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This time Quinn was searched very thoroughly, and I was, too, though I had no pockets or anywhere else to conceal anything, unless they wanted to do a body cavity check. I thought Clete—Mr. Pinch-Ass—was going to, just for a second, as his fingers jabbed the spandex into me. Quinn thought so, too. I made an awful noise, a choked gasp of fear, but the sound that came from Quinn’s throat was beyond a snarl. It was a deep, throaty, coughing noise, and it was absolutely menacing.

“Leave the girl alone, Clete, and let’s get back on the road,” the tall driver said, and his voice had that “I’m done with you” edge to it. “I don’t know who this guy is, but I don’t think he changes into a nutria.”

I wondered if Quinn would threaten them with his identity—most Weres seemed to know him, or know of him—but since he didn’t volunteer his name, I didn’t speak.

Clete shoved me back into the van with a lot of muttering along the lines of “Who died and made you God? You ain’t the boss of me,” and so on. The taller man clearly was the boss of Clete, which was a good thing. I wanted someone with brains and a shred of decency between me and Clete’s probing fingers.

They had a very hard time getting Quinn into the van again. He didn’t want to go, and finally two men from the other van came over, very reluctantly, to help Clete and the driver. They bound Quinn’s legs with one of those plastic things, the kind where you run the pointed tip through a hole and then twist it. We’d used something similar to close the bag when we’d baked a turkey last Thanksgiving. The tie they used on Quinn was black and plastic and it actually locked with what looked like a handcuff key.

They didn’t bind my legs.

I appreciated Quinn’s getting angry at their treatment of me, angry enough to struggle to be free, but the end result was that my legs were free and his weren’t—because I still didn’t present a threat to them, at least in their minds.

They were probably right. I couldn’t think of anything to do to prevent them from taking us wherever we were going. I didn’t have a weapon, and though I worried at the duct tape binding my hands, my teeth didn’t seem to be strong enough to make a weak spot. I rested for a minute, shutting my eyes wearily. The last blow had opened a cut on my cheek. A big tongue rasped over my bleeding face. Then again.

“Don’t cry,” said a strange, guttural voice, and I opened my eyes to check that it was, indeed, coming from Quinn.

Quinn had so much power that he could stop the change once it had begun. I suspected he could trigger it, too, though I’d noticed that fighting could bring it on in any shape-shifter. He’d had the claws during the fight in Hadley’s apartment, and they’d almost tipped the balance in our favor. Since he’d gotten so enraged at Clete during the episode by the side of the road, Quinn’s nose had flattened and broadened. I had a close-up view of the teeth in his mouth, teeth that had altered into tiny daggers.

“Why didn’t you change fully?” I asked, in a tiny whisper.

Because there wouldn’t be enough room for you in this space, babe. After I change, I’m seven feet long and I weigh about four hundred fifty pounds.

That will make any girl gulp. I could only be grateful he’d thought that far ahead. I looked at him some more.

Not grossed out?

Clete and the driver were exchanging recriminations about the phone incident. “Why, grandpa, what big teeth you have,” I whispered. The upper and lower canines were so long and sharp they were really scary. (I called them canines; to cats, that might be an insult.)

Sharp . . . they were sharp. I worked my hands up close to his mouth, and begged him with my eyes to understand. As much as I could tell from his altered face, Quinn was worried. Just as our situation aroused his defensive instincts, the idea I was trying to sell to him excited other instincts. I will make your hands bleed, he warned me, with a great effort. He was partially animal now, and the animal thought