“He’s dying.”

“The weak die; it’s the way of lions.”

“With this power we can call his beast. We can save him.”

His arms tightened further around me. “I don’t want him saved.”

“I do.”

“Be with me and we can save him.”

I’d kissed him without thinking, and now my arms were pinned down between our bodies with his arms wrapped around me. I couldn’t reach either gun or the big knife down my back, but I could reach the wrist sheaths. I pretended to struggle ineffectually and knew Haven of all the men in my life would buy it. One of our problems was that he just couldn’t see women as equal. Equally dangerous, that is.

I used the struggling to hide my drawing one of the slender silver blades, and only as he felt my arm tense to drive the blade home did he realize his danger.

He started to let me go, to get distance, but I had time to start the blade into his body. Had time to feel it sink home, the razor-sharp blade slicing through his shirt and the meat underneath, sinking home the way it had a hundred other times in big bad monsters. The only thing that saved him was that he had my arms pinned too low on his body for me to reach his heart, even if he hadn’t moved.

He let me go, stumbling back from me. I had time to see the blood on my knife, the first bloom of red on his shirt, the surprise on his face. His two guards were frozen, not knowing what to do. It was as if they hadn’t believed I’d hurt him.

I yelled to our guards, “Keep him off me until I’ve healed Noel.” I didn’t turn my back on the wounded werelion, but I backed up as fast as I could. Bram and the other guards were moving around Haven ready to do exactly what I’d said.

The taller female werelion was kneeling beside Noel. She was stroking his hair, and I realized the moment I’d stabbed Haven that the double vision of glowing lions overlaid on the human form had vanished, as if I’d done something to damage all that power.

The woman raised brown eyes to me. They were shiny with unshed tears. She whispered, “You’re too late.”

17

I LAID MY hand on Noel’s back. I waited for his body to breathe, but it didn’t come. “Shit,” I said. “Get Dr. Lillian, get someone. Get some fucking medics down here now!”

I heard someone on their cell phone doing what I’d asked. Please, God, don’t let him die. He was only twenty-four, a year older than Nathaniel. The brown-haired woman knelt by his head, tears beginning to trail down her face. “Don’t cry, not yet,” I said. She looked at me, startled. I realized she was wearing a red dress. It was as if I were only seeing things in pieces. The other female lion came to stand by us. Her long blond hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she was wearing almost as many weapons as I was. “This wasn’t our choice.”

I realized that the guards and the other three lions were fighting. Haven was trying to get to me, whether to hurt me back or try for another kiss I didn’t know and I didn’t give a fuck. I trusted the guards to keep him off me. Hell, I trusted Wicked and Truth alone to keep a small army of werelions off me. Three lions was nothing.

“If we had a real Regina or Rex, we could delay it,” the blonde said.

I nodded, because to some part of me that sounded logical. I remembered the energy between Haven and me, and the ghosts of fire around the other werelions. I prayed, Help me save him. I visualized my lioness, but not inside me; I tried to call that shining, golden fire that had been around us all just minutes ago.

The blonde knelt by me. “Like this,” she said, and suddenly I could see her lioness again, so much bigger than her human form, a wavering golden energy that looked at me with golden eyes while her blue eyes stared at me through a lion’s mask.

I reached out, and the moment her hand came near enough mine it was as if I caught fire. My lioness blazed around us, golden, shining, burning bright. I turned dark gold eyes to the other woman and held out my hand. She reached out and the three of us knelt over Noel. We didn’t touch hands, but it was as if that pulsing energy touched the fire of our lions.

“We put energy into him, force his beast,” the blonde said.

“Do it,” I said.

She reached down to Noel’s still form, and our hands came with hers so that we all touched him at the same time. But it was like trying to heat stone; there was no answering spark. I knew how to work with the dead, but not like this.

“It’s too late,” the dark-haired woman said.

“No!” I said.

“Maybe,” the blonde said.

I called out, “Jean-Claude!”

He came to me, kneeling beside me. “What would you have of me, ma petite?”

“He’s too far gone. Help me.”

He didn’t say the obvious, that he didn’t know how, or that we’d never attempted anything like this. He simply called, “Richard, Nathaniel, Damian, come.”

Nathaniel and Damian came immediately. Nathaniel asked, “Where do you want us?”

“Touch your master,” Jean-Claude said.

They laid a hand on each of my shoulders as they knelt, and the moment they touched me I felt my eyes go. Through the golden glow of the lions I knew my eyes burned like dark brown stars. Nathaniel and Damian cried out beside me and they turned purple and green glowing eyes to me. The lion’s energy flowed over them both. Nathaniel’s leopard sprang to life like some wavering black shape. Damian had no animal to flow and he was just covered in the gold of lions.

Jean-Claude knelt behind the three of us and laid his hands over theirs, so we all touched. The energy flowed over him, too, but I felt it spark, like a jolt of electricity through it all. I didn’t have to see it to know that his eyes had sunk to midnight-blue fire.

Richard stood above us, hesitating. “What do I do?”

“Touch Jean-Claude,” I said.

I wasn’t sure he’d do it, but he did. He stayed on his feet so he loomed above us all, but laid his hands over Jean-Claude’s and the power spread, flowed. I heard him say, “God!” Then I felt Jean-Claude move closer against my body. I moved my legs apart so he could press as much of himself against as much of me as possible. I knew that Richard, still standing, was pressed against the back of Jean-Claude.

The five of us knelt in a flickering bonfire of different-colored energy, but it didn’t travel to the lions. Their power flowed to us, but not the other way. I realized that the blond woman’s hand was just above mine, not touching.

I grabbed her hand. She startled and started to pull away, saying, “It doesn’t work like that . . . ,” but then our energy jumped the circuit. It flowed down my hand and into her. Her hand convulsed around mine and around the dark-haired woman. I saw the black flame of my leopard, the spark of Jean-Claude’s eyes, and the emerald glow of Damian, and a reddish shine that had to be Richard’s wolf flow into the lions.

The dark-haired woman laid her hand on Noel. His body jumped as the power shoved into him. His human body split, gushing thick, warm, liquid around our knees. Fur flowed over him until he lay in the shape of a huge lion. Its dark mane was not very thick, not very impressive, but I didn’t give a damn. I just wanted him to breathe.

Micah was suddenly there. He knelt on the other side of Nathaniel and took his other hand. The power jumped another octave.

The woman touching him said, “Heartbeat, but he’s not breathing.”

I felt lion, more lion, running down the hallway toward us. I knew it was Nicky still in lionman form. He was coming for the fight, coming toward the energy we were raising. I knew that the lions more than the other animal groups gave off energy to attract, or warn off, other lions, but I hadn’t understood until this moment that there were other things you could do with all that power.