Sinclair

I growl at the man before me, younger than I expected for someone so powerful. He has thick black hair and a day's worth of stubble on his thin cheeks. He glares up with dark, angry eyes and opens his mouth to speak, but before he can, I slap him hard with an open palm.

The man gasps in surprise and pain, his eyes widening as he stares at the floor. I smirk. I doubt he's been slapped recently, if ever. He has the smug look of someone accustomed to being in charge.

But he's in my house now.

"You'll speak when we tell you to," I growl, then turn to the head of my reconnaissance team, who stands against the wall, hands on his knees, panting slightly. Craig isn't a small man, so his distress suggests this diminutive priest is indeed powerful.

"How did you catch him?" I snap. Craig looks up, trying to straighten. "We followed leads, sir," he replies, meeting my eyes, "gleaned from a conversation with another priest, who wished to remain anonymous. They were fruitful. We found this one's lair—in an abandoned maintenance room in a sewer. He was living there, practicing…" Craig hesitates, then shrugs. "Forgive me, sir, for the dramatic language, but 'arcane magics' are the only words that come to mind. Lizard skins and snail shells in jars—he had a cauldron—"

"Thank you," I say, interrupting and nodding towards Alastair. "You will give your details to him as soon as possible. For now, I want everyone here for the interrogation." I lean towards the priest, who watches me with wary eyes and a clenched jaw.

"The interrogation," I continue, lowering my voice and slowing my speech, "will be long, and bloody, if necessary."

The priest, surprisingly brave, bares his teeth in a snarl. I laugh, making him falter. I step away, secretly grateful; my muscles are tense, ready to kill him. Roger steps in.

"Tell us," Roger commands, arms crossed, looking down at the man strapped to the chair, "who you are. And what your people want with my brother's child."

The man grins—a wide, toothy grin. "No," he growls, a hint of laughter in his voice. Roger stares at him impassively, then glances at a reconnaissance team member who quickly produces a taser and presses it against the priest's neck.

The bolt shocks the priest, making him shriek and writhe, but my well-trained man removes it quickly. The priest slumps, panting.

"Let's try again," Roger says, kicking the chair leg to get the priest's attention. "What do your people want with my nephew?"

My eyes narrow as the priest looks up and laughs humorlessly. "It doesn't matter," he says, shaking his head and holding my gaze. "Because," he pants, a smile spreading across his face, "you are already…too late."

He laughs, a crash of glass sounds, and a scream erupts upstairs—Ella's scream. My heart stops.

Ella

I sat tensely in my rocking chair by Rafe's basinet, one hand on its edge, quietly shushing him as he drifted to sleep, when I heard a tapping at his window.

I looked, expecting a bird or squirrel.

Terror flooded me as I saw a black-masked face calmly tapping, grinning at me. He pointed to the basinet and mouthed, "I'm coming for him."

Then, it happened quickly. The man pulled back his arm, made a fist, and crashed it through the window—it shouldn't have been possible. Sinclair paid to have those windows reinforced. He forced his body, headfirst, through the hole, shattering the rest of the glass.

The moment he hit the floor, my instincts returned. I pulled Rafe's basinet behind me and screamed. I shoved the rocking chair into the corner. As the man rose, I saw more men behind him, climbing through the window—unnaturally fast.

The lead man grinned, prowling towards me. My wolf instincts surged. I snarled, my nails elongating into claws, my teeth sharpening. It wasn't a full transformation, but enough to warn them.

They would not take my child.

Not ever. Not over my dead body.

"Here, kitty, kitty," the man said menacingly, a foot away. "Hand over your little kitten, like a good girl—"

I roared and swiped at his face, protecting Rafe while catching his cheek. My claws opened three deep cuts across his face, visible through the mask, from ear to nose and mouth.

He flinched, then glared, backed by at least eight men.

"You'll pay for that, bitch," he snarled.

I roared back, fury in every fiber of my being, ready to shred them. My message was clear. Come at me.

The lead man laughed, and they attacked.

I was overwhelmed, pressing my back to Rafe's basinet, tearing at their flesh, roaring constantly. But there were too many. I was pulled away from the basinet, feeling something cut my back. I screamed in pain and saw a man reaching into the basinet.

"RAFE!" I screamed, reaching for him.

Something grabbed me, pulling me away, as a black-masked man lifted my child and smiled at me.