It was an array of thick metal bars, like the ones in a jail cell, but they all had the distinctive glimmer of shiftsilver.
The one material no shifter could destroy by magical means, that Iz’s dragonfire could never melt away no matter how much Logan’s hellhound power boosted it.
But they could still burn their way through the walls, the floor, even the ceiling—
Except that when Logan looked around, he could see what he had missed before, when both he and Iz had been concentrating on Elizabeth and Sebastian instead of cave décor.
Every part of the cavern had that same sheen, a lustrous metallic sparkle that every shifter couldn’t help finding a little repulsive.
“It’s a shiftsilver deposit,” Logan said calmly, looking at Sebastian. “Isn’t it.”
Iz looked around, and Logan saw her swallow. But no trace of fear showed in her voice when she said, “You know, that’s another thing we’ll have to write you up for, Randy. When you find shiftsilver deposits, you’re supposed to report them.”
Sebastian was too flush with victory to even mind being called “Randy,” which Logan found bitterly disappointing.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll ever report this one,” Sebastian said. “Those judgmental, supercilious authorities you represent will just have to live in ignorance.”
“Yeah,” Logan said. “It’s really judgmental of us to try to stop you from kidnapping and imprisoning people.”
“The universe doesn’t work by your rules,mutt. It works by mine. No fiddly little moral views, no rules to break or follow. Just facts: I’m strong enough to do what I want, and you’re too weak to stop me.”
“‘Might makes right,’” Elizabeth Benoit said. Her voice was strained and weak, probably from shouting into the gag, but there was an underlying steeliness to it that Logan doubted a man like Sebastian was equipped to appreciate. It was the same strength he saw in Iz. “I’m sure you’re the first person to ever think of that. How terribly original of you.”
“I love it when you politely eviscerate people,” Iz said to her mother.
Elizabeth gestured with her chin, like she was trying to wave off the compliment even though her hands were still chained. “It’s only cattiness, really, but I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more.”
“Neither can I,” Iz said. “And—”
She stopped so abruptly that it was like someone had cut her sentence in two with scissors.
“Iz?”
“I believe Isabelle is realizing that it might not be wise to try to make me angry,” Sebastian said.
“I believe you’re full of shit,” Logan said.
“Cattiness,” Iz said, still looking stunned.
She raised her arm, holding it out horizontal to the floor. She could look down the length of it and see Sebastian like he was balanced on her knuckles, and she reminded Logan of nothing so much as a superhero about to take out the bad guy with a blast from some high-tech wrist cannon. Of course, Iz didn’t have one of those, all she had was—
Logan understood what she was doing a second before she did it, and it made him grin so hard that his mouth hurt.
“Bring us what he’s holding, Cat,” Iz said quietly.
The air-snake exploded off Iz’s wrist androcketedtoward Sebastian, looking like a bolt of blue lightning.
Sebastian had made the gaps between the bars too narrow for anyhumanto ever slip through, but he hadn’t used any of the sparkling shiftsilver netting he’d used on the air-snake cages in the old cave. He hadn’t thought he’d needed to, because the idea that an animal wouldwillinglystay with someone hadn’t even occurred to him.
To Cat, the gap he shot through was as wide as the Grand Canyon.
He flew straight into Sebastian’s face, biting at his cheek and ear and practically blindfolding him by laying his whole body across Sebastian’s eyes. Sebastian kept trying to claw at him and get him off, but Cat was too quick for him and always seemed to squirt between his fingers and land somewhere else and bitethere.
He couldn’t keep the remote in his hand and try to bat Cat away at the same time.
Logan was watching for the instant he dropped it. “Get it, Cat!”
He could have sworn Cat gave him a vaguely irritated “I don’t take orders fromyou” hiss, but he darted to the floor and knocked his flat snout hard against the remote.