Hard Mated (shifters unbound )

by Jennifer Ashley

  “I named him Jordan,” Jillian said. “He’s yours. Take care of him for me, all right?”

  Spike didn’t take his eyes from Jordan. Myka saw the pulse in Spike’s neck, the hard beats pressing under the Collar.

  Sharon waited, her fingers playing with the clasp on her cigarette case. Myka waited too, for Spike to deny it, to tell Jillian to prove it, to bail the hell out of there. Men didn’t like suddenly to be told that they were fathers, didn’t want to be held accountable for whatever grew from their sperm.

  Spike lifted Jordan higher. Jordan’s paws and hung down from Spike’s giant hands, his tail snaking around Spike’s wrist.

  “My cub,” Spike said. “My cub.” His voice rose to a deep roar that shook the window across the room. “My cub.”

  “Yes,” Jillian whispered, then her eyes drifted closed, and she slid back into her morphine sleep.

  Chapter Three

  Jillian never woke again. She slipped away around two in the morning. Spike didn’t see her go, because he’d been sent to the waiting room with Jordan while Myka and Sharon stayed with Jillian. Spike was alone with Jordan now, the other people who’d been waiting having gone home or to sleep elsewhere in the hospital.

  Jordan slept in Spike’s lap on top of Spike’s wadded-up sweat jacket, the boy back in human form and dressed again.

  Holy Mother Goddess, he had a cub.

  Made total sense for Spike to take the kid back to Shiftertown. Jillian’s mom would never be able to hide the fact that Jordan was Shifter, and she wouldn’t know how to raise a Shifter cub anyway. And if someone found out about Jordan being a Shifter, humans would step in and take him the Goddess knew where.

  No. He’s mine!

  Wherever this protectiveness had come from, Spike didn’t care. Jillian had been smart to send for him. Spike could take Jordan home, watch over him, raise him, and keep him from harm. Sean Morrissey, the second-in-command of Shiftertown and its Guardian, had access to a database he called the Guardian Network, and could futz birth certificates and paperwork and make everything seem legit. Sean was talented with that stuff. If humans thought to question where Jordan had gone, they’d see him as a registered Shifter with Spike as his father. Jillian, with her interest in Shifters, had probably known that could be done.

  He had a cub.

  In spite of the tragedy—Jillian had been a sweet little thing, and far too young to pass—Spike’s mouth kept wanting to spread into a smile.

  That is, until Myka walked in, a scowl on her face.

  “She’s gone,” Myka said curtly.

  Spike touched his chest, which had constricted with pain, then lifted his fingers to the sky. “The Goddess go with her.”

  Myka eyed Spike in complete distrust. Spike rested his hand on top of the sleeping Jordan’s back. Myka was not going to take Jordan away from him.

  “So you want to keep him then?” Myka asked.

  “Well, yeah, I do. I’m his dad.”

  She kept staring at him, arms folded, which pushed her breasts to the top of her cute tank top. “That doesn’t mean you’ll be a good father. You have other kids?”

  “No.” Again Spike caressed Jordan’s back. “Just him.”

  “Sharon and I have been taking care of him fine between us. Jillian lived with her mom. Jordan’s used to us, and Sharon’s his grandmother.”

  She didn’t get it, did she? “If humans found out he was Shifter, they’d take him away from her,” Spike said. “He’ll need to shift, to run, to be his wildcat. He won’t be able to help himself. In Shiftertown, he’ll be safe.”

  Myka let out a sigh. “I know that. But it’s taken me a long time to talk myself into letting him go to a male Shifter. Isn’t there a woman in Shiftertown he can live with? Someone you know who could take care of him—and let us see him whenever we want?”

  Spike growled. “Let another family take care of my son? Screw that. Anyway, there’s my grandmother. She can help me look after him.”

  “Your grandmother lives with you?”

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t she?”

  Myka’s lips pressed together then released into a forward push, as though she contemplated deep thoughts.

  “How do you know for certain that he’s your cub?” she asked. “Jillian told me you were the only Shifter she slept with, but she might have been lying for her own reasons. She sure went to Shifter bars a lot.”

  Spike had never seen Myka at one. “I take it you’re not into Shifters.”

  “No.”

  Spike lifted Jordan, who weighed next to nothing, and cradled him against his chest as he stood up. “Markings. His coat. He’s got my family’s markings.”

  Again the stare, the assessment. What the hell was with her?

  Finally Myka let out a sigh. She dug a tiny notebook out of her big purse and scribbled something down. She tore out a piece of paper and held it out to him.

  “This is my phone number. You call me if Jordan needs anything, or when the novelty of being a father wears off and you want to give him back.”

  Like hell he would. Spike only looked at her, making no move to take the paper. Besides, he’d have to disturb Jordan to do it.

  Myka clenched her jaw, took the last step forward, and slid the paper into the top of Spike’s jeans pocket. Her fingers were warm through the denim, firm, strong.

  Myka snatched her hand back and turned away so fast her purse swung and smacked her in her ass. The shapely ass that swayed as she hurried to the door again. “I have to take Sharon home and help her with . . . everything. You need a ride back to Shiftertown?”

  Spike caressed his cub’s back again. “I can call for one.”

  “Fine.” She hesitated again. “Be discreet when you leave?”

  “Why the hell wouldn’t I be?”

  Another dithering second, Spike scenting Myka’s sharp worry. Finally, she opened the heavy door and walked out. Spike heard her footsteps clicking down the hall, as though she were determined not to let herself turn back.

  Spike walked out of the hospital ten minutes later, holding Jordan under the hooded jacket he now wore. He’d gone down back stairs and through empty corridors, avoiding all humans as he made for the dark parking lot. Jordan felt right nestled against his side, his little fists gripping Spike’s shirt, as though he knew, even in his sleep, that Spike was his new protector.

  Cell phone use hadn’t been allowed on Jillian’s floor, so Spike had turned his off. In the dark and chilly parking lot, he turned it on again to find five missed calls from Liam’s number and the phone ringing again.

  “Spike, where the fuck are you, lad?” The Shiftertown leader’s Irish baritone came flooding over the line. “We have a situation. Get back here. Now.”

  “I have one too,” Spike said, his voice calm. “I’m gonna need a ride home.”

  * * *

  “So what’s the sitch?” Spike asked Sean Morrissey as they sped away from the hospital in Sean’s father’s small white pickup.

  Jordan was still hidden under Spike’s jacket but was an obvious lump on his right side. Even if Sean hadn’t noticed the lump, he would be able to scent Jordan.

  “What the hell is that?” Sean asked.

  Spike couldn’t keep the pride from his voice, though he had an almost crazed need to hide Jordan from all eyes until they reached home. “My cub.”

  Sean jerked the wheel, narrowly avoiding running into another car. “What?”

  “My cub.” Spike was torn between laughing at the expression on Sean’s face or growling.

  Shifters of old had stolen each other’s females and cubs, and males had put rival males’ cubs to death so they wouldn’t grow up to become threats. Sean had a mate and cub of his own, these were more civilized times, but instincts died hard. Spike didn’t like the way Sean kept trying to look at Jordan. He pulled his coat closed and gave Sean a warning look.

  “What has Liam so bothered?” Spike asked. “What does he expect me to do?”

 
Spike was a tracker. That meant he worked for the Shiftertown leader as bodyguard, watcher, and fighter, finding trouble before it could escalate into a problem. Liam, as Shiftertown leader, trusted his trackers implicitly. Had to. Liam couldn’t be everywhere, and the Austin Shiftertown was large, covering three species, two dozen or so clans, and many prides and packs within those clans.

  Spike’s pride family was small—he and his grandmother Ella the only survivors—and they were the only jaguar-type Felines around as well. Shifter Felines had been bred from all species, but families and clans tended toward one type of cat more than others. The extensive Morrissey clan, for example, were lions. The Morrissey clan had made Spike and his grandmother honorary members when Spike and Ella had first come to Texas, because all Shifters had to be part of a clan to survive.

  Which was how Spike had found himself in the position of tracker to the previous clan leader, Fergus, who at the time had also been the leader of the San Antonio Shiftertown. Previous meaning now dead. Spike had never taken a mate, never had a cub, and with the limited number of Shifter females available, Spike thought he never would.

  And now here was a cub of his body, born of a single night with a human, clinging to him, depending on him.

  The sudden responsibility both elated him and made him viciously protective.

  Sean turned his attention to the road, but he remained tense. “The situation is that gobshite. Gavan Thibault. Your old friend.”

  Friend was stretching it. Spike, Nate, and Gavan had been the three top henchmen for Fergus, until Fergus’s untimely demise about a year ago. Spike and Nate had moved to the Austin Shiftertown to work for Liam, while Gavan had stayed in San Antonio with the new, and much calmer, leader there.

  “What was up with him?” Spike asked, his attention only marginally on the problem. Gavan was a shithead and unimportant at the moment.

  “He was up at the fight club whinging on about how the fights should be to the death, because we have too many Shifters around, and we need to start weeding out the weak. Typical ‘back-to-nature’ Shifter shite.”

  True, some Shifters liked to moan about how everything had been better in the good old days, when Shifters had roamed free and lived in secret from humans. They’d also been starving, dying out, and killing each other for survival.

  No decent beer or TV in the wild either. In this captivity, Shifters weren’t allowed cable or HD, but they were good at finding ways around the restrictions.

  “Dad and Ronan made Gavan back down, but we thought you were still there,” Sean said. “But you were at the hospital. Picking up your cub? What the hell?”

  Sean in addition to being Liam’s younger brother, was the Shiftertown’s Guardian, which meant he carried a big sword—tucked behind the seat—with which he dispatched the souls of dying Shifters. The Shifter’s body dissolved to dust when the sword went through the heart, releasing the soul and ensuring that the physical remains were undefiled. The idea of being buried or cremated in the human way sent a shudder of horror through every Shifter.

  Sean’s status put him well above Spike in the dominance chain. With pinning looks from his Irish blue eyes, Sean was trying to make Spike open up about Jordan.

  But this was too new, too wondrous. Jordan was his, something private, something family. Jordan belonged to his pride, not the Morrisseys.

  Spike would have said nothing at all until they got to Shiftertown, except that Jordan woke up. Not only did he wake up, the kid jumped inside Spike’s jacket, and then he shifted.

  Baby jaguar claws penetrated Spike’s flesh. The claws were nowhere near the size and deadliness of a full-grown wildcat’s, but it was like having ten needles driven straight into his side. Blood flowed, and Spike couldn’t stop his yelp.

  Jordan took the opportunity to spring out of Spike’s coat and land on the dashboard, his little claws scrabbling as he tried to balance against the moving truck. His clothes had ripped and hung in shreds. Jordan crouched in confused terror, eyeing Sean, who stared at the cub in amazement until the pickup nearly ran up the back of an SUV sitting at a traffic light.

  Sean hit the brakes. Jordan lost his hold on the dash and shot through the air. Spike caught him in both hands, and found himself struggling to hold on to a squirming ball of fur.

  Jordan then did what any terrified little cat might do, and the scent filled the closed air of the pickup.

  “Shit!” Spike held Jordan away from him. “Shit, shit, shit!”

  “Stop saying that, man!” Sean cried. “Or he’ll do that too!”

  The wet stream continued out of Jordan, half catching in Jordan’s shredded jeans, half all over Spike and the seat of the pickup.

  “Damn it, this is Dylan’s truck,” Sean shouted. He squealed around the SUV and through the streets, charging around the last corner and into Shiftertown. He slowed the truck as the road became a lane passing old bungalow houses with deep yards and porches, mostly full of Shifters enjoying the October night.

  Sean cranked down his window while Spike kept a grip on Jordan, who was writhing and fighting. Spike was the champion fighter of South Texas, rarely losing a battle in the ring, and here he was, barely able to hold on to a cub ten times smaller than him, while said cub peed a river.

  Jordan gave his little body a sharp wrench, twisted himself free of Spike, scrambled across the dash, and dove out Sean’s open window. Sean stood on the brakes, and Spike was out of the truck before it stopped.

  Jordan disappeared into the shadows between houses, but Spike was Shifter, and he could see the little wildcat running full speed into the green beyond. Spike sprinted after him, slowed down by thick motorcycle boots, not made for running.

  Goddess, what a night. Jordan ran on, the scent of terror in his wake. Behind him, Sean was calling Spike’s name, and Spike wished his friend would shut the fuck up a minute.

  Nothing for it. Spike braced himself on the bole of a tree, shed his boots, stripped out of his clothes, and shifted to his wildcat.

  As though Jordan sensed Spike’s change, he sped up. The cub rocketed around trees and through yards, sprinting around houses and down tiny black alleyways. If he got out of Shiftertown, Spike’s human brain said, he could be hit by a car, or shot, or at best grabbed and taken to the human police.

  Spike’s wildcat brain, taking over, said, Get him.

  Plenty of Shifters witnessed the chase. The nocturnal ones were out to enjoy the night—drinking, talking, eating, screwing in the shadows—and they stopped and stared in astonishment as Jordan zoomed by, Spike hard on his ass. Some of them, damn them, tried to help.

  Spike put on a burst of speed. His breed, mostly jaguar, was better at stealth and swift movement in dark places, but if jaguars had to run, they could. Spike’s body bunched and lengthened as he closed the distance between himself and his unruly cub.

  He reached out and brought Jordan down with a big paw on his back, gently enough not to hurt him, but firmly enough to make him stay. Gotcha.

  Now to get him home.

  There was only one way for a Shifter in beast form to carry cubs. Spike knew he’d never keep hold of Jordan in his human hands, so he closed his big jaws around the loose skin on the back of Jordan’s neck and lifted the cub from his feet.

  Instantly, Jordan stilled. Whatever instinct or nerve center Spike’s grip triggered, Jordan tucked his head down and curled his feet and tail up under him.

  Holding Jordan high enough not to drag him on the ground, Spike carried his cub down the length of Shiftertown.

  The whole damn town saw him. There was Ellison Rowe, friend and Lupine Shifter; Nate, fellow tracker; Dylan, Liam and Sean’s father and the scariest Shifter in Shiftertown; Dylan’s mate Glory, equally as scary; Cormac, the bear Spike had bested tonight; Ronan and Ronan’s human mate; and Connor, the Morrissey nephew. They all watched Spike, the big, bad champion fighter of Shiftertown, walking down the green with a cub dangling from his jaws.

  Spike went on past without look
ing at them and climbed the back porch of his own house. His grandmother was there, and she opened the screen door for him, open-mouthed in shock. Spike walked inside with his burden and dropped the cub onto the spread of the living room rug.

  Chapter Four

  “Spike, what the hell?” Ella Reyes, Spike’s grandmother, stood wide-eyed, her hand still on the screen door.

  Jordan sprang to his feet and ran for the back door, but Ella slammed it shut. The cub hit the screen, which creaked but held, then he pushed off it and dashed back through the kitchen. The little jaguar leapt onto and across the counters, scattering everything in his way. Pans, dishes, and silverware clattered to the floor, and a coffee cup exploded into fragments and hot liquid.

  Spike, still his wildcat, grabbed Jordan when he jumped down again, getting a paw on him as Jordan scrambled for his footing on the vinyl floor.

  No! Spike’s growl held weight. Jordan stopped squirming and looked up at Spike with fear in his eyes.

  Spike eased the pressure without losing the firmness. Jordan subsided, his little body quivering.

  “Spike,” Ella said, arms folded as she stood in the center of the kitchen. “I ask you again: What the hell?”

  Under Spike’s paw, Jordan shifted slowly back into the form a four-year-old boy, his tattered clothes a pool of fabric on the floor.

  Spike shifted to human, his big body folded in on itself, his hand still on Jordan. “This is Jordan. He’s my son.”

  “Your what?”

  “Son. Cub. My kid.”

  Ella didn’t argue. No debating whether Jordan was really Spike’s son. She’d seen the markings too. “Who is the mother? What clan? You didn’t make a mate-claim—I’d know that.”

  “She was a human. A groupie—or at least she might have been. She’s gone.”

  Ella understood what he meant, because her eyes took on a look of sorrow. “I’m sorry, Spike.”

  “I didn’t know her. Only for the night.”

  Jordan looked from Spike to Ella, his shoulder engulfed by Spike’s big hand. “I don’t like it here,” he said. “Where’s my mom?”