Iron Master

by Jennifer Ashley

  Iron Master

  Shifters Unbound, Book 12

  Jennifer Ashley

  JA / AG Publishing

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Who’s Who in Shiftertowns

  Also by Jennifer Ashley

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  “Stuart.”

  She was the only one who called him Stuart. The rest of the Shifters and the two humans he worked for called him Reid, except for Graham, the Lupine clan leader, who called him That effed-up, weird, dark Fae shit.

  Peigi had only ever called him Stuart since the day he’d helped rescue her from a feral Shifter compound and traveled with her to the Las Vegas Shiftertown. She was still the only Shifter who didn’t take a few steps back from Stuart when they smelled the taint of Faerie on him.

  Peigi came up behind him as he stood in the darkness, gazing across the moonlit desert at the edge of Shiftertown.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  Stuart didn’t share the same sense of smell as the Shifters he lived among but he always recognized the faint orange and cinnamon, like a winter tea, that brushed Peigi’s skin. She’d told him once, when he’d commented on it, that it was her shower gel, but for Reid, the scent meant her.

  “I don’t know.” Reid studied the silent expanse of sky touched by the glow from Las Vegas’s lights.

  He should have known better than to believe he could slip out of the house in the middle of the night without Peigi noticing. She not only had Shifter hearing but looked after six orphaned cubs. She could hear a leaf fall.

  “Something must have made you wander out at three in the morning,” she said. “You hate getting up early.”

  “I thought I heard …” Reid broke off as he heard the whisper again, the one that had cut through his dreams.

  Come to me …

  It was like music, a song familiar but unremembered. Beckoning, calling, urgent, unrelenting.

  “Shit,” he whispered.

  “What? What do you see?”

  “It’s not what I see. What I hear.”

  Peigi peered past him into the darkness. “Which is?”

  She must not be touched by the silvery sound, the pull. Come …

  “One of my people. Calling me.”

  “Your people …” She trailed off in worry.

  Stuart nodded grimly. “The dokk alfar, yes.”

  “How?” Peigi scanned the empty lots at the end of Shiftertown’s row of houses, land left undeveloped because few humans wanted to live near a Shiftertown. Wind danced in the dry weeds, cold and sharp in the January night. Even Las Vegas grew cold in the winter, temperatures sometimes dropping to below freezing at night.

  “I don’t know how.” Stuart heard his voice sharpen and softened it for her. “They shouldn’t be able to talk to me.”

  Exile meant exile. Cut off entirely from his home, from the few people he knew who were still alive, even from his old enemies. The high Fae had locked him into the human world for many years now. Stuart had managed to go back only once, to rescue a Shifter woman and her human mate who’d believed in him when he’d given them no reason to.

  After that the gates had closed again, permanently, and here Stuart was. But exile wasn’t so bad these days, not with the woman who stood behind him, Shifter-close, in the way Shifters did. Her warmth, her breath on the back of his neck, was the only thing at the moment keeping Reid from full-blown rage tinged with panic.

  “Go back to bed,” he advised.

  Peigi’s snort of derision ruffled his hair. “Sure. Leave you alone with someone Fae calling you through thin air? ’Cause that always ends well.”

  “They must have tapped the ley line.”

  “Which is closed. Graham and Eric made sure.”

  Reid wanted to turn to her, bathe in her strong beauty, the tall bear Shifter who made him wonder how he ever thought Shifters less than amazing. But he kept his eyes on the darkness in case anything charged at them out of the night, like a thousand angry high Fae with glittering swords. Peigi was right—dealings with Faerie never ended well.

  “Graham and Eric aren’t Fae,” Stuart said. “They sealed the hole, but that doesn’t mean the ley line went away.”

  He could still feel the magic of the line running under the houses built for Graham’s nearly feral wolves who’d moved down from northern Nevada when his Shiftertown had been closed.

  “We can ask them,” Peigi said. “Tomorrow.”

  Reid scanned the air. The whisper had vanished, along with the tingle that prickled his skin through the cold of the night.

  Had it been a dokk alfar calling to him? Or a trick of his dreams? The voice had gone, and it was difficult to be sure.

  Reid took one last look around the dark lot, the blackness beyond complete. No more city after this point, just the bulk of mountains resting against the clear sky. “Yeah.” He let out a breath. “Let’s go back.”

  He felt Peigi relax behind him, and at last, he turned to her.

  Her presence always smacked him like a physical blow. She was almost as tall as he was, as bears were in human form. She had very dark hair that waved back from an arresting face and eyes of deep blue that pulled at him.

  He wasn’t supposed to be attracted to Shifters. Feel sorry for them, sure, as they’d started as slaves to the Fae who’d fucked them up as much they had Reid’s own people. Commiserate as fellow sufferers who’d kicked free.

  Peigi was different. She had a strength that went beyond that of other Shifters, yet it hadn’t made her hard. Compassionate and caring rather, and so very beautiful.

  Reid wanted to kiss her, right here, right now. Feel her body against his, taste her lips, absorb her warmth. He slept in her house much of the time, but down the hall from her room, walls between them.

  He pressed down the temptation with effort. Once Reid started kissing Peigi, he’d never want to stop.

  A dark Fae and a Shifter. Could it happen?

  Reid fought it, not because Shifters and Fae never mixed, but because one day, he might go home. He belonged in his own world, not this crazy one where humans ruled, Shifters lived in Shiftertowns, and people flocked to enjoy themselves in this city of games.

  But Reid’s world, filled with high Fae out to destroy all dokk alfar and enslave Shifters, was no place for Peigi and the cubs. So he fought his desires and let himself go slowly insane.

  She studied him, as though knowing what went on behind his eyes. Peigi had a quietness that belied being captive for years to a crazy bear Shifter, forced to be his mate.

  There was pain deep inside her, and much more besides, but on the surface, she was calm and watchful. Made Reid wonder what would happen if she ever cut loose.

  “You all right?” she asked.

  No. And he’d never be. “Sure,” he said. “Come on. Before the cubs wake up.”

  She gave him a faint smile, knowing what he meant. They were noisy, the cubs, and if they woke up too early, all the Shifters on this side of town would complain for da
ys.

  They turned and walked back together. Very close together, but their bodies never touched, no matter how much Reid wanted them to.

  Peigi overslept in the morning and blinked awake to bright if cold daylight.

  She recalled the strange sense of wrongness that had pulled her out of the house last night to find Stuart on the edge of Shiftertown staring out into the desert, but everything seemed perfectly normal today. Her tiny room, the smallest in the house, her clothes neatly hung in the open closet, shoes lined up and waiting. Nothing out of place, and no warning inside her that all was not well.

  The racket of voices down the hall told her the cubs were up. The deep rumble of Stuart’s reply made her breathe out in relief.

  He had been spending more and more nights in this house as time passed—he’d originally lived with the alpha bear family of this Shiftertown, but when Nell and Cormac had mated, Stuart had taken to sleeping at Peigi’s to give them more room. Not finding Stuart in the kitchen in his DX Security shirt, making coffee and starting breakfast, had become unusual.

  His room was the farthest from Peigi’s, as though he needed to reassure her that he’d never come closer than she wanted, and also tell the world there was nothing going on between them.

  Who knew a Fae would be shy? Dokk alfar, as Stuart quickly pointed out when the topic came up.

  Peigi was willing, and lonely, and tired of everyone thinking she was completely broken. She was only half broken. Eric, the Shiftertown leader, had been wise letting her take charge of the cubs, because it had brought her back from the edge of despair and kept her alive.

  Stuart was the other reason she stayed alive.

  Peigi threw off the covers and slid out of bed, clad in a tank top and shorts. She was too large for the frilly nighties human women wore—bears were on the big side—but she didn’t care. Tank top and shorts suited her better anyway. Easier to shift in, run, fight, or chase wayward cubs.

  She pulled on sweatpants against the cold, thrust her feet into sneakers, and crept out of her bedroom, making her way to the kitchen. The first two bedroom doors she passed were open, the three girls and three boys who occupied each gone. All but one of the beds was made—Noelle usually rushed out after the others were gone, snatching sleep until the last possible minute.

  At the end of the hall, closest to the kitchen and living room, lay Stuart’s small bedroom. That door always remained firmly closed.

  She found Stuart in the kitchen cooking up a mess of bacon, six cubs setting plates on the table. Donny, the oldest at eight, supervised, and the youngest boy, Kevin, who’d been a baby when the cubs had been rescued, had the job of carrying the stack of paper napkins. Donny watched him with the grave intensity of an alpha protecting his pack.

  Peigi took a minute to study Stuart, as she did any chance she could. He was slim rather than bulky like a Shifter, but his muscles filled out his black T-shirt and his back view wasn’t bad at all. His dark hair was cut short, barely touching his neck, which let her see the structure of his hard face. He was not drop-dead handsome on human terms, but his midnight eyes and intense strength lit fires inside her.

  She opened her mouth to ask him if he was all right, but the cubs cut in.

  “Morning, Peigi!” The greetings overlapped, filling the kitchen with high-pitched sound.

  Three of the cubs were bears, though Hannah, the youngest girl, and Patrick, the middle boy, were gray-eyed wolves. Kevin hadn’t shifted yet, so they had to speculate on what type of Shifter he was. His mother had been human but died bearing him, and Peigi wasn’t certain which of the feral Shifters had fathered him.

  “You overslept!” Noelle, a grizzly cub, crowed in triumph. “I was up before you.”

  “Yes, sweetie, you were.” Peigi moved past the crowd to Stuart at the stove. A bowl of eggs next to him waited to be broken and scrambled.

  “Have you talked to Eric yet?” she asked in a low voice.

  Stuart shook his head. “Graham. He’s heading over.”

  Peigi’s eyes widened in dismay. “That’s all I need on an empty stomach.”

  Stuart sent her a grin. “Better eat something then.”

  Peigi made a face at him and grabbed a slice of bacon from the stack draining on paper towels. She didn’t always like pork—she was a bear and preferred fish—but salmon was expensive. Bacon would have to do.

  She helped the cubs take the rest of the food to the table—thawed berries from the freezer, a stack of toast from the eight-slice toaster, the bacon, and plenty of butter and jam. Stuart started scrambling the eggs.

  The cubs had learned to wait until all the food was on the table and everyone served before they started eating. When they’d first moved in, meals had been a free-for-all, the cubs fighting for every crumb. The women confined at the compound with Peigi hadn’t been much better, though they’d let Peigi, the alpha, have the first serving of any meal. They’d all lived like animals, the cubs starting to go as feral as the males who’d sequestered them.

  Peigi set out the toast and bacon and allowed the cubs to dig in. They couldn’t be expected to wait much longer. She was pleased to see they handed around the food politely, each taking no more than their share. Donny and Noelle made certain the younger ones had enough before they went for the rest. She warmed with pride watching them.

  The scent of coffee—heavenly coffee—pulled at Peigi, and she turned back to grab a cup.

  Stuart wasn’t there. The eggs were sizzling, almost dry, the spatula sitting in the middle of the frying pan, but Stuart was gone.

  “He teleported,” Noelle informed her as Peigi stood staring in surprise. “I saw him.”

  Lucinda and Hannah nodded. They gazed at Peigi worriedly, waiting for her to tell them everything was all right.

  She wished she could. Stuart had the ability to teleport his body to any place he wanted, provided he’d seen that place before. But he rarely used the ability, preferring to walk or jog—or drive. And he never jumped out without telling her. He could be anywhere, for any reason, and the strangeness last night made her tighten with fear.

  Before she could decide what to say to the cubs, the back patio door darkened, and a bulk of a man appeared on the porch. An even bigger man stood behind him. One Lupine, one bear.

  “Hey!” the Lupine yelled through the glass as he pounded on the door. “Open up. It’s fucking cold out here.”

  Chapter Two

  Graham McNeil, the leader of the Lupine side of Shiftertown, cupped his hands to glare in the door.

  This was all Peigi needed. Stuart had said he’d called Graham—but why vanish just when Graham was due to arrive?

  Peigi went to the sliding door. The cubs remained at the table, round-eyed, but even a year ago, they would have run in terror, seeking a place to hide. They were getting stronger, braver, happier.

  They relaxed completely when they saw the bear Shifter who’d accompanied Graham.

  “Uncle Shane!” they chorused, and Shane gave them a grizzly grin.

  “Hey, little ones.” Shane, who bulked behind Graham, waved his big hand. “Let us in, Pegs. Graham’s not wrong about the cold.”

  “Oh, please. This isn’t cold.” Peigi opened the door, letting in a wave of chill, and gestured them inside.

  They’d never have entered without her permission, because this was Peigi’s territory. While Peigi was nowhere near as high in dominance as Graham or Shane, they wouldn’t dream of pushing their way in. First, they were respectful of territory, and second, Peigi was protected by Eric, the Shiftertown leader, and no one messed with Eric.

  Plus, they knew Stuart guarded Peigi unofficially. While Stuart didn’t possess Shifter strength—as far as anyone knew—the Shifters were a little bit afraid of him. Everyone was, except Peigi and the cubs.

  “Stuart isn’t here,” Peigi said as Graham gave the room a once-over, as though expecting to find Stuart in a corner.

  Graham swung on her, his gray eyes hard. “What do you mean
, he’s not here? He called me.”

  “He teleported,” Noelle offered.

  “I thought he’d gone to see you,” Peigi said to Graham.

  “Obviously not. What the hell? He calls me to come see him at the crack of dawn, and he’s gone? What’s he doing—joy-teleporting?”

  A few of the cubs giggled, but Donny and Noelle watched in worry.

  “Graham.” Shane’s rumble was as good-natured as always as he moved to stand at the Lupine’s shoulder. “Why don’t you and Peigi go talk about this? I’ll hang out with the cubs. I smell fried eggs.”

  “Oh crap.” Peigi rushed back to the stove and stirred the burning eggs, dumping them on a plate and leaving the blackest bits in the pan.

  Shane’s big hand was there to take the plate when she turned around. “Go. Talk.”

  His tawny eyes told her he knew something was very wrong, but he didn’t want to upset the cubs with it.

  Shane had come, Peigi knew, not so much to keep Graham under control—only Graham’s mate could do that—but to reassure Peigi and her cubs. Shane was second in command to the alpha bear of this Shiftertown, his mother, Nell. Graham was in charge of the wolves, and Eric Warden was in charge of … everyone.

  Shifter hierarchy was more layered and complex than humans understood, but Shifters knew instinctively who was who, and who not to mess with.

  Shane’s mom was another Peigi-protector. Nell would guard her even against Eric, and so when Peigi had to deal with other Shifters, especially growly leaders like Graham, Nell made sure one of her sons was in place to help.