor,” Iona said frantically to Eric.
“No,” Cassidy said. “No doctor. Not unless something’s wrong.”
“I’d be happier, Cass…” Diego began, his face damp with nervous perspiration.
“We’ve been over this, Diego. I do it myself. Eric.”
“I’ve got you. Iona, help her undress. Diego, stand over here with me. We guard, and the females do the work.”
Cassidy managed a laugh. “Isn’t that typical? It’s all right, Iona. I know what to do. I’ll tell you, and you’ll help me.”
Diego did not want to leave her side. He scowled until Eric came to him, took him by the shoulders, and pulled him across the room to face the front door.
“Our job is to guard,” Eric said to him. “We don’t let anyone near her. You start protecting your cub now.”
“The males say they turn their backs because that’s the tradition,” Cassidy said to Iona. “Really, it’s because they’re squeamish.”
Iona didn’t smile as she helped Cassidy out of her pants, top, and underwear. Naked, Cassidy climbed to her hands and knees again.
“Everything you need is over there,” Cassidy said, gesturing at the longest of the counters.
Iona followed her direction and found a large basin, towels, and some scary-looking surgical instruments. She put everything on a cart and wheeled it over to Cassidy, feeling ineffectual.
“You really should have a doctor or a midwife,” Iona said.
“I am a midwife. I’ve assisted in quite a few Shifter births. Now, hold me steady and don’t let me fall. It’s going to be tough. I wish I could shift.”
“Hang in there, Cass,” Eric said without turning around.
Iona took a deep breath and put her arm around Cassidy’s bare back. “It’s all right. I’ll help.” Iona knew, as soon as she said it, that she could.
“Thanks.” Cassidy’s smile was laced with pain. “You’ll make a good alpha.”
Iona gave Cassidy the barest squeeze. That remained to be seen.
Cassidy groaned again, the groan ending on another sharp cry. “I think she’s coming.”
Iona skimmed her hand down Cassidy’s back. Cassidy had dilated quite a bit, though Iona saw nothing on its way.
“Help me,” Cassidy moaned. “This stupid table is for humans, damn it.”
Iona helped Cassidy spread her knees, making sure she didn’t fall off the narrow table. Iona then got towels ready and hoped she didn’t have to touch the gleaming instruments.
If anything went wrong enough for Iona to have to even think about grabbing an instrument, she was getting a doctor, to hell with Shifter tradition. Iona would not let Cassidy or her cub die on her watch.
Iona rubbed Cassidy’s back and hips. “You’re doing good, Cass.”
“Hope so.”
“I’m right here. Not going anywhere.”
“Thank you.”
The whisper ended in another cry of pain. Cassidy rocked her hips, her body shuddering, then suddenly, her skin became a leopard pelt, her hands, claws.
“No!” Iona shouted. “Cassidy, don’t shift.”
“Keep it together, Cass,” Eric called, and Iona heard Diego swearing in Spanish.
Cassidy shuddered again, and then she was human. “She’s coming!”
This time, Iona saw it, the head of a child coming from Cassidy’s birth canal. Iona had never seen a baby be born, and she’d feared she’d freak out and run when Cassidy’s cub actually started coming. But when Iona saw the top of the baby’s head, something inside her changed.
A new life, a new beginning, a cub struggling to take its place in the world. That cub needed help, and Iona wasn’t about to run away and abandon it.
“Come on, little one,” she said. “You can do it.”
“Do you see her?” Cassidy asked, excited.
“Yes, she’s on her way.” Iona wanted to cheer, to urge the cub on. Come on, girl!
Cassidy wailed again, the sound winding into a shriek. Iona spread the towels and reached for the cub as her head slid out. For some reason, Iona knew exactly what to do—not the human in her, but the Shifter.
“One more, Cass. You can do it.”
Cassidy screamed. Diego cried, “Fuck this!” and Iona heard his harried footfalls as he ran back to the table.
At the same time the cub, a human baby, slid into Iona’s hands.
Diego’s face nearly blotted out the baby Iona struggled to hold as he looked with great shock at his daughter. Then Eric was there, clearing the infant’s nose. The little one inhaled her first breath and blared her unhappiness to the world.
Cassidy turned, the cord still stretching from her to the cub. “Amanda,” she said.
She sounded so sure. “Yep,” Iona said in a choked voice. “It’s a little girl.”
“See?” Cassidy said to Diego, whose dark eyes streamed tears as he touched Amanda’s face. “I knew it was a girl.” And Cassidy reached to gather her into her arms.
Diego came over all fierce as soon as little Amanda was cleaned up, Cassidy nursing her, and went out to bully the staff into giving Cassidy a bedroom where she could rest. Cassidy protested that she was fine to go home, but when Diego and Eric got her to the back bedroom the clinic finally allowed them to use, she drooped.
Iona and Eric left Diego and Cass to be alone with their child, and went to celebrate with the other Shifters who waited in the lobby. Jace, all smiles, kept breaking into a gyrating dance. Because he was as handsome as his father at thirty years old, the nurses at the front des
k enjoyed feasting their eyes on him.
Iona’s eyes were filled with tears. “That was so wonderful.”
Eric held her close, kissing the top of her head. Shane and Brody fell into teasing each other and laughing, loudly, the bear brothers excited. Bringing in a cub—successfully, with mother and cub alive and well—was a cause for great celebration.
Diego came down after a time to report that Cassidy and the baby were sleeping. He looked wrung out, triumphant, radiantly happy, and exhausted. Xavier put an arm around him and declared that Diego could use a drink.
Cassidy had asked for Iona before she’d fallen asleep, and Iona gladly went back upstairs. Shane, Brody, and Jace stayed as honorary guards, while Eric said it was his task to go back to Shiftertown and spread the glad news. Neal went with him, his usually taciturn face bathed in smiles, the Guardian happily not needed today.
Upstairs, the nurses had rolled a baby bed next to Cassidy’s so Cass could be near Amanda while they slept. Iona lay in an armchair, her feet over one of its arms, drowsing in the warmth of the room, the curtains pulled closed against the sunshine.
Iona didn’t mean to sleep, but she jumped awake into sudden silence, knowing someone had entered the room.
Her Shifter nose told her it wasn’t Diego or Eric or even another Shifter. She began to swing up from the chair, ready to fight.
Her hand contacted a human man hovering over her in the dim light, but though the man grunted in pain, Iona felt the prick of a needle in her skin, and her limbs suddenly stopped working.
Iona tried to shout to Cassidy, but the floor rushed up to her, and blackness closed in. The last thing Iona saw was a man in a white mask bending over Cassidy and Amanda, and then nothing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Iona drifted to wakefulness, stiff, sore, and angry, though she didn’t remember why she was angry. She also didn’t remember the beds in Eric’s house being so uncomfortable.
No, she seemed to be on a chair. Had she fallen asleep in the living room? But even those chairs weren’t as uncomfortable as this one.
Then Iona remembered—she was at the clinic with Cassidy. She’d dozed off in an armchair while Cassidy and baby Amanda snoozed across the room. Then someone had come in…
The panther in her came wide awake, though Iona kept her eyes closed. The memory of the wrong scent, the human bending over her, then the prick of a needle had her Shifter as alert as a predator spotting elusive prey.
Iona stretched her other senses without opening her eyes, not wanting to alert whoever had attacked her that she was awake again.
The scent of this room was different from Cassidy’s room in the clinic. That one had borne the overlapping hospital scents of antiseptic, people, and the faint, faraway odor of urine. This room was dusty and dry, and the tickle of rust spores touched her nose.
Iona also scented Cassidy lying nearby and heard her breathing. That was a relief.
What she did not scent was the powdery, new-baby smell of Amanda.
Iona sensed no one else—not human or Shifter—and she risked opening her eyes a crack.
The only light came from a window high in the wall that showed a patch of twilit sky. The dim light revealed that she was in another hospital room, but one that looked as though it hadn’t been used in a long time.
Cassidy lay on what looked like a gurney, her arms and legs unnaturally stiff. Iona saw why as her Shifter sight adjusted to the light—Cassidy’s wrists and ankles were locked down with metal cuffs. A bag of clear liquid hung on a stand next to Cassidy, an IV drip snaking into her arm. Iona definitely didn’t like that.
No one else seemed to be in the room or even outside it. Iona strained to listen, but her Shifter hearing picked up nothing beyond the door. Either the hallway was deserted, or the room was well soundproofed.
Iona had been tied to the metal and plastic chair on which she sat, but with ordinary rope. The rope was cheap, its prickly, synthetic fibers chafing her wrists, but it was strong.
Not strong enough for a Shifter, however.
They still think I’m human. A normal human might not be able to extricate herself from the bonds, but a Shifter easily could.
The panther within her urged caution. If their captors believed Iona to be human, of minimal danger to them, she needed to let them keep on thinking that.
Iona scanned the room for webcams or other cameras or listening devices. She saw nothing, but that didn’t mean they weren’t cleverly hidden.
The room grew darker, night coming quickly in the winter desert. Iona contained her impatience and waited as the sun continued its descent.
No lights came on when the last of the sunlight winked out. Iona waited another five minutes, making herself count every second, until at last she sat in full darkness.
Think of the form you want to be, then be it.
Iona pictured her limbs becoming those of her panther, slender and strong. She suppressed the growl in her throat as her arms and legs changed, black fur emerging over flesh.
She spread her front paws. The plastic ropes stretched, then slackened enough for Iona to easily slip out. Her dainty panther paws also slid quickly out of the ropes that bound her feet.
Iona closed her eyes again and willed herself back to human. Leaning over, she slipped her shoes on and leveraged herself silently from the chair.
She had three goals—wake and free Cassidy, find Amanda, and contact Eric. Eric would already be coming, once he and Diego discovered the abduction. She had no doubts that the two men would tear apart the town trying to find them. They’d have an easier time if Iona could figure out where she and Cassidy were and let Eric know.
A quick check told her that their captors had taken the small purse Iona had snatched up when going with Cassidy to the clinic. That meant they had her phone and wallet with her driver’s license and all her credit cards. Oh well, more proof that she was human.
The room had no phones, not that Iona had expected one. She couldn’t spot any outlets for phone lines, which was unusual in a building that looked as though it had been constructed at least in the eighties, maybe earlier.
Iona made her way to Cassidy and, without bothering to figure out what was in the drip bag, untaped the needle in Cassidy’s arm and tugged it out. Whatever they were feeding her, it couldn’t be good.
Cassidy drew a long breath, then her eyes opened, and she jumped, her limbs still tethered to the table.
“Shh.” Iona touched her shoulder. “Be quiet. They might be listening.”
Cassidy drew another breath, which broke on a sob. “They took Amanda. I couldn’t stop them before they tranqed me. They took my cub.” Tears trickled from her eyes.
“We’ll find her, I swear to you. Are you all right?”
“I will be, once I kill the humans who took my cub.”
Iona patted her shoulder. “Sounds like you’re all right, then.” She touched the metal cuff on Cassidy’s wrist. “Can you shift and slide out of that?”
“It’s tight.”
Cassidy closed her eyes and, as Iona had, let her hands and feet change to those of her wildcat. The cuffs, however, were small enough to clamp down on her slender cat’s limbs, and too strong for Cassidy or Iona to break them.
Cassidy changed back to human, letting out a sigh. “They must be designed to contain Shifters. They knew what they were doing.”
Iona figured out how to turn off the drip from the bag, then she laid the needle under the crook of Cassidy’s arm. “Stay still and pretend to be unconscious. I’m going to look for Amanda.”
Cassidy’s eyes shone with fear in the darkness. “Goddess, Iona. I can’t just lie here.”
Iona leaned over her, putting her hands on Cassidy’s shoulders. How did Eric do it, soothe away fears when he was afraid himself? Iona gently caressed her new sister-in-law, meeting Cassidy’s terrified gaze.
“I promise you, I won’t stop until I’ve found her. And I’ll find a way to contact Eric. We’ll get ou
t of this and go home. All of us.”
Cassidy looked no less afraid, but she gave Iona a faint smile. “You don’t have to try to reassure me.”
“I’m not reassuring you. I’m telling you. I will find Amanda and call Eric. If someone comes back, tell them I managed to get out of my ropes, but you don’t know how. Or just pretend to be so groggy you don’t know what’s going on. Promise me, Cass.”
Cassidy’s eyes widened, but she seemed to strengthen under Iona’s gaze. “I’m just not used to being the one who has to be rescued.”
Iona kissed her forehead. “Consider it a chance to rest. I’ll be back for you.”
Cassidy didn’t answer, but she looked grateful.
Iona studied the ropes still around the chair she’d vacated, changed one of her hands to her panther’s paw, and used razor-sharp claws to slice through the bonds. With luck, their captors would think Iona had managed to cut her way out with a knife they’d overlooked. Then Iona took off her clothes and hid them.
She said another quiet good-bye to Cassidy and tried the handle of the one door to the room. It was locked, of course.
The door looked fairly new compared to the dinginess of the rest of the room. The door handle, likewise, was new and stout, locked with a key. A human being, unless very strong, probably couldn’t do anything with that door.
Iona thought about her half-shifted self, which she hadn’t liked becoming, because her Shifter mind and human mind had warred within her too much. She swallowed, willing herself to stay calm, and let herself become the half-human beast.
As soon as she flowed into that form, she wanted to stay in it. Strong, I am so strong. Let those humans get in front of me, I dare them.
She wanted to charge through the halls of wherever they were, find someone—anyone—and choke them until they told her where Amanda was. The cub was her niece, a child of her pride. Anyone who’d touched her would pay.
Iona grabbed the door handle with her half hand, half paw and twisted until the handle broke. She thrust her fingers into the resulting hole and pushed the lock mechanism with all her strength. The lock gave way, and the door silently opened.
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