By the next evening, Catriona has made contact and Mikhail has taken the bait. Now I'm crouched in the scrub grass near the old lighthouse, watching the cliff path while waves crash against the rocks below. The structure looms behind us—paint peeling, windows dark, exactly the kind of isolated location that gives an ambush predator too much confidence.
Finn's positioned on the far side of the cliffs, hidden in the shadows where he can move quickly if things go bad. Rafe's in the ruins of the old keeper's cottage, watching the approach road. The rest of the brotherhood is scattered in a loose perimeter, close enough to respond but far enough to avoid detection.
And Catriona's standing beside me, her tiger prowling just beneath her skin. She's calm, focused, and ready.
"He's coming," she murmurs.
I catch it a second later—the scent of smoke and spice on the wind. Mikhail. Something snarls inside me, and I have to force it back down. Not yet.
Mikhail appears at the edge of the cliff path, moving with the easy confidence of a predator who thinks he's already won. He's dressed in a dark coat, his silver hair gleaming in the fading light, and when he sees Catriona, he smiles.
"Chief MacLeod." His accent is thicker than usual, almost theatrical. "I must say, I was surprised to receive your call."
"Were you?" Catriona's voice is steady, professional. "I thought you'd be expecting it."
Mikhail's smile doesn't falter. "And what exactly did you find that warranted this meeting?"
"Proof of a trafficking operation running through this island." She pulls a phone from her pocket, holding it up. "All documented. All ready to be sent to the mainland authorities if anything happens to me."
"Clever." Mikhail takes a step closer, and I feel the shift in the air—heat building, the first stirrings of flame.
He moves fast—faster than any human could track—and fire erupts around him in a burst of golden light. The flames don't consume him. They become him, wrapping around his body like a second skin, and when he spreads his arms, wings of living fire unfurl from his back.
I move toward Catriona as she shifts. The transformation is instant, tigress replacing woman in a blur of mist and muscle. I let instinct rise to meet her, fur and claws and power surging through me as I drop to all fours. The world sharpens into focus through feline eyes.
Mikhail laughs, the sound echoing off the cliffs. "So the little police chief has fangs after all. How delightful." Like dragons, phoenix-shifter retain the power of speech, even in their shifted form.
Then the sky splits open.
Finn drops from above, his dragon form massive and scaled and burning with inner fire. He slams into Mikhail mid-air witha sound like thunder cracking, claws punching through wing membrane, jaws snapping for throat. The phoenix shrieks—a sound that tears through the air like metal on glass—and flames erupt in all directions.
Heat washes over me in a wave that sears my lungs. The air itself combusts, oxygen burning away, replaced by smoke and the stench of sulfur. Dragon and phoenix tear at each other, climbing higher, spiraling through the sky in a dance of scale and flame that lights up the darkening sky like a second sun.
Finn's dragon anticipates Mikhail's strikes before they land, twisting away from bouts of fire that would incinerate anything else. The phoenix pulls back from openings that should be killing blows, his talons raking across Finn's scales instead of tearing through vulnerable joints. They've fought before. The recognition is there in every move, every counter.
But there's no time to process it. Mikhail's operatives emerge from the shadows, four of them heavily armed and moving with military precision. Catriona's already in motion.
Her tiger form blurs across the ground, low and fast, a streak of gold and black that closes the distance before the nearest operative can bring his weapon to bear. She hits him low, claws raking through the backs of his knees, severing tendons. He goes down screaming, weapon clattering across stone.
I go for the one on the left.
My tiger is built for killing, and I use every ounce of that design. I hit him chest-high, eight hundred pounds of muscle and fury driving him backward into the stone wall. Ribs crack under my weight. His scream cuts off when my jaws close around his throat, crushing windpipe and carotid in one bite. Blood floods my mouth—copper and salt and the sour taste of adrenaline. I drop him and pivot toward the next target.
Catriona's there first, her smaller form giving her speed I can't match. She leaps, claws extended, and rakes down theoperative's gun arm. The weapon discharges into the ground as he falls, and she's on him, teeth finding the vulnerable meat of his shoulder, tearing.
The fourth operative gets a shot off.
The bullet burns past my ribs, close enough that I feel the heat, and rage explodes through me. I launch myself at him, covering twenty feet in two bounds. He fires again—wild, panicked—and the round goes wide. Then I'm on him, claws tearing through Kevlar like paper, finding soft flesh underneath. He tries to scream. I don't give him the chance.
Above us, the aerial battle intensifies.
Finn's dragon has Mikhail by one wing, shaking him like prey, and the phoenix responds with fire that turns the night sky orange. The flames wash over Finn's scales, seeking any gap, any weakness. The dragon's hide turns most of it aside, but I can smell burning—scale and flesh cooking where the fire finds purchase.
Finn roars, the sound vibrating through my bones, and slams Mikhail into the cliff face. Rock explodes, chunks of stone raining down around us. The phoenix shrieks, thrashing, his free wing beating at Finn's head with enough force to crack skulls.
The heat is unbearable now. Even from the ground, even with shifter tolerance for temperature extremes, I can feel my skin starting to blister. Catriona presses against my side, and I move to shield her with my bulk, positioning myself between her and the worst of the flames. Through our connection flows warmth and sensation: her fear, my protectiveness, the primal satisfaction of fighting together.
Then Finn's jaws close around Mikhail's wing where it joins his body.
