"He knows she's with us now. He might be working to protect her."
"It's certainly possible," Gio said. "But I'm not putting the safety of everyone here at risk on a guess."
"What about a compromise?" Max asked. "Let's have one more night here, even if it's risky. That way we won't be rushing off in a hurry without supplies. We can start out first thing tomorrow."
Gio looked deeply touched, his eyes gleaming gold in the lamplight. "Max, you don't have to come with me. I can see how happy you are here. I wouldn't destroy that for the world."
Max put her hand over his, lacing their fingers together. "We're mates, and that means there's no leaving each other behind, no matter what. Where you go, I go."
"What's going on down there?" her mother asked, leaning forward.
"Yes, little Max, don't be gossiping with your lovebird where the rest of us can't hear," teased one of her cousins.
Max returned his smile and squeezed Gio's hand. "It's not that." She looked around the table, at her family, the missing piece of her heart that had been returned to her, and told herself firmly that she wasn't going to cry. "I'm afraid we'll have to leave in the morning."
There were shocked cries from some of her aunts. Her father declared, "If anyone has made you feel unwelcome—"
"No, no, it's not that," Max protested. "I don't want to go. It's the last thing I want." And here came the unwanted tears. She blinked her eyes. "But you know that Gio and I came here running away from something bad. We have to go deal with it so that it won't threaten anyone here."
"Not alone," her mother said promptly.
"Mother—"
"No. Now listen. We all allowed you to be exiled on Nacio's say-so." Her mother looked at her across the wooden plank table, her eyes fierce. "Sofia was the only one of us who had the courage to speak up against him. The rest of us will have to live with that for the rest of our lives. But now that you've freed us, we will never again force you to go out in the world without knowing that we are at your back, prepared to give you all the support we have."
"What your mother is saying," her father said, "is that if you could use an army of jaguar shifters wherever you're going, we are fully prepared to follow you into hell itself."
Max had to take a moment to breathe. She looked at Gio, who was once again unable to follow the Spanish-language conversation.
"They're offering to fight with us," she told him. To her parents, she said, "You don't know what you're getting into. This is extremely dangerous."
"Yes," said her mother dryly. "We all guessed that when you showed up on the arena grounds in the middle of the night, hurt, with your mate in your arms."
"There are a lot of very bad people after us," Max said.
"And if I know you, my girl, then you're fighting them for a good reason, with courage and distinction," her father told her gently. "Could you use our help?"
Max swallowed the lump in her throat, blinking rapidly, and glanced at Gio. In English for his benefit, she said, "You know, I think we just might."
GIO
In the chillof the early morning air, Max was getting dressed in the bedroom they had been given in the clan estate. Gio lay on the bed and watched her with pleasure—and a little regret, as her lean body and smooth skin, raked with the healing scars from her fight with Nacio, vanished from sight one part at a time.
He had given in to the offer of hospitality, unable to stomach the idea of tearing Max away from her family so soon. They spent the night in a bedroom on the highest level of the tiered hacienda, with a stunning view looking down on the village, the mountainside, and the valley below. They had made love over and over, until they both exhausted their shifter stamina: fast and eager, slow and careful, as if they both felt they had to make the most of the time they had, and make up for all the time they had lost.
Max's clothes—cleaned and mended—had been waiting outside the door this morning. She pulled on her jeans with an evident air of relief. Gio found that it was a relief for him, too, to have her looking like herself again. She was beautiful in the flowing blouse and long skirt, and if she had decided to wear nothing but that for the rest of her life, he would have loved her in them. But he had first met her in a T-shirt and jeans, and there was simply something right about seeing her like that.
"I agree that we need all the help we can get," Gio said. "But is your family okay with putting themselves in danger to help us?"
"Are you kidding? They love it. They used to scrap all the time with other shifter clans in the mountains, but over the years, the other clans have dwindled or moved. These days, all they really have to fight with are predators after the sheep. This is going to be the highlight of most of their lives. They'll be telling their grandkids about it."
"Some of them could get killed," Gio said quietly.
"I know." Max turned sober as she shrugged into her jacket. "But it's their choice. We'll make sure they know what they're heading into before anyone goes anywhere."
She sat on the bed to fasten her boots. Gio sat up and kissed her neck. Max swooned into the touch for a moment, then pushed herself resolutely off the bed.
"Come on, get dressed. Let's go up to the roof."
