Mate Claimed su-4

by Jennifer Ashley

  Iona sniffed and listened to the hall beyond, but she heard nothing, smelled no one near. She crept out and closed the door, making sure the outer handle fitted back on so the door would appear, at first glance, to still be locked.

  The panther was better for stealth, but Iona had a hard time convincing her in-between beast to change to it. She felt so powerful and clever in this state.

  At last, the half beast conceded to flow into the panther. Iona was surprised how easy that shift was once she made up her mind, but she’d have to think about these things later. For now, she prowled the hall on silent feet, trying to figure out where she was.

  She and Cassidy might have been taken to the compound in the desert that Iona and Eric had viewed from the ridge, the one to which Eric said they’d taken all the wolf Shifters. But this building looked larger and more solid, with a corridor running between rows of rooms. Iona might be in a regular hospital, albeit an old and disused one.

  The only light came from windows in open rooms, where the moon was waxing to the full. Those windows were high in the walls, as was the one in Cassidy’s room, which could indicate that they were in a basement.

  Not necessarily, she knew. Older buildings in Las Vegas had used small windows under the eaves to protect against the summer heat. The junior high and high school Iona had attended hadn’t had any windows at all.

  At the end of the hall, she came upon what looked like an old nurses’ station. If the station had ever had any phones, they were gone now. Iona would have to hunt down the humans who’d taken her cell phone and beat it out of them. That thought appealed to the beast.

  First, she needed to find Amanda. The panther put her nose to work.

  Iona found nothing alive on this floor but herself, Cassidy, a few nests of field mice, and some scuttling roaches. At least it was too cold for snakes and scorpions right now. In summer, this place was probably infested.

  The vision of baby Amanda with insects crawling all over her spurred her on. Infants were fragile, and Amanda would need warmth, protection, food. Were their captors giving her that? Or was it already too late?

  Iona forced such thoughts away. Focus. Find her.

  Eric, please come. We need you.

  Even thinking about Eric made Iona feel better. His name twined around her heart, giving her strength and comfort.

  At the end of a hall was a door, unlocked, which led to a stairwell. Iona shifted to her in-between beast to open it, then stayed the half beast as she ducked inside and tested the stairwell’s scents.

  The stairs led down at least three floors, Iona thought, maybe more, and upward, maybe two or three. Iona stood there a long time in the darkness, trying to decide which direction was best. Upstairs might lead to light and a way out. Or she already might be on an upper floor, and upward would only take her to a roof.

  At least she’d see where she was if she found the roof, she reasoned, but another sniff made her change her mind. From the lower floors, she scented life, and it smelled fetid.

  Rescuing Amanda was the first priority. Iona remained her half beast and moved quietly down the stairs.

  She found that there were a total of five floors below her. The first level down was pitch-dark, and she smelled nothing there. Nothing on the next floor either, though the scent grew stronger, and she realized that it was coming from the bottom of the stairs.

  Iona continued down, opening the last door on the stairwell very softly. As soon as she was through, she flowed back to her panther and moved in silence.

  No lights shone down here, and the smell from the walls was more earthy—definitely underground. The corridor off the stairwell was short and ended in a door that opened, unlocked, into a wide space.

  Iona couldn’t see what was in that space as she slipped inside, opening the door only enough for her wildcat to slither through. She stopped, waiting to let her panther’s eyes adjust.

  Gradually, she saw the dim forms of square pillars, as though people had removed walls down here but left supporting posts. Or perhaps this had once been a loading dock, garage, or storage area. It was empty now, the silence and cold vast.

  The scent came from about halfway down the room. Iona slunk that way, her hackles up, paws making no noise on the cement floor. Against the wall, she found the cages.

  She remembered Jace explaining how he’d seen jeeps taking cages to the desert compound. Whether these were the same cages, Iona had no way of knowing, and Eric said he hadn’t found them all when he’d gone in to rescue the wolves.

  These cages were about five feet tall and three wide, a few of them six or so feet high. Large enough to contain Shifters, but even these cages would make for tight fits, especially to the larger Shifters, like bears or the bigger wildcats.

  But what better way to keep a Shifter penned than give him or her barely enough room to turn around?

  Or, Iona thought, a chill stealing through her, they were for smaller Shifters. The young.

  She counted more than twenty cages stretching in front of her. She went down the line, the scent of animal growing stronger as she walked.

  Each cage Iona passed was empty, until she came to the cage at the end.

  This was one was about seven feet high, had thicker walls. The bars that closed it were at least six inches in diameter. Behind those bars was a snarl and a smell.

  Iona backed away, her fur standing straight up, growls coming from her throat. She wanted to lie flat on her belly in a stalking-cat slink, teeth ready to rip out the throat of whatever was behind those bars.

  The beast inside the cage growled in return. Iona saw eyes in the darkness, yellow with rage. The Shifter smell was strong but not quite right.

  Iona forced her panther to calm. Whoever was in the cage was a Shifter, trapped, taken against its will. She should help it, not fear it.

  But the waves of emotion that emanated from the cage had Iona’s defensive instincts roaring. She shifted back to her in-between beast, the shift a little slower and more painful this time.

  “It’s all right,” she said, her voice the guttural one of the beast. “Who are you? I can help you.”

  Another snarl of pure, aggressive rage. The yellow eyes flashed red and a body slammed into the bars of the cage.

  Iona jumped back, but the cage held, which seemed to enrage the creature even more. It pressed its face to the bars and glared out at her.

  Tiger.

  Iona stared at the animal in surprise. Feline Shifters could be any wildcat or a combination of wildcats, each family tending toward the traits of one more than the others. Iona’s father obviously had a lot of panther in him; Eric’s family, snow leopard.

  While in Shiftertown, Iona had met Felines whose wildcats resembled lions, lynxes, pumas, and one family of cheetahs, but no tigers. Cassidy sometimes looked after an orphaned cub who was a white tiger, but he was the only one.

  This Shifter was a Bengal, orange and black striped, and gigantic. His scent was overwhelmingly male. No Collar gleamed around the tiger’s neck, and his eyes held madness.

  He’d gone feral.

  Iona stared at him in horror, finally realizing what Eric had been trying to tell her would happen to her if she didn’t control the beast within her. This was what he meant.

  Crazed, furious, out of control, dangerous to herself and everyone around her.

  Looking at the feral tiger in the cage, the untamed beast inside Iona tasted a tang of his madness and liked it.

  Iona quickly shifted fully to human. “Who are you?” she asked again. “Did they capture you? Why don’t you have a Collar?”

  The tiger’s face distorted, nose receding, eyes growing more human, but the Shifter settled into his half man, half beast form. “Let me out.”

  The pheromone scent that came to her was loud and clear. Crap. He was an uncontrolled Shifter male facing a female who’d recently entered her mating years and was a bit wild with the mating heat. He wanted her.

  Iona took a few steps back.
“And have you jump my bones? No, thank you. I smell what you want to do.”

  “I smell it on you. You want to mate. You want cubs.”

  “I have a mate. He’s the leader of the Shifters. He’ll help you.”

  “No one can help me.” The words were matter-of-fact.

  “Where’s your Collar?” Iona asked.

  The yellow eyes narrowed. “What collar?”

  Interesting answer. “How long have you been in there?”

  Surprise flickered in his eyes, as though he’d never considered it. “Always.”

  “Who captured you?”

  “I was never captured,” the tiger said. “I have always been here.”

  The chill in Iona’s blood grew. “Where are the humans who run this place? They took a cub. I need to find her.”

  “A cub.” The voice became sharp, more alert, more enraged. “Don’t let them have the cub.”

  “I’m trying not to. Tell me how to find them.”

  The tiger went silent a moment, claws scratching the floor. “Let me out. I’ll show you.”

  “How about you just tell me? I’ll find the cub, and my mate, and he’ll help you. Promise.”

  “No promises. Promises are lies.”

  Iona took one bold step toward the cage. She couldn’t show fear. She had to calm him, to make him understand.

  The dominance game, she understood with sudden clarity, wasn’t about fighting. It was about making the challenger know what would happen if things came to a fight. Iona might be smaller than the tiger, but she had to prove that she was fast and strong, and smart enough to win.

  “I’m not one of the humans who put you in here. I’ll find the cub, with or without your help, and I’ll come back for you. That’s how it will be.”

  The tiger fixed her gaze with his crazed red one. Iona didn’t flinch.

  Staring him down was harder than staring down Shane or even Graham. But not tougher than facing Eric.

  Eric, as calm and laid-back as he pretended to be, had dominance down to an art form. He didn’t need to challenge anyone, because he knew he’d already won before the game even started.

  Defiance in the face of Eric’s will was almost impossible, but Iona had managed it. And she knew that if she could withstand Eric, she could withstand Tiger Man.

  The battle took a long time though. Whoever this Shifter was, wherever he’d come from, he was a dominant.

  The tiger didn’t lower his gaze or turn away, but finally Iona sensed a minute change in his stance.

  “They do experiments on the top floor,” he said. “When they don’t do them down here. But they wouldn’t bring a cub down here with me.”

  Top floor it was, then. Iona hoped he wasn’t sending her into a trap, but he didn’t smell of lies.

  “I’ll make sure you get out too,” Iona said. “What’s your name?”

  He hesitated for a long time, then finally said, “Twenty-three.”

  “That’s not a name.” Iona glanced back down the row of empty cages. “What happened to numbers one through twenty-two?”

  “They died. Now it’s just me.”

  Iona met his gaze again, her fear of him changing to sympathy. “I’ll come back for you,” she repeated.

  As though the conversation had become too much for him, the tiger shifted back into his huge wildcat, snarling breathily in his throat.

  Iona became her panther again, finding it easier this time, and slunk back into the darkness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Tell me you’ve got a fix,” Eric said for about the tenth time.

  Xavier tapped keys on the keyboard in the offices of DX Security. “Getting there. A little quiet would help.”

  Diego was pacing the long room, his fingers fondling the handle of his Glock. He paced, Eric knew, to keep himself from ripping the computer out of Xavier’s hands and trying to pull up the GPS data from Iona’s cell phone himself.

  Eric contented himself with standing over Xavier and breathing down his neck.

  Shane had summoned Eric back to the clinic in a state of panic. Iona and Cassidy had disappeared, Shane said, little Amanda with them. Shane and Brody had scoured the clinic and bullied the staff, but the three were nowhere to be found. Jace had already headed out to the compound in the desert to search for them there.

  Eric had been about to call Diego and break the news, when he and Xavier had returned from a restaurant near the clinic, where the brothers had celebrated Amanda’s birth with beers and burgers.

  Shane had been about to shit himself. He’d always had a thing for Cassidy, and now he blamed himself for losing her, her baby, and Iona. He should have checked on them more often, he said. He’d let them down. He deserved to have Eric and Diego kick his grizzly ass.

  Eric had interrupted this self-flagellation by saying in clipped tones that if Iona had her phone with her, they could track her through its GPS chip. Even if Iona couldn’t use the phone, they could still find her, and Xavier knew how to get to that data.

  “Won’t help if they threw her phone away,” Xavier had said glumly.

  Eric answered, “Even finding out where they threw it away gives us a place to start.”

  “Here we go,” Xavier said now from his computer. “Iona’s phone is at these coordinates, which is roughly…” He brought up a map and entered the data. “Here.” A red dot blossomed on the map in the middle of nothing.

  Eric leaned to look and felt Diego crowding behind him. The dot was in empty desert, not at the compound they’d found, but farther north and west.

  “That’s Area Fifty-one,” Diego said. “What the hell are they doing in Area Fifty-one?”

  “Experiments,” Eric said, his rage burning cold. “That’s where they did the experiments on Shifters twenty years ago.”

  “The fuck they’re going to experiment on Cassidy and my daughter.”

  “Or my mate,” Eric said.

  Xav broke in. “Diego, you can’t take a posse up there. There’s gates and guards and people with guns to shoot your ass as soon as they see it.”

  “They can’t take my daughter hostage. I’ll get every law enforcement official in the state of Nevada to make them let us in.”

  “No,” Eric said, his eyes on the map. “I’ll go in myself.”

  “To a top secret government facility?” Xavier asked, incredulous. “They have security cameras and guards happy to shoot you as soon as they see you. What does authorized use of deadly force mean to you? Trust me, I’ve studied their security—I study everyone’s security. It’s my job.”

  “You drop me off here.” Eric pointed to a spot on Highway 95. “I’ll go through the desert. It’s dark now, and I’m very good at navigating terrain without being seen.”

  “It’s a long way, and it’s rough,” Xavier said. “Mountains, canyons, dry lakes, you name it.”

  “Norway wasn’t easy either, and this time I don’t have bombs strapped to me.”

  Diego interrupted. “Fine for you getting in. But how are you going to get Iona and Cassidy out safely, with my daughter?”

  “Reid.”

  Diego relaxed a little, but only a little. “Reid can only teleport to someplace he’s seen.”

  “Which is why you’re giving me a satellite phone and a camera and a way to send you photos with your state-of-the-art surveillance equipment. Show the photos to Reid, and he can get there.” Eric hoped.

  “Eric, this is my mate and daughter…”

  “And when I need a helicopter and machine guns, I’ll call you. There’s no way you can keep up with me through the desert, no way you can sneak into wherever they are like I can. If you want to drive around to the front gate and create a distraction, be my guest. But I need someone to get the photos to Reid as soon as I send them.”

  “Diego, he’s right,” Xavier said. “It would take you too long to cross that country on foot, and any vehicle will be seen. Let him go. I’ll take care of alerting Reid.”

  Diego�
�s face was hard, but he gave Eric a nod. “Fine.” He fingered his pistol again. “If you want a distraction, I’ll give you a distraction.”

  “It’s still a long way,” Xavier said to Eric. “Straight through desert, no water. You sure you’ll be okay?”

  “I’ll be just fine,” Eric said.

  The mate bond would pull him on. It was already urging him out the door, to run, run, run to Iona’s side.

  “Get me the equipment and let’s go,” Eric said. Every minute could be a minute too late.

  “You got it,” Xavier said. He managed a grin. “Say hi to the aliens for me.”

  Up, up, and up. Iona climbed eight floors, panting by the time she reached the top. She opened the door a crack, and finally found people.

  Not many. She hadn’t scented them in the stairwell—she’d smelled them only when she opened the door, which meant the doorway must be airtight. To keep germs out, she reasoned as she slunk inside.

  This floor was a laboratory. While she’d found the lower floors to be old and cluttered, the lab here had state-of-the-art technology.

  Rows of sealed, glassed-in cooling units marched down the room, each containing racks and racks of test tubes. Lab tables held glass-fronted exhaust hoods with gloves extending into them so people wouldn’t have to put their bare hands onto whatever was inside. At the far end of the room, two people wearing white clean-room suits and surgical caps studied large flat-screen computer monitors.

  Iona was bringing her panther germs and the dirt from the floors below into their pristine lab. Aw, wasn’t that too bad?

  Being a black cat against all this white was a decided disadvantage. Iona slunk from bench to bench, keeping low. The lab workers, fascinated by whatever was on their screens, never looked up and never saw her.

  As Iona paused to decide what to do—rip into their bodies until they talked or question them calmly?—she heard Amanda cry.

  The sound was faint, very weak, and would have been inaudible to a human. But Iona, Shifter and now a member of the cub’s pride, heard her loud and clear.

  Iona couldn’t smell Amanda, which meant they had her sealed in someplace, like the hoods on the lab tables. She’d kill them.