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“Was that…? Was that wolf Lukas? ” I twisted my neck toward the direction I’d last seen the wolf. It was still too dark to see anything and there were too many crates in the way, but I heard the growls, and two men’s pleading voices.

“Of course,” Rafe said.

“But…how did you find me?” I felt pressure at my wrists and heard the snap of the zip-ties breaking.

“Followed your scent.”

I massaged my wrists while Rafe sawed at the plastic ties that secured my ankles to the legs of the chair. “But I was in a car. ”

“The idiots must have had their windows down, and you didn’t go far. Thankfully, we got here before it started to rain. That would’ve made it tough.”

From somewhere deep in the warehouse, a man screamed a blood-curdling scream, and another lightning bolt—this one of fear—shot straight down my spine.

“What’s Lukas doing?” I asked, not sure I wanted the answer.

“Don’t worry about Lukas,” Rafe said, his calm voice clearly trying to soothe.

It was a nice gesture, but my heart stuttered at the sound of cries and vicious snarls bouncing off the warehouse’s metal roof and walls.

“Stop him!” I cried, begging Rafe to do something. “You gotta stop him before he kills those guys.”

“I’m not gonna fucking stop him,” he said. “They deserve whatever they get.”

Another man let loose with one final scream, and a gruesomely wet ripping sound slashed the night.

Rafe carried me outside, into the rain, and set me on my feet.

“You all right?” he asked, keeping me steady with his hands around my upper arms. “Deep breaths.”

I wasn’t crying—the whole thing had been too shocking for tears—but he was right. I was finding it hard to catch my breath.

“Fine,” I said, then jolted when an engine revved, and a silver SUV rushed up behind us. I twisted out of Rafe’s grip, preparing to run.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Rafe said, keeping his hands on me. “It’s just the old man.”

“Who?” I asked, narrowing my eyes on the car.

“Bjorn,” Rafe explained. “Lukas and I came on foot. Bjorn’s brought a car to get you home.”

The car parked, and the door opened. By then, I was violently shivering, not only from the cold rain but from the realization of what had happened to me, what had nearly happened to me, and what might still be happening inside the warehouse.

“Here,” Bjorn said. His big berserker bear arms encircled me as he wrapped me in a wool blanket. “It’ll keep you warm, even if it’s wet, though it does smell like a wet dog. Kinda like you, Rafe.”

“Shut up,” Rafe said.

Another door opened—this one to the warehouse—and Lukas strolled out wearing clean street clothes.

I scanned his body. It had been two against one, but he seemed completely unscathed. Something told me the streaks of blood on his neck and face hadn’t come from him.

His wild eyes glowed a bluish silver, and they landed immediately on me, before sliding to the hell hound and the bear who were pressed up close around me, shielding me.

Rafe and Bjorn immediately stepped back and away.

“She’s okay,” Rafe said. “Tough as nails.”

It took Lukas only a few long strides to cover the ground that separated us, all the while scanning my body for injuries. Once he was right in front of me, he held my face in his hands and his eyes narrowed on the skin beneath my right eye.

“I really am okay,” I said, confirming Rafe’s assessment.

A muscle jumped in Lukas’s jaw, and he pressed his thumb under my eye to what I guessed was a small pinprick of blood.

“What happened?” Lukas growled.

I glanced back and forth between all of their faces. “I was just walking back from the grocery store…”

“In the dark?” Lukas asked.

“It’s a safe neighborhood!” I cried, not liking the disapproval in his tone. “Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

Lukas’s face got stormy. “You can’t?—”

“Let her talk,” Rafe said.

Lukas’s eyes darted to Rafe, then back to me. His mouth was tight, but his eyes were apologetic.

I swallowed hard. “I heard someone following me, then the next thing I knew, I was shoved into an alley, my wrists tied… He taped my mouth and pulled a hood over my head, pushed me into a car, and brought me here.”

Lukas dragged his hand down over his face, and I didn’t miss that his claws were yet to completely retract.

“Did he say who he was, or what the hell he wanted with you?” Rafe asked.

I bit my lip, not wanting to make trouble between my brother and his captain, but this was serious. They needed to know. “I think my brother’s in trouble,” I whispered. “I was supposed to be a…a message .”

“A message?” Lukas asked.

Rafe reached into his back pocket and pulled out my attacker’s knife. He handed it over to Lukas.

Lukas held the knife in his palms, and he stared down at it for several seconds before saying, “I heard your scream. I got down to the street as fast as I could, but you were already gone. ”

My heart squeezed, imagining the panic I must have caused him. “I’m?—”

“I called Rafe to help me track,” Lukas continued.

“Not the police?” I asked.

Lukas, Rafe, and Bjorn all stared at me blankly.

“Uh…” I blinked at them in confusion. “You’re hockey players. Not commandos.”

Again with the blank stares.

I blew out a breath. “Continue.”

“I called Rafe,” Lukas said, “because hell hounds can tilt. He got to me fast, and as soon as we knew where you were, we called Bjorn to bring a car. But we called Rogue, too. He’s your brother. He needed to know.”

“And?” I asked, my adrenaline spiking because Evan wasn’t here, and I wasn’t sure what that meant.

“It keeps going to voicemail,” Bjorn said.

“You don’t think someone got him too, do you?” My voice came out like a squeak, and I glanced toward the warehouse. “He owes those guys money.”

“Not anymore he doesn’t,” Rafe said.

There was no missing his meaning. I turned toward Lukas and whispered, “Why did you do that?”

Lukas pinned me with a look so intense I got a full-body shiver. “They hurt a person I care about.”

I didn’t know what to do with that. I didn’t know what to think. Therefore, I didn’t respond.

“Elli,” he said, “You know this in theory, but you’ve obviously never seen the realities of it.

I live in the human world, but I’m not human.

I also live in a different world— my world.

And in my world, any man who grabs a woman who’s just trying to buy her groceries in her own neighborhood, hoods her, throws her in a car, and holds a knife to her face, should not breathe easy. ”

“They didn’t hurt me that bad.” Lukas’s retribution wasn’t a case of an eye-for-an-eye. His was more of an eye-for-a-paper-cut. As terrifying as the night had been, the permanent punishment didn’t fit the crime.

“Take all the time you need to come to terms with this,” Lukas said. “With who I am.”

“With who we all are,” Rafe added quietly.

I stared into Lukas’s eyes, then asked cautiously, “But don’t you think that was a little extreme?”

“Not even close,” Lukas said with no small amount of menace.

I held my breath.

Lukas held my eyes.

I released my breath and looked away.

“Let’s get you home,” he said. “We’re not going to resolve any of this tonight, and you’re shaking.”

I looked down at myself. He was right. I was visibly shaking even under the blanket. “Are you just going to leave those guys in there?”

“Yes,” Lukas said. “They’re trash.”

“They’re human beings ,” I countered. “Just because they’re not a berserker, or a fae, or a?—”

“They’re not trash because they’re human ,” Lukas said, sounding irritated by my misapprehension.

“They’re trash because they’re monsters who put their sights on you.

They wanted to send a message? Well, I’ve sent one of my own.

Your brother’s problems, whatever they are, are not yours.

And no one will make that mistake twice. ”