Without meaning to, his gaze traveled to where Araña had disappeared. Instinct told him to follow her. His cock urged it.

The sheer force of his desire to go after her served as a warning of how dangerous she was to him. It made him turn away and take another path. But each step grew harder than the last the farther he got from her.

A tightness gathered in his chest, silken strands of unnatural worry weaving, encasing his heart until finally he stopped and turned back—unsure he could find her given the time that had passed.

EXHAUSTION had finally pulled the child into the deep oblivion of heavy sleep. His face was pressed to Rebekka’s neck, but she didn’t stop stroking the small back, the gesture as soothing to her as it was to him. It had taken a while to gain his trust, then longer to understand his baby talk and to learn his name. Eston.

Where is his mother?she wondered, though she held no illusions when it came to men—or women. It was possible the toddler’s mother was as evil as the trapper had been.

There were plenty of humans who wouldn’t protest capturing and selling Weres to run in the maze. An uncomfortable number of them would applaud it.

Weres had rights—but only when they were in their human form. And even then, who would enforce them? Not the police or guardsmen. Not in Oakland anyway.

Was it any wonder the Weres, whose ability to shift form gave them an advantage when it came to survival, chose to live away from places where humans ruled? She didn’t blame them, though it meant the Weres who lived in the human world were the outcasts who’d fled to escape punishment or chosen to leave because staying meant death.

Eston whimpered in his sleep, his arms tightening around Rebekka’s neck and sending a twinge of longing through her heart. She wanted a child of her own, but she also wanted a husband, and she saw little chance of gaining one.

What few men she encountered regularly were those who visited the brothels. She’d never accept one of them. And the Weres, like Levi…

Marrying one of them was to be forever trapped between worlds, just as they were. It meant hardship, not just for her as a human, but for any children who might come.

That left only the gifted as potential mates and she knew so few of them. Beyond that, her talent wasn’t one to help overcome the stigma of being the daughter of a prostitute and growing up in a brothel, even if she’d never lain with a man for money.

Rebekka sighed, a soft sound of sad acceptance as her fingers combed through Eston’s silky locks of hair.

Next to her Levi asked, “What are you going to do with him?”

His voice was carefully neutral, as if he could guess the nature of her thoughts and didn’t want to tread on the land mine her heart had become or be the one to point out the harsh reality of the world they lived in. There was only one choice. He knew it as well as she did.

“I’ll take him to the Mission tomorrow,” she said, arms tightening at the idea of leaving the child at the orphanage. But she couldn’t keep him in the brothel and she didn’t have the resources to try to reunite him with his mother—nor did she want to call attention to herself by attempting it.

Both the police and the guardsmen turned humans over to run in the maze. If word got to Anton Barlowe or Farold that she had the trapper’s son, it could lead to questions, to retribution for the loss of the dragon lizards and the others being transported to the red zone.

Rebekka shivered. She glanced at the werewolf padding along next to her now that the trail had widened, then at the werecougar, still slung over Levi’s shoulders and just beginning to stir and fight his way back to consciousness.

“If either of them is able to take a human form, maybe they can tell us where the trapper lives,” she said. “Davida cares for the children left with her. She has the support of the Church and the government, as well as some of the wealthy. They have the resources to get Eston back to his mother if they know where to look.”

“I’m not convinced they’d incur the expense, but if we learn where Eston is from and take him to the Mission, at least a story claiming he was handed off to a prostitute in the red zone will be believable. We know a man was traveling with the trapper.”

The wereman jerked into sharper wakefulness. Levi quickly lowered his burden to the ground, pinning the shapeshifter on his stomach with his hands behind his back while animal instinct prevailed and made the werecougar dangerous to all of them.

Rebekka knelt where he could see her, the child snuggling closer, seeking safety in his sleep. “It’s okay,” she murmured softly, both to the toddler and to the struggling Were.

She pitched her voice to soothe them, touched the werecougar’s emotions and calmed him through the use of her gift. He stopped fighting, though he continued to shake with fear.

Rebekka’s heart went out him. She wondered how he’d come to be trapped between forms. A pure Were mother would kill an infant at birth if it didn’t quickly settle into one shape or another. A mixed child born to a human mother wouldn’t fare any better.

“We don’t mean you any harm,” Rebekka said, willing the wereman to meet her eyes, but he was too timid, or too traumatized by all that had happened, to look anywhere other than the ground.

“Levi is going to let you go in a moment,” she continued. “Before he does, I want you to understand you have a choice.”

Her throat tightened for an instant, her thoughts straying to Levi, to the memory of offering him this same terrible choice, the loss of one part of himself in order to avoid a lifetime of being trapped between forms.

“I’m a healer. I can push the parts of you that are human back or I can push the animal away, so you’re one or the other. Or I can do nothing and leave you as you are. Whatever you choose, you’re free to go your own way. But if I change you, there’s no going back. You will remain animal or man. Do you understand?”

The Were spoke, an unintelligible word forced through a misshapen cat’s mouth. She assumed it was yes and met Levi’s gaze, gave a small nod. He eased his grip on the werecougar, slowly releasing him, though Rebekka knew Levi would act quickly and lethally if there was the slightest hint of aggression.

For a long moment the Were remained still as he gathered his courage. Finally he tilted his head enough to look at Rebekka. He spoke again, a sound that might have been help or cat or something else entirely.

“Do you want me to help you?” Rebekka asked, feeling pity where others would feel revulsion at the sight of pelt and skin, human features as well as animal on the same body, as if a madman had hacked apart two separate beings then cobbled pieces of them into one.

This time the wereman nodded instead of trying to speak, accompanying the gesture by cautiously raking his claws in the dirt.

“You want the cougar’s form?” Rebekka asked, wanting to be sure.

Another nod.

She didn’t remind him there was no going back. She understood his choice and guessed he knew he would continue to be a victim if he elected to look human.

There was no advantage to it. In his animal form he might be accepted into a Were community, perhaps even allowed to breed. In Oakland he would have to hide his nature outside of the red zone because there were plenty of humans who feared and loathed Weres—in any form.

It might be different in other places, though she’d never heard of any. Only the vampires lived openly among humans. But in the cities where they did, like San Francisco, they ruled with an iron fist, ensuring safety to the humans who worked for them but guaranteeing death to any who defied or challenged them.

Rebekka passed off the sleeping child to Levi. Eston’s face scrunched up, but he didn’t wake.