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And Maggie was staring at me in the doorway of the trailer, and I surfaced, like this, like coming up for air and gasping for breath and—

The police car pulls to a stop and two officers get out. I can see them through the window, drawing their guns. They are coming for the door.

Penelopewouldn’thave called them.

The bond stirs within me.

I feel it yanking on me. It wants to pull me down underwater again, and I try to push back through it, to find Lotus, and to do what I did to her, across the distance, when she wanted to let Striker bite her. I try to steady her, but…

She’s too strong.

We are all mated now, and the others are waking, too, and their alpha presence splashes into the bond, bright colors of alarm that make me feel as if I cannot keep my balance. I clutch the windowsill to stay upright, fighting for some semblance of myself in the midst of the rising flood of instinct and emotion.

Danger.

It’s not a word, not exactly, but it is somehow now the unifying force of the pack, who are moving together, like hulking, predatory cats. The others move around Lotus, keeping her in the middle as they surge forward.

The bond pulls me in, too.

Our omega is in danger, and it is our mandate, our Goddess-blessed purpose, to protect her.

A banging on the door. “Police. Open up.” The words are harsh, and I sort of register them somewhere, but the force that is controlling my body does not understand them as anything other than danger.

My mates, my fellow alphas, are trained to deal with danger, and they are lethal. They spring out of the nest with a single-minded movement. I know we are going to rip that danger to shreds, no matter what is in the way.

We surge down the stairs, all our movements fluid and graceful, like panthers tracking prey in the wild. Lotus stays to the rear, but she is moving in the same way, all of us together, and she has a lethality to her that zings through me and makes me feel lit from the inside.

Another knock. “Open up or we come in.”

We’re into the living room now, the front room of the house.

We all crouch, ready.

The door opens.

The police there have their guns out, but pointing at the floor as they move inside, looking around.

One begins to bring his weapon up.

And Striker tackles him.

They go down in a tangle of limbs, and the other officer points his gun at them, but he can’t seem to see what’s Striker and what’s his partner, and he hesitates too long before he brings his gun up to aim at the rest of us.

And we are already on top of him.

In moments, we have their guns.

Knight tucks one into the waist of his pants as Striker stands up with the other officer’s gun.

The two police cower, hands up.

Striker takes aim, his face entirely expressionless.

No, says some part of me, some thing deep inside, something that still thinks and reasons. We can’t have the death of police officers on our heads.

Striker glances at me.

I’m fighting again, trying to break through to the surface.