Other guards had separated the two men by the time I got there. They had Thorn pressed to the floor with three guards on him. They weren’t being gentle, and I was okay with that. Two more guards were holding Dev back, but the blade that was still stuck in his side helped him not fight that hard. It was stuck in almost to the hilt. It looked like Thorn had stabbed and tried to retract the blade, but couldn’t get it out before the other guards swarmed him, or maybe the knife was stuck on a rib? I put a hand to my own side and thought, yeah, maybe. My side was a dull ache, a phantom pain of what was happening to Dev, but if the wound had been worse, so would my damage. The death of your animal to call could kill you, too, which made Thorn’s behavior all the more careless.

Dr. Lillian came into the room with her own wererat bodyguard. Doctors were scarce in the lycanthrope community; the few we had were treated like gold. Dr. Lillian was still slender, with gray hair gone almost white. She looked like I thought fifty-plus should look, which meant she was actually much older. Shapeshifters aged more slowly than humans, and she matched her bodyguard as part of the wererats’ rodere.

“What happened?” She looked at the two weretigers, and me holding my side. She came toward me first, but I motioned her to Dev. “He’s the one who’s hurt, not me.”

“Why are you holding your side?”

“He’s my golden tiger to call, and I was hooked up to him power-wise when it happened.” I looked around the room and just said, “Jean-Claude, Nathaniel, Micah, are any of you feeling this?”

“I’m not,” Micah said.

“I have shielded, ma petite, and am fine.”

Nathaniel had a hand to his side. “It’s a dull ache.”

“Shit, that means I need to contact everyone else I’m tied to.”

“I can answer, ow,” Domino said as he came through the door. The black-and-white curls that had given him his name were mainly white, which meant that his last shift had been to the white side of his mixed heritage, and not the black.

Crispin, whose hair was only white curls, because he was pure white clan, came in with a hand to his side.

Echo jerked harder on Thorn’s right arm. “If you kill a vampire’s animal to call, you can kill them, did you forget that?”

“I wasn’t trying to kill him.”

Fortune pulled his other arm hard enough that he made a small pain sound. “Did you remember that hurting Dev would harm Anita?”

“Did you?” Echo jerked as if she meant to dislocate his shoulder.

“NO!” He said it through gritted teeth.

Lillian was kneeling by Dev now. “If you were human we’d be packing this so it wouldn’t move and going to the hospital for a surgeon to help remove it, but it’s not silver.”

“See, I wasn’t trying to kill him,” Thorn said.

“Shut up,” Fortune said.

“Brace yourself, Anita; I have to pull it out now.”

“Give me a few seconds to warn everyone.” I opened my shields a little more and let everyone connected to me know what was coming. Jade was crying in her room. I so did not need that right now, and I shielded hard from her. Everyone else got a glimpse and a warning; the “wound” hurt more with my shields down even a little. I put my shields hard in place like metal walls and said, “If Dev is ready, do it.”

The guards helped brace Dev; Lillian put one hand on the hilt and the other against his side with her plastic gloves on, and pulled hard and quick.

Dev’s breath came out in a sharp hiss, and he swayed a little, letting the other men keep him on his knees. I’d been safe behind my shields for the most part, but I held my hand out.

She looked at me. “You want the knife?”

“Yeah.”

Dr. Lillian looked at me. “Why do you want it?”

“I’m going to give it back to Thorn.”

“Don’t do anything foolish.”

“Just making a point,” I said, and after a moment’s hesitation she let me take the bloody knife from her hand.

I went to where Fortune and Echo still had Thorn on his knees with his arms damn near dislocated. At six feet plus he was tall enough, or I was short enough, that with him kneeling we had good eye contact. “Did you forget that stabbing Dev would hurt me, too?”

He hesitated, and the women made him hurt a little more, so he answered, “Yes.”

“So you forgot that he was my animal to call, just having touched the power we share?”

He looked sullen. “I didn’t think.”

“That is part of your problem, Thorn, you don’t think. You react, you let your temper best you, but you don’t think. I’m going to make a point that I hope helps you think more clearly in the future before doing something stupid.”

His eyes flicked to the blade in my hand.

“Nice knife, good balance,” I said, as I tested the hilt in my hand.

“Thanks,” he said, but he didn’t sound certain now. Good.

I plunged the blade into his side; I didn’t hit a rib, so it went in nice and fast, all the way to the hilt, the way he’d planned on hurting Dev. Echo and Fortune eased down on his arms so he could react to it. I got close to his surprised face and said, “If you ever forget again what is mine, and harm Dev, or any of my animals to call, outside a practice ring, I will give you your blade again, but it will go in a little higher and more to the center, are we clear on that?”