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Jace released her quartz and grabbed her arm. “Don’t even think about running. Understand?”

She growled, but nodded. He rose to his feet, bringing her with him.

She was tall and curvy. Jace took in her body with clinical detachment; shifters were used to seeing each other in their skins. He was more concerned about getting a naked woman back to Evie’s without some asshat human calling the cops.

The woman touched the side of her head. “Hurts.”

She was telling the truth, and yet he sensed the lie beneath. She wasn’t as injured as she was pretending.

He hardened his jaw. “What’s your name?”

She pressed her lips together. Names had power in their world.

He jerked her close and slid a finger over her quartz.

Her eyes flashed angrily. She knocked his hand away and wrapped her own fingers around the quartz, protecting it. “Nika,” she gritted.

“That’s better.” He took a firm hold of her upper arm. “Let’s go.”

Their mad dash through Grace Harbor had taken the form of a large circle. They’d ended up just a few blocks from Evie’s house.

Jace hurried the woman through the night, keeping an eye out for both the cops and Corban, although Jace was pretty sure the wolf would have to go to ground. Even with the help of his quartz, that leg of his was going to take a few days to heal.

They reached Evie’s house without incident. Jace marched his captive up the steps and tapped on the back door with his free hand. “Evie? It’s me, Jace.”

She did a double take when she saw him standing there naked, bloodied, and with a tall, curvy, and very naked female. “What the—”

“I’ll explain—just let me in, please.”

She hesitated another few seconds and then stepped back. “Come in.”

“Thanks.” Jace strong-armed his captive into the kitchen. “Do you have any rope?”

Evie started to nod, then her eyes widened. “You want to tie her up?”

“She attacked me, Evie. I promise I won’t hurt her—I just want to keep her quiet until Adric arrives.”

The shift had healed both his and Nika’s superficial cuts, but he was still bleeding from the claw marks on his face, shoulder, and thigh, and Nika’s face had a deep gash from the blow he’d struck with his hind claws.

Evie’s gaze flicked to the blood on Jace’s face to Nika’s, and then she opened the door to the pantry.

“I think I have something in here…”

While he was gone, she’d changed into a purple tank top and loose gray shorts that stopped halfway down her thighs, exposing a length of strong, shapely legs. He eyed her calves as she rummaged in the pantry for rope and silently wished Nika back beneath whatever rock she’d crawled out from under.

“Is there anything I can do?” Kyler asked. To the kid’s credit, after one quick look at Nika, he’d kept his eyes on her face.

Jace nodded. “Get her a towel or something to cover up with.”

“Right.” The teenager jogged upstairs and returned a minute later with a large beach towel and a pair of gym shorts for Jace.

Jace wrapped the towel around Nika and pulled out a chair. He twirled it to face him. “Sit.”

While she obeyed, he dragged on the shorts. His own clothes were still outside where he’d dropped them, but he wasn’t going to open the door until Adric got here. He didn’t think Corban would try anything until his leg healed, but he wasn’t going to take any chances with Evie and Kyler.

He snagged a paper towel. “Give me your quartz,” he ordered Nika.

Her claws slid out. “And if I say no?”

He locked gazes with her. He couldn’t risk Nika changing to her cougar. With her teeth and claws, she could do serious damage to a human within seconds. “You don’t want to play games with me.”

She snarled but gave in, conceding Jace the silent contest. As he’d suspected, he was several degrees dominant to her. She scowled and dragged off the quartz, setting it on the towel. He wrapped it carefully and stowed it in his pocket.

Nika wound the beach towel more tightly around herself and slumped in the chair.

Good. She wasn’t going to try anything without her quartz.

She wouldn’t even attempt to escape. An earth fada could survive without a quartz, but no one would do it willingly.

It was like having a vise around your chest. You couldn’t breathe as well, you had less energy.

You could make do with another quartz, but finding the perfect match, a quartz that resonated with you on a magical level, could take weeks.

Jace leaned against the counter and examined his captive. She had red hair and unusually pale skin for an earth fada.

She stared back impassively. “You have sent for Lord Adric?” It was the longest sentence she’d said yet. For the first time, he realized she had a foreign accent—Russian or some other Slavic country. Where the hell had Corban found her, anyway?

“Yeah.” Jace glanced at the kitchen clock. “He should be here any minute.”

Fear etched her face.

“I see you’ve heard of him.”

“Of course.” She smoothed her expression, but he scented her rising dread. “He is well known.”

Jace nodded. Earth fada weren’t as prolific as the water fada; there were only a dozen clans scattered around the world.

The Baltimore clan had come to Maryland about fifty years ago by way of Jamaica and the Persian Gulf.

Adric might be the youngest alpha, but his reputation as a ruthless SOB had quickly spread.

“You entered Adric’s territory,” Jace said, “and attacked one of his own people. I’d say you were asking to meet him.”

She moved a shoulder, her gaze on the floor.

“And Nika?” He leaned closer. “Everything you’ve heard about him is true.”

She remained silent but a fine tremor went down her spine. He grinned evilly and came upright to find Kyler eyeing him with a mixture of horror and respect. He winked at the lanky kid over the top of Nika’s head.

Evie exited the pantry with a ball of clothesline. “Will this work?”

“Perfect.” Jace took it and turned to Nika. “Put your hands behind the chair.”

The cougar bit her lip. “Please. There is no need. I will not run—I swear it.”

Jace inhaled. She had the scent of truth. Beside him, Evie tensed and he caught a whiff of fear.

A spike of anger lanced through him—not at Evie, but at Corban and the life he, Jace, led. He knew damn well any headway he’d made with Evie tonight had evaporated the minute he dragged a naked and injured woman into her kitchen. His stomach hollowed.

And things were about to get worse, because he was going to have to convince her to leave town. Corban Savonett was a coldhearted bastard and Jace’s scent was all over Evie. If Corban couldn’t take down Jace, he’d go after her next. Grace Harbor was no longer safe for her or Kyler.

Evie dragged a hand over her cropped blond hair. “I know she attacked you, but she’s hurt.”

Jace swore under his breath but dropped the clothesline on the table. “All right,” he told Nika. “But one false move and I’ll smash your quartz into a hundred pieces. Are we clear?”

Her throat worked. She dropped her head so that her tangled red hair hid her face and gave a jerky nod. “Yes.” She touched the bump on her head. “Hurts.”

Jace didn’t trust her worth a damn, but the pitiful-me act worked with Evie. “Can I give her a glass of water?”

He sighed in defeat. “Sure. Why not?”

While Evie got Nika water, Kyler handed her an ice pack for her head. Jace hooked his foot around the bottom rung of the nearest chair and dragged it in front of Nika. He dropped onto the seat and crossed his arms. Not speaking, just making it clear she wasn’t moving an inch without his say-so.

Nika pressed the ice pack to her head and stared down at the floor. At least she was smart enough not to challenge him directly.

Evie touched his shoulder. “Jace?”

“What?” he rapped out without taking his gaze from his prisoner.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’ll live.” But now the adrenaline had worn off, he was feeling every single one of the bites and cuts Corban and Nika had torn out of his hide.

Shifting had caused most of them to scab over, but a gash on his thigh was oozing blood.

The worst was his abdomen, where it felt like the deeper of the knife wounds had torn open again.

“This is getting to be a bad habit.” Evie’s tone was dry. “You bleeding in my kitchen.”

He barked out a laugh and glanced up in time to see her lopsided grin. The hollow feeling eased. “Clean it up then,” he grumbled. But his cat twitched its tail in delight.

Evie dampened a clean washcloth and used it to dab at the cuts on his face and shoulder. When she got to the gash on his thigh, she sucked in a breath.

“Just clean it,” he said. “I can heal it.”

“Sure you can.”

When she was finished, he ran his quartz over his thigh. The wound tingled and started closing up. The knife wound was trickier, but he sent a burst of energy into it and hoped it would hold until Suha could work her magic.

Nika watched, the ice pack to her head.

Evie sent him a look from where she was washing her hands in the sink.

He could practically hear her urging him to help the injured woman as well.

With a sigh, he rose to his feet and ran his quartz over the gashes on Nika’s face and head.

Just a few quick pulses, but it would ease her pain as well as speed up her healing.

Without her quartz, her ability to heal herself was even worse than the average human’s, since all her energy was now being directed to merely staying alive.

Kyler took a seat on the other side of the table, while Evie remained standing. The kid raised a shaggy brown brow. “So we’re waiting for Lord Adric?”

“Yeah. Tell me,” Jace said, “what did that guy say to you, anyway? The one who was outside?”

Kyler glanced at his sister.

She cocked a hip against the counter. “Tell him, Kyler.”

“He said that you were just fucking with Evie. That you eat little girls like her for breakfast.”