“Can you hurry it up?” she called in an annoyed tone to the bouncer.

His bald head stayed dipped to the driver’s license he was studying from some dude. I slipped past all of them, having to brush closely to the guy waiting to get in so that I could sidestep to the closed front door.

The guy looked over his shoulder as I passed. To my relief, I couldn’t sense a supernatural aura, so if he was a supe, he was a weak one.

“Go on in.” The bouncer handed him back his license and reached for the door. As he did so, his collar dipped down. A flash of that constellation tattoo appeared.

Motherfucker.

Fortunately, he didn’t glance my way when he pulled the door open. As the guy was stuffing his license back into his wallet, I darted inside.

The pulse of heavy music filled the entryway as I walked through a dark tunnel to the club’s interior. I tuned into the bond with Tessa, calling it forth to guide me, and I could only hope that I bumped into the Fire Wolf along the way and figured out what the hell was taking him so long.

The bond vibrated. Down. It was still telling me that Tessa was being kept underground. That hadn’t changed.

With the cloaking spell holding firm, I looked for a stairwell or exit sign. The thump of the nightclub music, slowly coming to life, throbbed around me.

I passed a couple making out near the end of the tunnel, then it opened up to a large dance room with a horseshoe-shaped bar curving along the far wall. Dimly lit sconces decorated the perimeter of the room, and bright strobe lights and dancers in cages hung suspended from the ceiling. There weren’t many people here yet—it was too early for that—but the place had the look and feel of a bazillion other clubs I’d been to.

My eyes stayed peeled and my heart raced as I glided forward. Where was the Fire Wolf and where the hell was a stairwell?

There! My gaze alighted on a corner door. A glowing red exit sign hung above it. Ha, motherfuckers! Even you have to follow fire codes to front as a legitimate business.

I ran toward it, keeping my cloaking spell tight around me, and skidded to a stop at the door. Turning my attention behind me, I assessed the humans. None of them were looking my way.

Whipping the door open as fast as I could, I darted through it and shoved it closed behind me. A slight breeze ruffled my hair. Blood whooshed through my ears. Even though I’d been training with Prisha and her family for more years than I could count, I’d never actually done anything like this. Sure, I could wield a weapon. Sure, I could hold my own in a fight, well, until my magic had gone all kooky.

But trying to find a hunter and my abducted sister in some bullshit nightclub? Yep, all new to me, and given the adrenaline pumping through my veins, I would be lucky if I didn’t blow this.

“Keep your shit together,” I whispered under my breath.

I assessed the brightly lit concrete stairwell before me. Stairs went both up and down. I could only hope I wouldn’t get trapped in the basement.

The bond with Tessa still hummed inside me. She was still very much alive and definitely here.

On hurried footsteps, I took the stairs down as quietly as I could. When I rounded the corner at the bottom, I slowed. Tiptoeing around it, I peeked past the corner to find a short empty hallway . . .

With three doors.

Fucking A.

I inched down the hall, listening intently. But the only sound I heard was the bass above thumping the floor.

All of the doors were closed, which wasn’t helping me to choose, and the flash of a gameshow came to mind. And now our lucky contestant will get to choose which door holds the prize: one, two, or three!

Unfortunately, I knew that a shiny new BMW was not waiting for me.

I prowled to the first door and carefully placed my hand on its handle. Locked. Who would have thought?

Moving faster, I went to door number two. Also locked. FML.

And last, door number three . . . slightly ajar. Hallelujah.

I crouched down, studying the door handle. It’d been snapped.

Fire Wolf.

I doubted anybody else would have broken the lock. I wished I was able to scent him the way he could detect me, then I could have followed his trail. I sniffed, as though maybe it would work. Of course, the only odors that assaulted my senses were the mustiness that seemed to accompany all buildings below ground level and the slight smell of smoke. Somebody who worked down here enjoyed their cigarettes.

I tightened my hold on the door handle, then checked over my shoulder again to make sure I was alone, before pulling it open slowly and peeking inside.

Another hallway with doors.

Of course, there was.

I almost cursed out loud, but then I heard the low murmur of voices.

“. . . didn’t think I would find you, did you?”

Fire Wolf?

I crept farther down the hallway, inching along the wall as I sought the hunter’s location.

Someone else’s laugh came, dark and deep. I didn’t recognize who it belonged to. “It looks more like I found you.”

Well, shit, that didn’t sound good.

The Fire Wolf and whoever he was talking to were in the room at the end of the hallway. The door was slightly ajar and the closer I got, the louder their voices became.

“Did you really think you’d be able to prowl in here and take what Jakub has claimed?”

Okay, that really didn’t sound good.

“I still don’t see how that won’t happen,” the Fire Wolf replied in a bored tone.

“In true fashion, I see your arrogance has gotten the better of you. But Jakub has discovered ways to capture all supernaturals, even those that harbor your powers.” The sound of clipped footsteps, as though someone were pacing back and forth, came next. “He shall reward me greatly when I present him with you.”

Oh fuck.

Sure enough, when I reached the final door and peeked through the gap, the Fire Wolf was there . . . on his knees with his hands and feet shackled behind him. Six supernaturals surrounded him. One of them was Star Tattoo Guy.

They formed a circle around my hunter. A tall fairy stood over him and had his hands clasped behind his back. Blue hair fell in artful waves around the fairy’s shoulders, and a wickedly sharp sword was strapped to his back. Sinister-looking was one word to describe him. Terrifying was another.

My hands clenched into fists as rage burned through me, but . . . what now? A glowing device encircled my hunter’s wrists and ankles. That band ensnared the scourge of society, the infallible menace who so many feared. But how? How had he failed?

And then I knew. The Fire Wolf’s words when he’d tried to leave me outside in the alley blazed across my mind. I won’t be able to concentrate until I do.

Shit. His newly formed mate bond had distracted him after all. At the moment, he was probably the equivalent of a rutting stag, running blindly through the woods, as an instinct as old as time told him to return to his mate . . . all while he’d been trying to do his job. And since it was an instinct he didn’t seem to understand, he’d probably been even more distracted.

So now, my hunter was the hunted.

A distant, low moan came from somewhere down the hall. Then a shrill, “Tala!”

My breath caught just as the Fire Wolf tensed. The six supernaturals gazed down at him with glee, as though unperturbed by the cry I’d just heard. Because if they were out to hunt powerful supernaturals, they’d literally just caught the biggest and baddest wolf of them all. No wonder they were content.

“Tala!”

My heart thumped. Tessa. She could feel that I was close, just as I could feel her.

I knew that I could creep down the hall, call upon all of my magic and break into whatever room they were holding Tessa in. I could throw my cloaking spell over her. We could run. Escape. It could be that easy, since the assholes down here were currently distracted by the hunter.