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be free or dead. Her speed was more of a slow walk, even though she was channeling all of her strength into it. She was hurting. Every inch of her was on fire with pain. They can just fucking kill me. I won’t go back to that stinking cage.
    A tall, dark-haired man swept her into his arms and turned her flailing paws away from him. She swept her claws uselessly through the air. She looked at the room around her. There were no cages, and the room was unfamiliar. Three huge, blond men were coming toward her with their hands outstretched. A tall, slim woman stood behind them, her arms folded across her chest. Blood rushed through Abbie’s ears. The pounding of her own heart was nearly deafening her.
    “Calm down. You’re safe,” the man holding her said. He sounded calm and serene. “We are all here to help you. Your mates are here to help you.”
    She froze. Her mates? She had woken thinking her mate was here. As the three blond men approached her, the scents of musk and male wolf engulfed her. She struggled to believe it. She was really safe. She had mates. Oh God. I have three mates?
    “These three men are your mates. I am a vampire, and I have a panther, who is like you, as my mate.”
    Several things about that statement were immediately disturbing to Abbie. He was a vampire, he had a panther for a mate, and he must surely be blind. She was shifted and clearly was not a panther.
    “I am unable to hear her thoughts as I can Kaitlyn’s. Can you hear her thoughts, Isabelle?”
    “No, I can’t. I could hear none of the hybrid’s thoughts. I’m surprised you can hear Kaitlyn. I have never been able to hear her.”
    Abbie recognized the tall woman as the one who had freed her from the cage. One of the blond giants moved to stand in front of her.
    “Can you please give me my mate, Aiden? My wolf is going crazy with you holding her.”
    His voice, she recognized it from her dream. The dream that wasn’t a dream. She was really safe.
    “I imagine that the way you’re holding her is causing her broken ribs to puncture her lungs again, Aiden.”
    “Fuck, give her to me,” said one of her mates, one of the angry ones.
    She’d had enough of being a spectator. If she wanted to participate in this conversation, she needed to shift. Before her capture she’d lived in a pack, and nudity after a shift was an accepted norm. These people, however, were not pack, and it made the decision difficult.
    With her panic subsiding, the pain in her ribs and body was becoming unbearable. Just as the blond mate reached for her, she called for her human form and shifted. She found herself snuggled against a warm, hard torso. His scent was more subtle to her human nose, but still clearly recognizable. Mate.
     
    * * * *
     
    Shane could deny he wanted a mate all he liked, but it seemed his wolf was quite certain of what it wanted. “Well, hello there, sweetheart. Decided to join us, did you?” The woman in his arms, his mate, buried her face into his chest. She was wracked with convulsive shudders. “She’s freezing.”
    “It’s probably shock,” Charlie said. She walked to him with a thick winter coat and laid it over the shaking woman. “Open your shirt and hold her against your skin. It’s the quickest way to warm her.”
    Shane found he was sitting on the sofa and obeying the doctor without giving it another thought. He didn’t know when he’d become a pussy, but it seemed to come naturally. He opened his shirt with one hand, his other arm supporting the slight form of the woman. My woman. Fuck, she feels good.
    She felt like she was made of ice as her naked body made contact with his skin, but his skin burned at the contact. His cock filled and throbbed as he breathed her scent deep into his lungs. His body soaked her scent in like it was starving for her. He breathed even deeper, her scent satisfying the hunger in his soul, the hunger for love.
    “Hello, my name is Charlie.”
    His eyes snapped open, he’d been