Page 53 of Stray Cat

“No, you won’t. You’re not cops anymore, and I can have you arrested for assault. I can turn you in for just threatening me. Not to mention kidnapping and confining me against my will.”

“Are you shitting me?” Xav demanded. “And here I was feeling sorry for you and your kid brother.”

“Oh, we’ll still hunt for Dean,” AC said. “When this guy wakes up, we can beat his whereabouts out of him. Let me hang onto this so I can defend myself, and we’ll be good.”

Xav scowled. All eyes were on him, including Diego’s, letting him make the decision about what to do with AC. Even Neal had halted, waiting for Xav’s command.

That meant no one was paying attention to Lindsay, and no one noticed when she started her run. A few heartbeats later, she was whizzing past the startled AC, too fast for him to react.

Lindsay sprinted into the desert beyond the SUVs, then spun around and held up the taser in triumph, moonlight glinting from it. “Score!”

“Thank you, Linds.” Xav grinned at AC, now in Neal’s firm grip once more. “This is why it’s good to have an amazing girlfriend.”

Girlfriend.Well. Notmateyet, but Lindsay decided to take the win.

She studied the taser as though fascinated by it, then she sauntered to Xav and handed it off to him. “You have that. I don’t like weapons. Don’t need them.” She mimed raking her claws in the air, smiling at AC.

The man scowled but went quiet again. Plotting something, Lindsay decided. From her exchanged glance with Xav, he thought so too.

Xav’s praise stirred her mating need. Lindsay did another claw rake in his direction then ambled away, but her pretense at being cool couldn’t stop the yearning boiling away inside her.

* * *

Xav keptLindsay close as the team split up, one to take Jeff to the hospital and AC back to DX for more questioning, the other to search for the crash site to see what it could tell them.

Diego led the contingent to return to Las Vegas with the captives—Emma, Neal, and Brody going with him. Xav headed up the search for the helicopter, with Lindsay and Tiger to assist.

The man AC had stolen the taser from was put onto Xav’s team, and he immediately tried to resign.

“I let you down,” the blond man named Mitchell said. “He must have lifted it when we were pulling him out of the SUV. You’ll have my letter in your inbox in the morning.”

Xav shook his head firmly. “No, you won’t. You’ll help us track this crash site, and suck it up. You won’t be given guard duty for a while, but we’re not unforgiving. Learn from your mistakes and do better.”

Lindsay listened to this, her head cocked, as though judging Xav’s decision. Her scrutiny was unnerving, and her closeness didn’t help.

Mitchell was chagrined that AC, a professional criminal, had distracted him, but Xav felt forgiving for two reasons: One, if no one had given Xav a second—or third, or fourth, or fifth—chance when he’d been younger, he’d no doubt be in prison even now. Two, Lindsay had been distracting the hell out of him all day. If Xav had been the one close to AC,histaser would likely have fallen into AC’s hands, or possibly a more deadly weapon. AC was tricky, and Mitchell needed the wake-up call.

Lindsay’s quickness has solved the problem, and Xav’s pride in her surged. Sometimes her unpredictability was an asset.

Xav had to be honest with himself—he loved that about her, even while she worried the hell out of him.

He made himself focus as they spread out, half of Xav’s men on foot, the others in the SUVs on roads that could hold them. They didn’t have the vehicles to cross the desert floor, so if they found nothing tonight, they’d return in the morning with ATVs.

Before they went far, Tiger broke from Xav’s search pattern and struck out across the uneven ground. The others halted in surprise, but Xav didn’t bother to call Tiger back. When the big Shifter tracked, it was best to let him go.

Lindsay peered after Tiger, her nose twitching. “I think I know where he’s heading.” She beamed Xav a smile. “Time to shift.”

She ducked with her backpack behind a rocky outcropping, and before long emerged in her lynx form. She brushed once around Xav’s legs then took off after Tiger.

Xav admired how she bounded effortlessly through the darkness, no rocks, holes, or slippery dust slowing her down. Moonlight streaked her fur silver, the tufts on her ears almost glowing.

Xav and the other men scrambled less elegantly in her wake. Tiger hadn’t shifted at all but simply strode into the desert, sure-footed in combat boots.

It wasn’t clear just when Tiger disappeared. One moment he was moving along the rising ground, the next, he was gone.

Lindsay loped up a low hill and paused at the top, silhouetted by moonlight. Through the night-vision goggles Xav had snapped on, she glowed hotter than anything else around him.

Lindsay glanced back at Xav, as though urging him onward, then she too disappeared.

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