She knew exactly what they’d do. The human Shifter bureau would slap a Collar on her without listening to her protests, strip Iona of all her rights, and keep her in quarantine before releasing her to whatever Shifter they assigned to keep her under control. Three guesses as to who that Shifter would be.
And who the hell knew what they’d do to Iona’s mother, who’d kept the fact that Iona was half-Shifter quiet all this time.
“I can’t leave you alone. You’re in my jurisdiction, my responsibility. And you’re losing control, aren’t you?”
Iona shivered with more than anger. His long body was hard on hers, muscles gleaming with sweat in the moonlight. Eric’s living strength made the wild thing in her want to respond.
“I was hung over,” she said. “I’m not like this every day.”
Eric lowered his head and inhaled, his nose touching her throat. “You will be soon. Your mating need is high and getting stronger.”
That need pounded through her, tried to make Iona’s body rise to his. A male, ready for you—take him!
“What I do is none of your business,” Iona managed to say. “Leave me the hell alone. My life has been fine so far without you in it.”
“But I’m in it now.” His voice was deep and rumbling, almost a purr. The tattoo that wound down his arm kept drawing her gaze, and she so much wanted to touch it…
For Eric’s part, he was barely holding on to his self-control. Iona’s scent was that of a female Feline who’d reached her fertile years, a little over thirty by human standards, a few years past cub by Shifter.
This female Feline didn’t know how to control her pheromones, didn’t realize she was broadcasting her availability to every Shifter male far and wide. She might as well hold up a flashing sign.
Good thing Eric was so disciplined, still mourning his mate lost long ago, so uninterested in mating. Right?
Or he’d be hard as a rock, wanting to say to hell with it and take her. They were alone in the middle of nowhere, and Eric was within his rights to take whatever stray adult female wandered into his territory.
He didn’t necessarily have to mate-claim her. As clan leader as well as pride leader, he could father cubs on a lone female belonging to no pride or clan if he wanted to. For the good of the clan, for the strength of his pride. So he could say.
But those had been the rules in the wild. Shifters were tamer now, civilized. Living together in a community, in harmony. And all that crap.
Eric’s instincts said, Screw the rules. She’s unmated and unclaimed. By rights, she’s fair game, and I found her. That makes her mine.
Wouldn’t that be sweet? Iona Duncan had a face that was pure Celtic, her hair black as the night sky, her eyes the light ice blue of her ancestors. Shifters had been created about the time the Nordic invaders would have been subduing Celts in northern Scotland, and some of that mixture had gotten into Iona.
Now her soft but strong body was under his, and her blue eyes held longing, oceans of it.
“Does it hurt?” Eric asked in a gentler tone.
“Having a big Shifter male resting his weight on my wrists? I’d say yes.”
Eric wanted to laugh. He liked the challenge in her, liked that she wasn’t cringing, timid, and submissive. Untrained, yes; terrified, no.
“I mean the mating need,” Eric said. “It’s rising in you, and you can’t stop it. That’s why you’re out here, why you’ve been running around like a crazy thing. You want to be wild, to taste the wind. To hunt. To feel the fear in you flow to the innocent creatures out there, to make them fear you.”
Iona stopped squirming, her eyes going still. Eric read the hunger in her, the need to find a male, to mate in wild frenzy for days. Iona wasn’t stopped by a Collar. Her instincts would flow like fire. Untamed.
Eric’s own need rose in response. He wanted to kiss that fire, to taste the freedom in her that was now only a memory to him.
He nuzzled the line of her hair, already knowing her scent, already familiar with it.
“I’ll take care of you,” he said. “You’ll become part of my pride, and I’ll look after you. Me and my sister and my son. We’ll take care of you from now on.”
Iona’s glare returned. “I don’t want to be part of your pride. They’d put that Collar on me.” Her frenzied gaze went to the chain fused to Eric’s neck, the Celtic knot resting on his throat. “It’s painful, isn’t it? When the Collar goes on?”
“Yes.” Eric couldn’t lie. He remembered the agony when the Collar had locked around his throat, every second of it, though it had been twenty years ago now. The Collars hurt anew whenever a Shifter’s violent nature rose within him—the Collar shocked so hard it knocked said Shifter flat on his ass for a while.
“Why would you want me to experience that?” Iona asked. “You say you want to take care of me, but you want me to go through taking the Collar?”
“No, I don’t.” And if Eric did things right, she wouldn’t have to wear a Collar, ever.
The urge to take Iona far away, to hide her somewhere from prying eyes, to protect her from the world was making him crazy. Protect the mate was the instinct that drove all males.
Eric caressed her wrists where he held them down. “If you don’t acknowledge the Shifter, if you don’t learn how to control what’s going on inside you, you’re going to go feral.”
“Feral?” Her sable brows drew down. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means what it sounds like. The beast in you takes over, and you forget what it is to be human, even in your human form. You’ll live only to kill and to mate. You’ll start resenting your family for trying to keep you home. You’ll try to get away from them. You might even hurt them.”
Iona looked stunned. “I’d never do that.”
“You won’t mean to, but you will. You can keep them safe if you learn how to be Shifter and live with Shifters. I won’t let humans know anything about you until the Collar is on you and you’re ready.”
“My point is that humans should never have to know I’m Shifter. No one’s ever suspected, but they will if an asshole Shifter keeps following me around.”
Eric clamped down on her wrists, at the end of his patience. “If you go feral, they might not bother Collaring you. They’ll just shoot you like an animal, and your mother will go to prison for not reporting your existence. Is that really what you want?”
He felt her fear reaction, but Iona kept up her glare. “I’m half-human. Won’t that keep me from going feral?”
“Not necessarily. Sometimes the human side helps. Sometimes it doesn’t.”
“I’m not giving up my entire life to live with you in a ghetto because you say I might go crazy,” Iona said. “I’ll risk it.”
Eric growled. “I can’t let you go on living without protection.”
Her eyes widened. “How do you plan to protect me? Abduct me and lock me in your house? What would the human police say to that?”
Taking her home and keeping her there was exactly what Eric wanted to do. At any other time, he’d simply do it. Iona was getting out of control, and she needed help.
But Shiftertown might not be the safest place for her at the moment, now that the idiot human government had decided—to save money—to shut down a northern Nevada Shiftertown and relocate all those Shifters to Eric’s Shiftertown. The humans, in their ignorance, had decided that the new Shifters would simply be absorbed under Eric’s leadership.
What the humans didn’t understand—in spite of Eric talking himself blue to explain—was that Shifters of both Shiftertowns were used to a certain hierarchy and couldn’t change it overnight. The other Shiftertown leader was being forced to step down a few rungs under Eric, which wasn’t going over well, especially since that leader was a Feline-hating Lupine.
Eric at least had persuaded the humans to let him meet the other leader, Graham McNeil, face-to-face before the new Shifters moved down here. Eric had found McNeil to be a disgruntled, old-fashioned Sh
ifter, furious that the humans were forcing him to submit to Eric’s rule.
McNeil was going to be trouble. He already had been, demanding more meetings with humans without Eric, insisting that Eric’s Shifters got turned out of their houses and crammed in with others so McNeil’s Shifters wouldn’t have to wait for the new housing to be built.
McNeil was going to challenge for leadership—Eric had known that before the man opened his mouth. McNeil’s Shiftertown had been all Lupine, and his Lupines were less than thrilled to learn that they had to adapt to living with bears and Felines.
And in the middle of all this, a young, fertile female with the rising need to mate was running around loose and unprotected.
Iona struggled to sit up again. It went against Eric’s every instinct to lift himself from the cushion of her body, but he did it.
She leaned against the rock wall and scraped her hair back from her face. Goddess, she was sexy, bare breasted in the moonlight, lifting midnight hair from her sharp-boned face.
Naked and beautiful, filling Eric’s brain with wanting. And if he did this right, she might provide the answer to some of his Shiftertown problems.
“I was coming to see you tonight for a reason,” Eric said. “Not just to track you down. I came to ask you to have Duncan Construction bid on the housing project to expand Shiftertown.”
Iona stared at him in surprise, letting go of the hair she’d been smoothing. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Because I need someone I can trust to build these houses. Shifter houses aren’t just places for Shifters to live. I need them constructed in a way that’s best for Shifters. It’s important.”
She looked curious in spite of her caution. “What do you mean, in a way that’s best for Shifters?”
Eric couldn’t explain—yet. He’d have to wait before he revealed to her that Shifter houses didn’t simply hold Shifter families. They held secrets of Shifter clans that humans could never know about.
Even McNeil would need to protect the secrets of his pack; probably why the man wanted to move into the existing Shifter houses—they already had the necessary spaces. Eric had planned to modify the new houses the same way he and his Shifters had modified the old houses, a little bit, over time, so the humans never realized they were doing it. But Graham’s Shifters didn’t have the patience, and it would be smarter to do it right away. Using Iona’s company and guiding her through the process could get it done quicker, and help both her and Shiftertown.
“I can’t tell you until you win the contract,” Eric said. He met her gaze, not disguising anything in his. “Please.”
CHAPTER TWO
Iona blinked, for the first time looking at him in more than frustration, anger, or crazed need. “Are you saying you need my help?”
“Yes.” He said it simply, no shame attached.
“And what do I get in return? You leave me alone?”
Eric felt his grin spread across his face. “I can’t leave you alone, love. You’re unmated and unclaimed, in my territory. I need to look after you. But I think we can come up with an agreement.”
“Oh really? The moment I enter your Shiftertown, all the Shifters there will know what I am. How will that help me?”
“Your sister or your mother can be the on-site manager. You never have to leave your office if you don’t want to.”
Iona wrapped her arms around her knees, gathering herself in. “Never leave my office? Never go to Shiftertown? Seriously?”
“Seriously. I’d come to you.”
“Huh. I’ll think about it.”
Eric moved to her side again but kept himself from touching her. “I really do need you. And you need me. Think of it as an opportunity to better understand your Shifter side.”
“I don’t think I want to understand my Shifter side.”
“Yes, you do. You’re going wild, and you need to learn how to contain it.”
Iona shivered, looking away, and Eric’s protective need sprang to life again. He wanted to fold her in his arms, take her home, keep her safe.
When Iona looked up again, the fear in her eyes was stark. “What do I do?”
Eric leaned into her, inhaling her ripe, sensual scent. “I’ll help you through this. But you have to trust me.”
Iona went still, though he sensed her body reacting to his. She wanted him, and everything in Eric knew it, and responded.
“You have to give me reason to trust you,” she said.
“No, sweetheart. Trust means believing in me even when you don’t understand.”
Eric nuzzled her again, and Iona let him, not pulling away. He’d scent-marked her the night he’d met her, but a scent marking was not the same as a mate-claim. Eric could scent-mark his children, his siblings, and anyone else he needed to, and it meant that Iona was under Eric’s protection.
Any Shifter coming across her would scent Eric and know he’d need to deal with the Shiftertown leader if he messed with her. Even Graham would understand that, though whether Graham would leave her alone was another question.
Eric breathed his scent onto her again as he brushed the line of her neck, renewing the mark. Goddess, she was sweet. She smelled clean like a mountain meadow, and her underlying scent was warm with wanting.
He made himself sit up and push away from her, rising in one move. Before Iona could scramble to her feet, he reached down, took her by the arms, and hauled her up next to him.
His human side was fully aware of her nudity and the petal-soft feel of her skin. Her breasts were full, the tips dusky, and the twist of hair between her legs black. Beautiful.
“You need me, Iona.”
Iona took a step back, breaking the contact. “You need me, you mean.”
“In theory.”
“Chew on this theory, Eric. I’m not one of your mate-claimed females, or whatever you call them. I’ll give you what you need to build your Shiftertown houses, and you’ll leave me the hell alone. Bargain?” She stuck out her hand.
Eric looked at the hand, Iona offering a handshake in the human way. He didn’t bother to take it. “No bargains, love. We do what’s necessary.”
Iona was gorgeous when she was fired up, blue eyes hot, her stance challenging. Eric’s reaction to her was obvious, even in the dark.
Her gaze dropped down his body, stopping at his very erect…erection. She put one hand on her bare hip and kept her voice light. “So what is that? An extension of your tail?”
Eric shrugged, unembarrassed. “I’m a male Shifter at the prime of life, and you’re a female entering her hottest mating years. What do you think it is?”
Iona’s eyes flickered, her need strong. Her pheromones filled the air until Eric could taste them. “Damn it,” she whispered.
She shifted to her wildcat. She couldn’t shift as swiftly as Eric could, and Eric saw that it was painful for her. His hard-on faded as he watched her struggle, but his wanting for her didn’t die. Iona was beautiful and wild, and he wanted her to be free. And safe.
Iona bounded past him. Her wildcat was sure-footed and fast, her pelt beautifully dark, her eyes as ice blue as her human eyes.
Eric watched in pure enjoyment before he fluidly shifted and ran after her.
Graham McNeil watched the humans shrink back in a satisfying way as he walked into the meeting room at the courthouse. They tried not to react to him, pretending they had all the power, but Graham knew he’d rule this room.
The only person who didn’t look intimidated was Eric Warden, the leader of the Vegas Shiftertown. Not leader for long, if Graham had anything to say about it.
The humans didn’t like Graham’s buzz of black hair, the fiery tatts down his arms, and his motorcycle vest. Eric had a tatt as well, jagged lines that started somewhere under his short-sleeved black T-shirt and wove down one arm.
Eric was going to be a problem. He was a strong alpha and had been leader of his Shiftertown for more than twenty years. As soon as Graham walked in, Eric’s jade green gaze f
ixed on him and stayed there.
The shithead wanted Graham to look away. To acknowledge that Graham was going to be second, maybe way less than that. Pussy.
Graham wasn’t about to look away. Neither was Eric. Graham felt his hackles rise, the wolf in him ready to shift. Eric’s eyes flicked to his cat’s, slitted and very light green.
They’d have stared each other down across the room for hours if a clueless human male, with no idea that a dominance fight was in progress, hadn’t walked between them.
“Mr. McNeil,” the man said. “Sit down, please.”
“Graham’s fine.” He’d rather remain standing, a better position for facing an enemy, but humans had a thing for chairs.
They wanted Graham to sit next to Eric. Idiots. Eric proved he wasn’t stupid by walking to the other end of the table and planting himself in a chair, leaving Graham to sit at the opposite end.
What did the humans expect Graham to do? Shake Eric’s hand, give him a big hug, wait for Eric to say, Welcome to my territory, let’s be friends?
They did, the morons. Amazing.
Graham’s Shiftertown had been tucked inside a mountain range south of Elko, a long way from anywhere, and he and his people had done pretty much what they wanted. A man with a check sheet came around every once in a while to make sure Shifters were behaving themselves and not eating people or whatever they thought Shifters did, and then he’d go.
But then someone in an office way back east, who’d never been to a Shiftertown in his life, had decided that times were tough, budgets had to be cut, and there was no reason to have two Shiftertowns in Nevada. So why not shove all the Shifters into one? The Shifter bureau could keep a better eye on them all that way.
Graham was used to the vast emptiness of rural Nevada, a place where a wolf could shift and run and run, never see a human for months if he didn’t want to. In this effing city, there were humans everywhere. They smelled like shit. Even Eric smelled wrong.
Graham had seen, on his way to the meeting, a sign on the top of a taxi advertising Shifter women dancing nude in clubs just off the Strip. Shifter females, taking off their clothes for human males. And Warden sat back and let it happen. That needed to stop.
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