Howard heard a wolf howl. He didn’t see anyone in this bedroom and raced out to join the others. A high fence and thick vegetation kept any neighbors from seeing what was going on, thankfully. Jillian was lying on her side, panting, and Howard saw red. He leaped from the back patio to where a jaguar was fighting Val. It appeared Vaughn and Jillian had tried tackling the other jaguar, but the wolves were no match for the big cats. Howard tore into the jaguar Vaughn was fighting, wishing to hell he could help out Val. She was much better equipped to fight the big male cat than Vaughn was, but the male jaguar she was battling would wear her down. Vaughn immediately went to her aid while Howard fought the other male jaguar. Emmie, as a jaguar, and Rowdy came running out to help them.

  With Emmie and Howard both ganging up on the bigger jaguar, Howard was able to get in some hefty bites. The guy thought he could pick on wolves, much easier prey, but now he really had to fight for his life. As soon as Howard killed him, he leaped toward the jaguar Val and Vaughn were fighting. Emmie quickly joined them.

  Rowdy carried Jillian into the house. With Val, Vaughn, Emmie, and Howard all helping, they quickly killed the remaining jaguar. Howard prayed Jillian wasn’t too badly injured.

  Vaughn and Howard shifted and carried the man they’d just killed into the house. They would do the same with the other while Val ran to the side yard. Howard didn’t like seeing her disappear from their view by herself. Then Emmie joined her, and he was glad she was helping to watch Val’s back.

  Howard assumed Val was shifting and getting dressed. Sure enough, when he and Rowdy headed back outside to collect the other dead man’s body, Val was dressed and carrying their weapons, cell phones, and Jillian’s clothes into the house with Emmie at her side. Val set the clothes and other items on the floor and left again, Emmie running beside her as her jaguar protector. He suspected Val was going for Vaughn’s clothes on the other side of the house.

  Once he and Rowdy had dumped the second body with the others in the spare bedroom, Howard went to help Vaughn with Jillian.

  “I’ll get the first aid kits,” Val said to the group and hurried out the front door to their vehicle.

  Rowdy went with her while Emmie returned to the bedroom to shift and dress.

  Vaughn was cradling Jillian on his lap so she wouldn’t have to lie on the filthy floor. He knew they needed to bandage her wounds and find out what other injuries she had before they moved her.

  Val returned with the first aid kit and began to clean and bandage Jillian’s wounds while Howard hurried to dress.

  “The jaguar struck with his paw and knocked Jillian out. I was afraid he’d murdered her,” Vaughn said. “I could have killed him, I was so angry, despite the fighting inequities between our species.”

  Howard hadn’t seen Vaughn fight that fiercely before, but he understood why. Vaughn had to kill the rogue jaguar before he reached Jillian and finished her off.

  “If you hadn’t worn him out, Emmie and I would have had a rougher time of it. When I heard you howl, I knew you were in trouble.” That had surprised the hell out of Howard, and he knew Vaughn would never have done so if he hadn’t been losing the battle.

  “I was afraid someone had killed you in the house when Rowdy left me to go to your aid,” Vaughn said.

  “Hell, I assumed the jaguar had attacked you when you were still human, from all the snarling I heard. I was certain it wasn’t you doing any of the growling,” Rowdy said. “I hadn’t wanted to leave the others in a bind, but I figured if we didn’t have your help out back, we weren’t going to win against those two jaguars either.”

  “I was glad to see you, but I believed you were going to get yourself killed. I was surprised the jaguar didn’t break down the door, he hit it so hard,” Howard said.

  “I won’t lie. I was certain I was facing imminent death.” Rowdy shook his head. “I know you didn’t want any gunfire, but I reckoned you’d be dead if I didn’t do something.”

  “Yeah, but that means we really need to get out of here,” Val said.

  Jillian groaned and looked up at everyone, her eyes half-lidded. “We won, didn’t we?”

  They all chuckled. “Hell yeah, honey,” Vaughn said, kissing her cheek.

  Once Val was finished bandaging Jillian’s wounds, she and Vaughn helped Jillian to dress. Then Val turned to Vaughn. “You’re next.”

  He had been torn up pretty badly too, but he was either too macho or too worried about Jillian to notice. Val took care of his wounds and then he dressed.

  “I swear…the next time, I’m just shooting them. No more trying to take them on in my fur coat,” Jillian said.

  “I agree with you there,” Vaughn said. “We need something to even the odds against a rogue jaguar.”

  * * *

  Val wondered just how viable a united shifter force was when the wolves couldn’t fight the jaguars. But she knew they all needed a force like this to deal with mixed groups of shifters or lone wolves that were creating issues. Packs took care of their own, but they didn’t have a policing force that would do that kind of work.

  She realized that before they got into any more fights, they needed more supplies.

  “We’ve got a first aid kit in our car,” Jillian said, still not making a move to get up.

  Val hoped the wolf hadn’t suffered any internal injuries. “I’ll get it.”

  Emmie came out of the bathroom, tears trailing down her cheeks, and Val was glad to see she was alive. Bruised, beaten, but alive.

  “I didn’t get away,” Emmie said, sobbing. “I’m so sorry they did this to you.”

  “I’m afraid it comes with the kind of work we have to do. We’ll have to get you out of here. I wish the Sorensons could have taken you with them,” Val said.

  Emmie wiped away her tears. “I thought I could do it on my own. Thanks for believing in me and not turning me over to your people.”

  “I’ll put in a good word for you, if it comes to that.” Val hurried outside to get the other first aid kit. Howard quickly followed her.

  “How are you doing?” Howard asked.

  “I think I’m going to be sore tonight, just like everyone else. The shifters wanted to take us on as shifters, maybe guessing the wolves couldn’t hurt them, nor could a female jaguar. If we’d had silencers, we could have shot them all. I was afraid to start shooting everyone and have to face a police inquisition. It’s one thing for us to turn these guys over to the police, quite another to start a shooting war.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t just run off.”

  “They couldn’t. The fence was electrified. I was disappointed Benny and Eric weren’t here,” Val said.

  “The other drug house then?”

  Val and Howard walked back into the house. “Maybe.”

  She took care of some of his wounds, and he bandaged up hers.

  “After what happened to Jillian, we need to regroup and head back to the resort,” Howard said.

  “I agree,” Vaughn said.

  Jillian nodded.

  Howard turned to Rowdy. “Thanks, man, for saving my ass.”

  He smiled, but Howard noticed he looked a bit flushed.

  “I guess you’re one of us, even if you don’t have the credentials. Or the shifter powers,” Howard said. “Are…you okay, Rowdy?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Everyone studied him. Val placed her hand on his forehead. “You’re burning up.”

  “I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night.”

  “What about them?” Emmie asked, motioning to the dead men in the bedroom where she’d been tied up.

  “Either the police will find their rotting corpses and investigate how wolves and jaguars had killed them, or the other rogue jaguars will bury the bodies. No one’s going to be able to figure it out,” Howard said, glancing back at Rowdy’s flushed face. “Good thing this was a team effort. Totally confuses the issue. Let’s get out of here before anyone comes to investigate the shots fired.”

  Val had to agree with Howard there. She also thought the world of Howard for saying what he did. She knew he really liked working with Vaughn and Jillian and wondered if he’d lose them as partners if the USF believed the wolves couldn’t do the job they were there for.

  “Did you overhear anything that could help us take these men down?” Val asked Emmie.

  “They were careful not to talk about their plans in front of me. Well, most of them, anyway. The new guys you killed? I hadn’t seen them before, so I hadn’t known about them.”

  “I’m surprised Eric didn’t kill you for running off, thinking you could be a traitor,” Val said.

  “I think Eric planned to use me as bait to draw you out. Which was the reason I had run. I did overhear him bragging to the other men that two jaguars couldn’t take them down, and they’d deal with them soon enough. He said the rest of the shifters would be easy kills. Despite his bravado, he called in reinforcements.”

  “So he didn’t say anything else that could help us?”

  “He did get into a fight with Benny. Said if it hadn’t been for him turning and killing his wife, they wouldn’t have had to deal with all this. Benny reminded him your parents were in Belize already, and that had nothing to do with him.”

  “Sounds like they’re having some issues among themselves. Good,” Howard said as they quickly moved to the cars, Vaughn carrying Jillian.

  “How did you know to come here? Did you already go to the other drug house?” Emmie asked.

  “We chose this one first. We’re glad we did so we could rescue you. If we’d hit the wrong house, they might have warned Eric, and he might have realized you gave us the intel on their drug houses.” Val pulled out her phone.

  Normally, she would have called their situation in to her boss right away. She would have maintained a purely objective stance concerning what had gone down. She couldn’t this time. For the first time since she’d had a partner, she felt the shifters working to bring the bad guys to justice had to come before the mission, and she was afraid her boss would change the game plan.

  “Are you all right to drive?” Howard asked Vaughn.

  She thought Vaughn would take offense, as if Howard was implying the wolf wasn’t as strong as the jaguars.

  “Hell yeah. Are you?” Vaughn arched a brow at him.

  Howard gave him a cocky smile, and Val realized that was part of the way they joked with each other, reducing some of the tension after a high-conflict situation. At the same time, she suspected Howard really wanted to ensure Vaughn was all right to drive.

  “I can drive, if anyone needs me to,” Emmie said. “I wasn’t injured like the rest of you.”

  “Not in the fight, but you look like they beat you,” Val said, furious with the bastards.

  “Yeah, Eric didn’t like that I had run off. I told him I’d escaped you, and I was trying to leave so you wouldn’t catch up to me.”

  “I’m so sorry, Emmie.”

  “We’re good as far as the driving goes, Emmie,” Howard said. “Thanks for the offer. Rowdy, are you okay riding with Vaughn and Jillian again?”

  “Yeah. Jillian can stretch out in the back this time. I’ll watch over her since Vaughn won’t give up the wheel. I think he believes I can’t drive as well as he can.”

  Howard chuckled. “Emmie, why don’t you come with us then.”

  “Let me grab my bag. They threw it in a closet.” She rushed to get it and rejoined them.

  Val just hoped they wouldn’t have any further trouble before they could get Emmie safely away.

  Chapter 15

  Everyone loaded back into the vehicles and headed to the resort. The other drug house was an hour away, and Val wished they could go there now. But some of their team members needed to recuperate sufficiently. Well, all of them, truthfully. She didn’t come away from the fight unscathed either.

  She wanted to talk to Howard about the situation with the wolves, but not in front of Emmie. She wondered what they were going to do with her. She was worried about Rowdy too. Val finally said, “Okay, about Emmie, I’ve considered different options. I think the only thing we can do to keep her safe is to put her on a flight and send her to Houston for her protection until all of this gang is dispatched for good.”

  “I agree,” Howard said.

  “We can take her to the airport and see her on her way without any trouble this time. I’ll call and ask my boss if he can have a Guardian agent on hand to meet her at the airport. It would probably take too long for the branch to send an agent or two here. We got lucky with the Sorensons vacationing here.”

  “I would be fine with that,” Emmie said.

  “What if Eric, Benny, or anyone else they’re working with ends up flying out at the same time she does, thinking things are getting too hot for them down here?” Howard asked.

  “That’s a risk, but we can’t leave her at the resort alone, and if we take her with us when we try to track down these men, she could get in harm’s way. I don’t think there’s any way around it. If the Guardian branch chief sent a private plane for her, it probably would take some time.” Which again made Val wish she had sent Emmie back with her parents. She’d had the notion Emmie could just disappear and start over and not have to deal with the JAG police questioning her.

  “What if someone goes with her?” Howard asked.

  “Like Jillian?” Val was thinking she might need more time to recuperate so it would be good for her to go home. On the other hand, she might not be able to protect Emmie that well if she had to.

  “I doubt she or Vaughn would leave us to do this alone.”

  “You’re thinking Rowdy might go with her? I don’t know. He seems to stubbornly resist the idea of leaving here until he sees us take Lucy’s killer down.”

  “He’s still a civilian and doesn’t have one of our badges. Maybe we can convince him that if we get into a mess with these people and the police get involved, he wouldn’t be protected like we are because of our status with the JAG policing force, though the local police believe we’re a special unit with the FBI.”

  “Rowdy saved your life,” Emmie reminded Howard, as if she thought they could use his help again.

  “It’s worth a try. See if you can get Emmie a flight out and make arrangements for the Guardian branch to take care of her. I’ll ask Rowdy if he’ll serve in a bodyguard capacity for Emmie, since he is a homicide detective. The USF can even pay him for the job.”

  “Good idea.” Val made reservations for Emmie for the first available flight out the next day at noon, then called her boss about getting a Guardian agent to meet her at the airport.

  “No one else has been turned, correct?” Sylvan asked.

  “No, sir.” Val only told her boss they had taken down three more of the gang, not anything about everyone’s injuries or how the human homicide detective had saved Howard’s life. When she ended the call, she heard Howard talking to Rowdy on speakerphone since he was driving.

  “We’ve got a damsel in distress whose body needs guarding. Yeah, it’s not your job, but we could really use your experience to help out here. And to protect her on the way home. After what happened the last time she tried to get away from these guys, we don’t want to take any chances. You know we’re staying here until we get this done. You have our word on it.”

  “What if I can’t get a flight out when she leaves?” Rowdy asked.

  Yes! He was going for it! Val quickly spoke up. “There were still five seats left on the plane. I reserved a seat for her that has an empty one next to her. If you’re agreeable, I’ll add your reservation for the other seat, at our expense.”

  “Why didn’t you mention that the first time?”

  “And we can pay you a stipend for doing the job,” Howard added.

  Val quickly made the reservation for the other seat, in case Rowdy said yes for sure. “Okay, and the other thing is we need to learn if Rowdy is running a fever because he contracted malaria. It can be a real problem for visitors to the area who haven’t taken an antimalarial drug.”

  “Aww, hell,” Howard said. “We all take the medicine because we frequent the areas that are prone to malaria. Everyone in the agency is required to take it. Rowdy?”

  “No, you’re right. I didn’t have time to start any medicine. But some of our officers where I work had the flu. If anything, I think that’s what I might have,” Rowdy said.

  No one said anything for a moment. Flu was contagious. Malaria could be shared through the blood, but otherwise, you couldn’t catch it.

  Val looked up the incubation times for malaria. “Says here it takes seven to thirty days to incubate before symptoms appear.”

  “Okay, then it’s probably a case of the flu,” Rowdy said.

  “What about you, Emmie?” Howard asked.

  “I took the medicine. Eric had malaria once and nearly died from it because he ignored it for so long, despite our healing genetics. So he insisted I take the medicine,” Emmie said.

  Val suspected Rowdy often stuck to his guns on something he really wanted to do, so this was a big concession for him. She almost felt sorry for him, but she thought this was the best for everyone concerned. “I’ve got you a seat on the next flight out tomorrow at noon.”

  Rowdy chuckled.

  “Just in case you said yes.”

  “You’d better take Benny down,” Rowdy said.

  “You’ve got our word on it,” Howard assured him.

  Val knew they weren’t leaving until they did.

  When they ended the call, Howard said to Val, “Thanks for not telling your boss about what actually happened out there. He would have told my boss, and Martin might have made some reassignments. He most likely would have shipped Jillian home. Maybe Vaughn too. And taken us to task for having a couple of civilians in the line of fire.”