A Love Untamed (Feral Warriors #7)(9)

“What’s the problem, Officer?” Lyon asked.

“Get on the ground. Facedown!”

“There’s no need for that,” Lyon replied calmly.

Kara wished she could see what was happening. Was he clouding their minds, pushing suggestions into them? He was trying, she knew that much.

“We have a report of gunshots and screaming coming from this house,” another cop said.

Kara clenched her teeth against the lie. The house was fully warded against sound. Not even standing on the front doorstep would anyone hear the roar of the animals inside. The “report” was bogus and had probably come from the Mage just to cause them trouble.

“Kara.”

Lynks startled her, squeezing her shoulder. “They’re going to overrun this place. You’ve got to hide.”

She looked at the new shifter, meeting his nervous gaze. She agreed with Lyon’s assessment, that Lynks was not the one meant to be marked. He had the mien of a teacher or an accountant, not a warrior. If the humans got inside, it would be up to Jag and Tighe to contain them. She seriously doubted Lynks would be of much help.

“Okay.” Pressing her fist against her tense stomach, she turned and strode to the basement door, slipping inside, surprised when Lynks followed her down instead of closing it behind her.

“I’m just going to check on the others,” he said.

Which would leave the back door unprotected. Coward or not, was the man stupid? “Lynks . . .”

But as she turned to urge him to cover his post, he gripped her shoulder, too tight. A hard look leaped into his eyes, alarming her.

“I’m sorry, Kara.”

Before she could open her mouth to call for help, he jammed his thumb beneath her ear.

Her world went dark.

Lyon kept his arms in the air, his gaze locked with the human’s in front of him. “There’s nothing wrong here, Officer. We had the television on, and the windows open.”

“I told you it was too loud,” Olivia added tartly. She turned to the officer. “He insists on being able to hear the TV anywhere in the house.”

Lyon’s gaze moved to another of the officers, then another still, catching their gazes, trying to calm them, to steal their wariness. If he could touch them, it would be far easier. But that wasn’t a possibility at the moment. He had to get them out of here without incident. Because there were too damn many cop cars. In the distance, gathering along the street, he could see neighbors watching the goings-on with avid eyes. If Feral House were overrun, the cops disappearing inside, he feared there would be no end to this. There were only so many defensive positions the Ferals could take before they were forced to reveal themselves. And that was the one thing they could never do. Once the humans realized shape-shifters and magic-wielders lived among them, the immortals would be forever on the run, hunted to extinction.

“This is all a misunderstanding,” Lyon said quietly to the man in front of him, his gaze once more locked on his. “There’s nothing the matter here.”

“What’s he saying?” one of the others asked a companion on the other side of the driveway. They might be speaking far too quietly for a human to overhear at this distance, but not a Feral. “Why the hell doesn’t Jim have him on the ground?”

“Beats me. He’s one big motherf*cker, isn’t he?” The cop yawned. “Damn I’m tired. And I finally got a good night’s sleep last night.”

The man in front of him yawned as well. Lyon refrained from glancing at Olivia, but he was certain now that she’d begun draining them.

Finally, the tension broke. The officer lowered his gun with a nod. “This was clearly a misunderstanding. I apologize.”

Lyon lowered his hands slowly in as nonthreatening a manner as possible. “Apology accepted, Officer.”

Lyon held out his hand to Olivia and together they turned and made their way back to the house. He wouldn’t breathe easily until the humans piled into their cars and left. The Ferals would have to watch that they didn’t return.

“It had to have been the Mage,” Olivia said quietly beside him, as they climbed the brick steps to the front door. “But why?”

“That’s what we have to find out.”

Closing the front door behind them, Lyon met Tighe’s and Jag’s gazes, then the three took up posts at the various windows, watching until the cops retreated.

“Where’s Lynks?” Lyon asked.

“Keeping an eye out back.”

“Good.”

Finally, the cops were gone. Tighe pushed away from the window. “I’ll get Delaney and the others.” Three minutes later, he returned. “Roar, where’s Kara?”

Lyon turned from the window with a jerk, a vise clamping around his heart even as he turned inward and found her. He always knew where she was. “She’s on the basement stairs,” he replied even as he started for the basement himself because, good goddess, Tighe had just come that way. And if he hadn’t seen her . . .

Lyon broke into a run, nearly tearing the basement door off his hinges in his need to find his mate.

Ice formed at the edges of his thoughts, sweat broke out on the back of his neck. There was a logical explanation. There had to be. But his warrior’s instinct said otherwise.

He followed his Finder’s sense straight to the closed cellar door in front of which sat Kara’s bright green flip-flops.