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the door open. The repulsion
spell had dissipated, but Evina felt something. A shudder big
enough to see shook her slim shoulders. She set her jaw more
determinedly.
    “I need to sit down for this,” she said.
    Abruptly regretting that he hadn’t grabbed
his leather jacket from the back of the car, Nate used his boot to
scuff a circle clear of clutter on the cracked concrete floor.
    Evina grimaced and lowered herself to it, her
face oriented to the doorway. “It’ll help if you stand behind me.
Touching another person anchors me.”
    Nate moved behind her so that his knees
touched her back. Cross-legged, she wrapped her arms around his
calves. He was anxious enough that the contact didn’t give him the
sexual charge it otherwise would have.
    Evina closed her eyes and started to breathe
slowly.
    He saw why she’d won a medal for this skill.
In seconds, he felt her energy slip into a trance state. Light
flickered through her aura, which was expanding rapidly. The air
around them grew cooler as she drew on the ambient magic their
half-fae city was famous for. The swiftness with which she threw
herself into the act made him want to protect her. Nate dropped one
hand to her head, which didn’t seem to disturb her.
    His wolf let out a whine, audible only in his
mind. It wasn’t a sound of submission, despite Evina being alpha
when he was not. To him, his beast sounded as if it were concerned.
If it was, it didn’t have much time to be. Light flared brilliantly
in Evina’s heart center. Not wanting to be blinded. Nate narrowed
his eyelids.
    The light coalesced into the form of a tiger
and padded out of her.
    Nate’s breath—and probably his wolf’s as
well—caught like cotton candy inside his chest. Evina’s tigress was
the most beautiful feline he’d ever seen.
    Though only a projection of astral energy,
her were form appeared solid. Night black stripes marked the
richest possible orange fur. She was much bigger as a tiger than a
human—bigger than his wolf, if it came to that. Her back came to
Nate’s waist, muscles rippling under that gorgeous pelt. When she
glanced back at him, light flashed behind the pupils of her gold
eyes. A growl rumbled from deep within her chest, her lips pulling
back in a obvious threat. The hairs on Nate’s arms stood up, but
the sound inspired a thrill more than it did an urge to flinch.
    He got the impression her beast was testing
him.
    “Snarl all you want,” he said equably.
“You’re here because I trust you.”
    She huffed, the resonant sound like a train
would make. Her lips relaxed back over her long canines. She swung
her great head away as if dismissing him.
    Solid-looking or not, she prowled straight
through the crime scene tape.
    ~
    Evina had practice concealing fear. As the
boss of people who risked death on a regular basis, she needed to
set an example. Level heads pulled firemen through tight spots.
Losing focus because of dread never helped anyone.
    She ignored how much her tiger didn’t want to
enter that room.
    Having Nate behind her helped, knowing he had
the gumption not to back down at her tigress’s threat display. She
allowed her awareness of her human body to slip away in favor of
more fully inhabiting her projection.
    The metal beneath her paw pads was cool and
smooth, the sensation more elusive than it would have been if she
were solid.
    She sniffed, pulling back her lips and
opening her mouth to taste the scents that were there. Beneath the
tang of steel, she picked up blood and perfumed smoke—perhaps from
a wood-based incense. The skin along her muscular shoulders
crawled, just as it had when Nate first opened the door. She
quartered the room, a big cat pacing a small cage. Three strides
took her long body across it.
    Her more primitive mind opened, along with
the senses Nate called psychic. A cry teased her ear from someone
who wasn’t there. The sound was cut short. Evina’s tail flicked at
the distress this caused.
    Barely aware she was doing