But he did, and when he picked up his stride, I stumbled and tried to keep from falling.

“Better wake her up,” a man with a heavy British accent said. “Here, let me.”

A cold splash of water drenched my face, and I choked in a series of coughs. Some of it had gone up my nose, and I shuddered at the icy contact with my skin.

“They like it when we wet the girls down before a fight.”

“Moreland?” I croaked, looking around for Lorenzo’s packmate.

When the guard jerked the chain, my panther snarled at me to fight back. I kicked the man in the lower back and he buckled, falling to his knees. When I got some slack on the chain, I pulled enough of it to wrap around his neck. He was tall, but I tried with everything I had in me to hang on.

The man who had splashed me with water snaked his arms around my waist and yanked me off. “Told you we should have shackled her hands,” he said. “Delgado said she’s a panther.”

The other man coughed and unraveled the chain from his neck. “I don’t get paid enough for this shit.”

“Let me go,” I growled. “I’ll shift and tear your limbs from your body.”

The man I had strangled choked out a laugh. “Just try it, honey. The collar is locked tight for a reason.”

I kicked at him while the man holding me started to move forward. He had my arms pinned against my body within his crushing grip. Oh my God, this was Delgado’s psychotic house of horrors.

“Moreland!” I yelled. And then something else occurred to me. “Wheeler!”

We passed a cell and a young woman with blond curls looked at me with frightened eyes. She backed away from the bars and sat down, holding her knees. Another cage held a pale man with scars all over his body, and the next cell contained what looked like a murderer. His eyes were vacant as he watched us move past. It was as if I’d witnessed the progression of a cage fighter in five seconds.

“I want to speak to Delgado,” I demanded. “Tell him Naya James is asking to see him. Tell him—”

“You can tell him yourself,” the man ahead of me said.

Bright lights pierced my eyes when we moved into another room. Wet curls of hair stuck to my face, and I fought against my screaming retinas so I could get a look at my surroundings. The room itself was dark except for the bright light straight ahead.

Terror swept over me when soft applause filled the silence of the room. Through my lashes, I saw a raised platform, similar to a boxing ring. Except it was a cage with shiny, narrow bars all around and across the top. Seeing that incited a visceral reaction in me, and I arched my back as far as I could and bit the guard’s bristly jaw.