Mate Claimed

by Jennifer Ashley

  Iona quickly set the box back into its niche. “What is all this?” she asked, waving at the shelves in general.

  Eric stood in the middle of the room, as nonchalant as ever. “Things our pride and clan have acquired over the years. Some have sentimental value, others more.”

  Iona browsed another niche and found an egg decorated with jewels and gold filigree set in a delicate gold holder. Holy crap. “Do the other Shifters know you have this down here?”

  Jace answered. “All Shifter families have a vault. Their pack’s or clan’s most prized possessions are stored there, kept secret from humans. Secret,” he repeated with a severe look at his father.

  “She needs to know exactly what her construction company needs to do for us,” Eric said. “I want her to understand why it’s necessary.”

  Iona looked around in still more wonder. “You’re saying Graham and his Shifters have this kind of stuff too.”

  “We all do,” Eric said. “Shifters live a long time. We watch the world change and see that the value of most things evaporates. But some things endure.”

  “And some of this,” Jace interrupted, “is from clan wars.”

  “Clan wars? You have clan wars?”

  Jace snorted with laughter at her amazement, and Eric answered. “We used to. After the Fae-Shifter war, when we found ourselves free of being fighting slaves for the Fae, our dominance fights began. Shifters being Shifters, we couldn’t help but battle it out to see who’d be in charge.”

  “Fights between species, and between clans,” Jace finished. “Bad fights, over which clan would dominate the others. We stole from each other, killed each other. In quieter times, we traded with each other, but there weren’t many of those.”

  “But…” Iona looked around, bewildered. “If you have loose diamonds hanging around in a box, why do you say Shifters were starving and dying in the wild? Why let humans put you into Shiftertowns?”

  “It’s complicated,” Jace said.

  “It is,” Eric broke in. “Jace is the clan historian and our keeper. He knows all the nuances. The simple explanation is—it’s hard to buy bread with an uncut diamond. If humans knew we had something like that, they wouldn’t stop until all Shifters were eliminated, and they had the diamonds.”

  “Not to mention the Fabergé egg,” Iona said.

  Eric nodded. “Not to mention the Fabergé egg.”

  “Given to you by Fabergé?” Iona asked, joking.

  “Yes,” Eric said, perfectly serious. “What you’re looking at are long-term solutions. We were starving and dying because we were fighting each other and turning feral, mates were scarce, cub birthrates were low. We came to Shiftertown to save ourselves. For now. We keep these things for what comes next.”

  Iona remembered what Cassidy had said to her the other day—that Shifters saw their stint in Shiftertown as a short blip in their history. They’d use their stay in Shiftertowns to right themselves, then they’d go on.

  “No wonder Graham is so cranky about having to move here,” Iona said. “That’s got to be tough, to require all his Shifters transport things like this, without the humans being the wiser.”

  “Exactly,” Eric said. “It’s why he doesn’t want to double up with my Shifters. We could share houses in a pinch, but never vaults. The secrets of each pack, pride, and clan need to remain hidden.”

  But members of families and clans could move in with each other, already knowing what the clan as a whole had stored, Iona realized.

  “That’s why no one wanted me to take the boxes all the way into the houses,” she said. “I thought one woman was going to claw me when I suggested helping her unpack. I thought she just didn’t like half Shifters.”

  “She was protecting her family secrets.” Eric gestured to the contents of the vault. “This is what I need you to understand.”

  To protect Shifters that weren’t even under his command, Eric was telling her, he was willing to trust Iona, to make her understand how to help them. He needed her. Hell, Graham needed her.

  “Is this why Graham wanted to mate-claim me?” she asked. “For my expertise on house construction?”

  “Probably part of it,” Eric said. “He wants to control you. Mostly, he’s a shithead who’s looking for any leverage over me he can get.”

  “Including whatever is causing your debilitating pain.”

  Eric’s humor left him. “Yes.”

  “We have to find out what it is and how to cure you,” Iona said.

  Eric came to her. “You’re an amazing woman, Iona.”

  He was amazing. Iona couldn’t help moving closer to his warmth, his heat and scent so right. “I’m practical. I don’t want Graham to beat you. And I don’t like to see you in pain.”

  “Good,” he said softly.

  Eric no longer looked ancient and wise as he studied her with hot green eyes. He looked hungry for her.

  Jace was no longer there. The smell of something delicious from the kitchen drifted down the stairs, and Iona’s stomach rumbled, her insatiable hunger raising its head again.

  Eric cupped the nape of her neck, his hand strong. Iona didn’t resist as he leaned down and kissed her, his mouth a place of heat. Iona sought him, needy, hungry, a growl in her throat. His kiss opened her, his hands stroking down her back, promising sin.

  “Eric!” Cassidy’s voice rang down to them.

  The word was steady, almost calm, but even Iona recognized the tone that said, Get up here now—something’s wrong.

  Eric had Iona out of the vault in two seconds, pulling the door securely behind him. He did nothing to lock it, but she heard the mechanism grate back into place.

  She saw how Jace had descended without her knowing about it, because there was a second door in the wall that led to another staircase, which spilled them out into Jace’s bedroom. Eric kept his hand firmly around Iona’s as he led her out of Jace’s bedroom and through the now empty kitchen.

  Graham stood on Eric’s back porch. He was accompanied by two Shifters Iona hadn’t seen before, all three carefully watched by Diego, Jace, and Cassidy, and by Shane, Brody, and Nell in the yard behind Graham.

  Graham’s glare was only for Eric. “Warden!” he bellowed as soon as Eric made it to the back door. “What the fuck have you done with my wolves?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Graham was furious, his eyes Shifter white, voice filled with rage.

  Eric kept calm, though everything in him came alert. He was aware of the exact placement of everyone around him, including Iona, standing unafraid by his side. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.

  “My wolves. They started coming in last night and today, but about twenty of them are missing. Where are they?”

  Graham’s scent of panic overlaid his anger, his fear triggering Eric’s own uneasiness. “It’s a long drive from Elko, McNeil. Maybe some took it slower than others.”

  “They all came together, asshole. In trucks and buses provided by the humans. Two hundred Shifters left my Shiftertown. One hundred and eighty arrived. Some of the missing are cubs. What the hell did you do with them?”

  Eric’s uneasiness increased. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure! When a couple of my wolves say they put their mates and cubs on the humans’ bus, but when the bus rolled into this Shiftertown, the mates and cubs were gone—that makes me sure. Bus arrived, they didn’t.”

  Iona broke in. “How could Eric possibly have had anything to do with that?”

  Eric understood why Graham was lashing out at him. Eric was the closest enemy, and Graham’s instinct to protect his people, especially cubs, was strong. He wasn’t bothered by Graham’s rage—what bothered him was the missing Shifters.

  “You’d do anything to weaken me,” Graham was snarling. “Did you make some kind of deal with Kellerman?”

  Eric made his voice hard to cut through Graham’s fury. “I wouldn’t kick your ass by abducting cubs, no matter how much you irritat
e me. Who is missing? Give me specifics, names and ages.”

  “Why? What do you know?”

  Eric thought about the line of buildings in the desert, surrounded by barbed wire—empty buildings—coupled with Jace’s report about the cages. “I’m not sure yet.”

  “I’ll kill you, Warden.”

  “This has nothing to do with me, idiot. We need to get those Shifters back.”

  “I might just kill you for the hell of it.”

  Graham could. He was enraged enough to take out Eric with one blow. Then Iona, Cassidy, and Jace would be on him, and Diego might just shoot him. Graham’s seconds would attack them, and so it would begin.

  “Don’t kill me until we find your wolves,” Eric said. “Give me a list of who we’re looking for, and I’ll get my trackers. The cubs are more important than our battle.”

  Graham stopped, and Eric watched him rearrange his ideas. “You do know something.”

  “There’s a place we found, out in the desert. My trackers and I could never get close enough to see what was going on. I’ll take you there.”

  “Tell me where it is, and my trackers will rip it open.”

  Eric fixed Graham with a steely gaze. “No. We track, we find, we get them out. My trackers and yours. The humans guarding it have high-powered rifles. If we go in fighting, they’ll best us with bullets, and then every Shifter in Shiftertown could be rounded up and killed.”

  Eric saw the acknowledgment in Graham’s eyes. Graham didn’t like it—the man was a fighter, and he hated humans. But they needed stealth right now, not claws.

  The human Kellerman might have nothing to do with this, but Eric would find out whether he did. Kellerman was always too cool when dealing with Shifters, as though he had some kind of hold over them that kept his fear at bay. Eric needed to discover what that hold was.

  “Round up your trackers and meet me back here,” Eric said. “And we’ll get them.”

  He deliberately turned his back, catching Iona’s eye as he went into the house. She followed him.

  Iona had never seen Eric like this. She’d seen the seductive lover, the vicious fighter, the man suffering, and the protector. She’d never watched him be leader.

  Anything laid-back about him was gone. Eric didn’t stand any straighter than usual, but his air of command was unmistakable. Even Graham had stopped arguing and quietly departed to do what Eric told him to.

  Iona found that she too was ready to follow his commands, to her surprise. “What do you want me to do?” she asked. “Come with you to the compound?”

  “No.” The word was sharp. “I don’t want to risk any humans finding out you’re Shifter.”

  “But I might be able to help with the women and kids. If they’ve been captured, they’ll be scared. They won’t know you.”

  “I’ll take some Lupine females with me for that. These Shifters aren’t used to Felines, and they might not trust you. What you could do…” Eric’s eyes were intensely green as he looked down at her. “Can you or your mother get Kellerman to your office? Ask him to come to talk about the house plans or something? I’d like to corner him somewhere away from his pristine office suite and his toadies.”

  “Kellerman the Shifter liaison?” Iona asked in surprise. “What does he have to do with the buildings in the desert?”

  “Maybe nothing. He might just be an asshole. Set the appointment for this afternoon. I want a look at the compound first.”

  “Eric, if humans have taken the Shifters there, and you steal them back…”

  Eric put his hands on her shoulders. “They’ll retaliate? Not this time, love. Humans put a lot of rules on us, but one we make them obey is: Don’t touch the cubs.”

  “Good,” Iona said.

  Eric leaned to her. “Stay away from Graham’s Shifters while I’m gone. They’ll smell you’re half Shifter, and if they see you’re un-Collared, I don’t know what they’ll do. And you’re still fair game. Best thing you can do is go back to your office, like it’s a normal Monday.”

  A normal Monday. Right.

  Eric started to release her, then pulled her close again and gave her a swift, hard kiss. “Be careful,” he said. “Come home to me.”

  Iona wanted to say the same to him. Instead, she sent him a cocky look. “And if I decide—to heck with Shiftertown?”

  Eric’s grip tightened to one she knew she could never break. “I’ll come and fetch you back.”

  Iona believed him, and the thought of that chase suddenly excited her.

  She saw her excitement reflected in his eyes. “Run as much as you want, Iona. The pleasure will be mine when I catch you.”

  Iona didn’t trust herself to answer. Eric gave her one final kiss, and then she had to watch him walk away.

  Strange, when Eric had first informed her he wanted her to stay in Shiftertown, Iona had rebelled. Now that Eric thought she’d be temporarily safer in the human world, Iona was reluctant to leave.

  Cassidy came to stand next to her. “I know,” she said. “It’s tough to watch them walk into danger. I feel that way every morning that Diego leaves for work. Our need to protect the mate is strong.”

  “I’m not Eric’s mate,” Iona said automatically.

  “Has Eric told you about the mate bond? Some say—and I believe this—that it’s a magical binding between true mates. Your heart knows it even if you haven’t done the mating ceremonies.” Cassidy looked down at her. “I’m seeing the mate bond now in Eric’s eyes, and I’m seeing it in yours. Especially when you look at him.”

  Iona didn’t answer, unsure how to respond. Cassidy studied her with an alpha stare, so like Eric’s.

  Iona didn’t quite understand what Cassidy was talking about, but she couldn’t deny the pull she felt to Eric as she watched him walk off now with Jace, or the violent urge to protect him she’d had at the fight. When Eric had showered last night, Iona hadn’t been able to stop herself going to him, knowing he was suffering, and wanting to ease his pain.

  “Ooh.” Cassidy flinched and put her hand to her abdomen, then she smiled. “She’s feisty. And wanting to come out and play.” She caressed her full stomach. “Not long now, love,” she crooned.

  She looked so delighted, and also a little scared, that Iona couldn’t help squeezing Cassidy’s hand before she went back to Eric’s room to grab her shoes and head off to her red pickup.

  Graham met Eric and Shane as they exited Nell’s house. Graham had brought his tracker Chisholm with him but said that his second-in-command, who’d arrived this morning, would remain in Shiftertown, since Eric’s second-in-command would too. Eric didn’t bother arguing with him.

  At least Graham had found out who the missing twenty wolves were—mostly females and cubs, but a few grown males as well. All had disappeared from one bus, and the others on the bus had arrived groggy, as though they’d been drugged.

  Somewhere on the long roads between here and Elko, the wolves had been spirited away.

  “I don’t guarantee they’re at this compound,” Eric said as they made for their motorcycles. “But something not good is going on in that place.”

  “If Kellerman has anything to do with this,” Graham said, “I’ll have his balls for breakfast.”

  “Get in line.” Eric started his bike, waited for Jace to mount behind him, and they rode out.

  Traffic heading north out of town was sparse, this being a workday. No one bothered a cluster of Harleys heading up the highway. It was cold enough to wear jackets that hid their Collars, Eric’s leather one keeping him warm.

  Eric led the way to the county roads that cut through the desert, then to the trail that led to the ridge above the compound. He killed his bike and advised they shift or hike as humans for the next few miles.

  Stuart Reid waited for them near the foot of the trail. He’d teleported, disliking riding double on a motorcycle as much as Eric hated teleporting.

  “I’ve been up to have a look,” Reid said as they shut down the bikes. “
Seems quiet.”

  Graham dismounted and thunked his helmet onto the back of his bike. “What did you bring the Fae for, Warden? He creeps me out.”

  “Dokk alfar,” Reid said, eyeing him steadily. Reid was no submissive. “Not Fae.”

  “Whatever,” Graham growled.

  “Learn the difference,” Reid said. “Someday your life might depend on it.”

  Graham leaned belligerently to Reid as Graham passed him. “Whatever.”

  “Let’s move,” Eric said sternly.

  Jace, Shane, Chisholm, two other Felines, and wolves who’d ridden up chose to shift, but Eric walked. He’d shift closer to the compound if he needed to. Graham did the same, walking right behind Eric.

  From the top of the ridge, the small compound crouching in the desert looked quiet, as Reid had said it would be. Eric didn’t see the guards this time—no movement at all in the shadows of the buildings.

  Though the November air was cool, the sun was high and strong, the blue sky unbroken. Eric could see for miles from up here, but nothing showed beyond the compound but pale sands, creosote, grasses, and blank rock.

  “That’s it?” Graham muttered as he hunkered behind a large slab of boulder and stared down at the buildings. “That’s nothing.”

  Eric tested the air. He couldn’t scent as well in human form, but he’d honed the sense over years. This time, when a gust of wind turned their direction, he caught the whiff of fear. Pure, stark fear, the stink of it unmistakable.

  Graham caught it too. The scent was faint but enough to have Graham halfway to his feet, snarling in rage.

  “Wait,” Eric said. “Let the trackers and Reid get closer.”

  Graham nodded reluctantly, and motioned for his wolves to go ahead with Eric’s trackers. The animals slunk down the hill, bodies fluid, hardly visible against the shadows. The wildlife went quiet, sensing the predators.

  Reid was the only one easily seen darting down the hill. He had the lithe body of a runner, and he was fast. He made it to the fence before the others and then popped out of existence.