As they peered at the cages, trying to see inside, a few sad meows arose.
“I knew it! Poor things. We have to rescue them.” Catalina reached for the latch of the nearest cage.
Shane caught her hand. “Hold on. That same metal is on their collars.” He jerked his head at Ransom and Roland.
Catalina froze, hand in mid-air. “What do the collars do?”
Both men shrugged.
“Neither of you can shift, can you?” Destiny asked. When they shook their heads, she said, “Maybe these are imprisoned shifters.”
“No,” Ransom said. “They’re animals.”
“How do you know?” Justin asked.
“That’s his power,” Merlin said. “He… knows things. Right?”
Ransom gave a reluctant nod.
“Are the animals dangerous?” Merlin asked.
Ransom frowned, as if struggling to put what he saw or knew into words, and finally said, “They won’t hurt us.”
“I hate to rain on the pet rescue parade,” Pete remarked. “But I don’t want to be juggling a bunch of loose cats if we get attacked.”
Merlin, who had been prowling around the lab, raised his head. “I found some carrying cages. We can stash them in there.”
As if in response, a chorus of plaintive meows arose, and also several canine whines.
“Dogs!” Justin said indignantly. “No way we’re leaving helpless dogs for Apex to experiment on.”
“Or helpless cats!” added Catalina. With that, she opened the nearest cage.
It contained a fluffy black kitten with enormous yellow eyes and wings like a Monarch butterfly, striped and spotted in black and orange. It blinked at her, gave an excited squeak, and flew into her arms. She instinctively caught it. The flying kitten rubbed its head against her chest and began to loudly purr.
“What the…” Pete began.
“No weirder than dinosaurs and monsters and shapeshifters,” Merlin said with a shrug.
“Yes, it is!” Pete said to Merlin. “This is the weirdest yet.”
“It’s definitely the cutest yet.” Destiny reached for the nearest unopened cage.
Ethan chuckled. “You want your own nerdly pet, don’t you?”
She grinned, unabashed. “So do you. Admit it.”
“I want one,” he admitted. “But you go first.”
Destiny opened the cage. Ethan leaned forward, eager to see her winged kitten and secretly hoping it would be even more adorable than Catalina’s, if such a thing was possible. His mate deserved the cutest flying kitten of them all.
A pair of beautiful wings, as translucent blue as a morning sky, unfolded. But they didn’t belong to any kind of kitten. The little blue dragon launched itself from the cage.
But it didn’t go to Destiny. It flew straight to Nick. Startled, he raised his arm. It landed on his forearm and cocked its head, examining him with sapphire eyes. After the briefest hesitation, Nick extended his arm to Destiny. The little dragon didn’t budge. Instead, it coiled its tail around his tattooed wrist.
“Guess it likes you, Nick,” Destiny said. With a toss of her braids, she said, “No accounting for taste.”
But he was too enchanted with the tiny dragon to even tease her back. “What a gorgeous little thing. Raluca will love it.”