Mate Claimed su-4

by Jennifer Ashley

  “I know,” Diego said. “I lost my dad when I was a kid. But you still love him, don’t you? You still think about him—I bet part of why you work so hard is to keep up the business he built and not let him down. And that’s what I meant. They’re never really gone. You miss them like hell, but they’re still a part of you, part of your life. That’s what lasts—not houses, not businesses, not money. All that can change on the spin of a coin.”

  Iona forked up the last of her eggs and lifted a piece of the sweet toast, trying to push her emotions aside. Emotions made her jumpy, and hungry, moving her again toward frenzy. “You two should be philosophers or something,” she said lightly. “‘How to live life, the happy way.’”

  Diego laughed, his stern expression softening. “My mom wouldn’t think so. I’m mouthing things she said to me growing up, when she needed to get me and Xavier through some tough times. I guess growing up rough makes you philosophical.”

  “So does growing up Shifter,” Cassidy said. “Not to mention fighting Nazis.” She winked. “We’re not always this serious. You should stay with us, Iona, because we’re great at parties. And anyway, there’s plenty to do around here, and I could use your help. You like kids?”

  “Eric, do not blame this on me. Jace does what he wants.” Shane leaned his bulk against a post on his back porch and folded his massive arms. The post, built to withstand bear Shifters, didn’t budge.

  “Which means you didn’t try hard enough to talk him out of it,” Eric said severely. “Why did he want to go back out there?”

  Jace, according to Shane, had departed Iona’s house at four that morning to take his motorcycle out to the desert to again check out the buildings out there. Shane’s gaze kept flicking from Eric’s, Shane unable to meet Eric’s anger.

  “He said he wanted to watch them change shifts to see what happens,” Shane finished.

  “If he left Iona’s at four, he’s been gone five hours now. You didn’t stop him, you didn’t call me, and you didn’t go with him.”

  “Because I think he’s right.” Shane met Eric’s glare for a fleeting instant. “He can sneak around out there better than a huge grizzly can. Jace isn’t stupid, and I wasn’t going to wake you and Cass at four in the morning for no reason. Especially Cass. She needs her sleep these days, and she can be really snarly when she doesn’t get it.”

  “That’s my son out there, Shane,” Eric said. Shane looked nervous, despite the fact that he was six inches taller than Eric. Height didn’t make any difference in dominance. “My only son, and those guys were ready to shoot any stray noise they heard.”

  “Jace can take care of himself. I know it. I’ve seen him in action.”

  Yes, Jace was good at handling himself. But Eric was on edge, the mating need making him squirrelly, the problem of Graham and the Challenge not helping. Eric couldn’t call Jace to make sure he was all right without risking that a ringing or even vibrating cell phone wouldn’t be heard by one of the guards in the stillness of the desert.

  “Where’s Reid?” Eric asked, naming the Fae they’d captured earlier this year. The man was now living in Shane’s house.

  “I don’t know. Sleeping? Eating breakfast? Chasing Peigi? I just got home myself.”

  “Never mind.” Eric pushed past Shane and walked into the bear’s house by himself.

  Nell was in her kitchen making coffee, wearing a big pink bathrobe embroidered with darker pink hearts twined with roses. She gave Eric a black look as he strode into her kitchen.

  “Knocking would be good, Eric. Reid went for a walk.” Being Shifter, Nell would have heard every word of the conversation on her porch. “I get why you’re scared about Jace, but Shane wouldn’t have been able to stop him. Jace definitely is your son.”

  “Jace is my cub,” Eric corrected. “When Shane has cubs, he’ll understand.”

  “Granted,” Nell said. “You can guess which direction Reid went.”

  Eric could, and he walked down the common space between backyards toward the house where the female Shifters and cubs they’d rescued last spring had been housed. The bone-thin Reid was there all right, leaning on a low stone wall that marked off the porch, talking to a tall bear Shifter female called Peigi.

  Stuart Reid was a dark Fae—dokk alfar, he called himself, which was a different species from the high Fae, the hoch alfar, who’d created Shifters. Dokk alfar hated the high Fae as much as Shifters did.

  Reid had redeemed himself a long time ago, and Eric would have let him return to the apartment he rented in the city, but Reid had chosen to stay in Shiftertown. He’d also quit his job as a police detective to do security work for Diego and Xavier. The reason Reid stayed was Peigi—one of the Shifter women Reid had helped Diego and Cassidy rescue.

  Peigi had suffered some very bad shit and was nowhere near interested in mating yet, but Reid was smitten. He was gently helping Peigi readjust, and Eric knew that sooner or later, the two would be standing before Eric for their sun and their full moon mating ceremonies.

  Eric had made Reid one of his trackers, and Reid had been among those who’d found the mysterious compound in the desert. Reid couldn’t shift, but he had one talent that no one else did. He could teleport.

  “Reid,” Eric said, acknowledging Peigi by putting his hand on her shoulder. “I need to borrow you.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Eric had only teleported with Reid a couple of times, and both instances had made him sick. This time was no different. When they arrived at their destination, Eric spent a moment with hands on knees, trying not to retch.

  Reid had landed them about a half mile from the compound, probably to give Eric time to recover. Nice of him.

  They hiked along the ridgeline Eric and Iona had run down in the dark. Reid and Eric kept themselves below the lip of the hill so they wouldn’t be silhouetted against the bright morning sky.

  The compound didn’t look that much different in daylight. Prefab buildings lined up within the rectangle of the fence, and two guards strolled around. No sound, no activity, and again, no distinctive smell.

  Reid had brought binoculars, but Eric relied on his own vision. He scanned the quiet grounds and the desert beyond, again wondering what the hell was inside those buildings.

  Reid tapped Eric and pointed. “Got him,” he whispered.

  Eric looked and saw the faintest second shadow under a tall creosote bush on the other side of the compound. A snow leopard. Jace.

  “Good. Now I kill him.”

  Jace must have seen them, because he ever so carefully slunk out from under the bush and slid into a nearby dry wash.

  “Want me to teleport us down there?”

  Eric suppressed a shudder. “I’ll use my feet. Will you carry my clothes?”

  Reid agreed though he looked a little annoyed to be designated clothes caretaker.

  Eric didn’t take long to shift, then he ran down the ridge and around a sweep of rocks to the edge of the deep wash Jace had used. Jace was climbing out of the wash, about a mile from the compound, when Eric caught up to him.

  Eric growled and swatted Jace with a big paw. Jace shifted, rising to his six foot seven height, scowling, hands on hips. Eric shifted and rose to meet him.

  “You checking up on me now, Dad?”

  Eric barely contained his rage. “What the hell are you doing coming out here alone? You decided danger doesn’t apply to you?”

  “What the fuck?” Jace looked at him in amazement. “I do solo jobs for you all the time. I thought you trusted my judgment.”

  “Not with something this weird.” Eric’s words ended with a growl. “Not with Graham threatening us. Your orders were to watch Iona’s house last night, then come back and help me protect her.”

  “So I took initiative. I didn’t have the chance to ask your permission. You’ve been hard to track down lately, if you hadn’t noticed, and distracted when you are. I’m glad you’ve met someone, Dad, but your brain is warping.”

  Fathers
were supposed to be proud when cubs struck back. That meant the father had raised the cub to be strong.

  Eric’s hand sprouted claws, and he snarled. Jace looked surprised, then he snarled too, his eyes going flat.

  Reid popped in right next to them, displacing air. “You might want to keep it down,” he said. “Sound carries.”

  Eric forced his claws to recede, but his anger didn’t diminish. Jace took a step back, but the move was in no way submissive.

  “Don’t you want to know what I saw?” Jace asked, his voice quieter.

  “I do,” Reid said before Eric could answer.

  Jace let out a breath. “They did absolutely nothing until about five thirty this morning. No lights, no one moving around, just the guards smoking and talking. Then, jeeps, five of them. They came straight across the desert from the north.” Jace pointed to where coarse sand stretched, empty and white to the hills. “The guards opened the gates like they were expecting the jeeps. Each jeep had a driver and a passenger. They all got out and started unloading—one big cage from each one. Not mesh cages, but ones that looked like dog carriers, only much bigger.”

  Eric grew colder as he listened. “What was in the cages?”

  “Nothing. They were empty. I couldn’t smell anything but the men. They put the cages into the first building, then they all got back into the jeeps and drove away.”

  Eric thought about the layout of the place, the tidy rows of buildings with the air conditioners on the top. “We need a look inside there.”

  “Want me to teleport in?” Reid asked. “I could have a quick look around.”

  Reid could only teleport to a place he’d seen or been to, or so he’d said. He’d come out here with the trackers to have a look before, which is why he could teleport Eric so close, but he’d have to get a look inside one of the buildings before he could will himself into one.

  “Not yet,” Eric told him. “We don’t need a guard to see you. I don’t want them alerted that anyone knows about them until we find out more.”

  Diego and Xav’s research had drawn a blank so far on the compound and what was in it, they’d told Eric. They’d found the place via satellite photo but couldn’t zoom in close enough to have a good look, and they couldn’t find plans or building permissions for the compound. Xavier had promised to look for something more covert, but so far, he’d turned up nothing.

  Reid shrugged. “It might have nothing to do with Shifters.”

  “True,” Eric said.

  But the mention of cages bugged him. Sure, the people here could be out to capture mountain lions, maybe for some zoology professors to study. But mountain lions were few and far between, and it was unlikely they’d need to be prepped for five of them.

  Not good. Not good.

  “We’ll keep an eye out,” Eric said. “And have Diego and Xavier keep looking for info. If it has nothing to do with us, then it has nothing to do with us, but I want to know.”

  “You’re welcome,” Jace said. “I’m going back to Shiftertown to get some sleep.”

  Jace turned his back and walked away, sun strong on his bare back. He’d gotten a tattoo in stages this year, across his shoulder blades, a prowling leopard in full color. Eric watched him go, proud that his son was so strong and upright, and still as worried about him as he’d been when Jace was the cute little cub who liked to chew on Cassidy’s shoes.

  Then Eric grimaced. “Wait, Son. I need to ride back with you. Teleporting makes me sick.”

  Jace kept walking. “Suck it up, Dad,” he said, then he shifted, jumped back down into the wash, and was gone.

  Iona spent the day helping people move. The bulk of the Shifters from Graham McNeil’s Shiftertown would start arriving the next day, and houses had to be cleared for them.

  Iona had called her mother after breakfast. Penny hadn’t been happy that Iona had let Eric take her to Shiftertown, but she agreed to wait and see what happened. Iona heard tears in her mother’s voice when they hung up, and her heart burned.

  She worked off her anger by lugging boxes. She, Cassidy, and Diego carried boxes and pieces of furniture from porches to Iona’s truck, and then to the porches of the houses that the Shifters were moving into. Cassidy, as pregnant as she was, carried plenty, though Diego was after her to rest a lot.

  Iona offered to carry the boxes all the way into the houses, but her offer was declined by their owners—politely but firmly. She was to set everything on the porch and come no farther inside.

  “Why?” she asked Cassidy when they took a breather. “You’d think they’d welcome the help.”

  “Shifter secrets,” Cassidy said between sips from the bottle of water Diego had brought her. “If you were just visiting, that would be one thing. But they’re clearing out their houses from top to bottom, and want no one outside their clan to enter until they’re settled.”

  “You’re talking about the underground spaces Eric wants my company to build in the new houses, aren’t you? And the Shifters don’t want me to see what’s in them.”

  “They don’t want me to see either, or Diego. Every pride, pack, and clan has its own space, and even the Shiftertown leader doesn’t get invited in. We have to keep something of ourselves totally private.”

  “I understand.” Iona was curious, but she’d respect their wishes.

  The Shifters they helped, though, didn’t seem to worry about invading Iona’s privacy. They asked about her family and who her Shifter parent was, gave her frank and assessing stares, and openly sniffed her. No one was aggressive, only curious, but very much so. She admitted her father’s name after some initial reluctance, but no one had heard of Ross McRae.

  The sniffing bothered her though. The Shifters would lean close to her and inhale, then give her another grave stare and nod.

  They were checking her scent, Cassidy told her, because Eric had scent-marked and mate-claimed Iona. They were acknowledging that Iona belonged to him.

  “I don’t belong to anyone,” Iona said irritably.

  “Doesn’t matter. They still know to keep their hands off.”

  Luckily—or maybe it was planned—they never saw Graham or the few Lupines who’d come down from Elko with him.

  By the time Iona drove the last load and returned home with Cassidy and Diego, it was late afternoon. Eric was there, with Jace and Shane, who were both giving him advice about tonight’s fight.

  Eric listened to them while he sat on the edge of the couch, arms on knees. Listening, not arguing.

  When Iona walked in, Eric was off the sofa in one fluid motion, moving to her side. He pulled her close, nuzzling her hair. “I missed you,” he said.

  She’d missed him, she realized. More than she really should have.

  Iona turned her head, and Eric covered her mouth in a warm kiss. The others in the room kept talking together, as though they didn’t notice.

  Diego and Cassidy fixed another magnificent meal, and they ate in the living room, sitting around on couches, chairs, and the floor, in Jace’s case. Jace filled in Cassidy about what they’d found out at the compound, and then Shane and Jace turned the conversation back to the fight.

  “The rules are simple,” Shane said. “You can fight in any form you want—human, animal, or between—but no weapons allowed. No one can enter the ring to help you once the fight starts, and when the referees declare the fight over, it’s over. That’s about it.”

  Eric nodded, taking it in as he ate Diego’s fabulous pollo en mole verde. “As long as Graham follows the rules, we’re fine.”

  “That’s why you have seconds,” Shane said, “to make sure both sides follow all the rules. We have to make sure you do too, Eric.”

  “I get that. I asked Diego to be my other second—humans are allowed to be, right?”

  “Sure,” Shane answered. “Humans go to these things all the time. They can be seconds, even refs, but they can’t fight. Way too dangerous.”

  “Dad,” Jace said from where he sat on the floor, his em
pty plate on his lap. “I thought I’d be your second.”

  Eric shook his head. “I don’t want to give Graham any excuse to get near you, or to blame you if the fight goes wrong. I don’t even want you there tonight, but I have a feeling you won’t bother obeying that order either.”

  “No, because I don’t like Graham anywhere near you. He’ll try to take you out, Dad. If not in the ring, then afterward in the parking lot. I’m not letting you go unprotected.”

  “How about if I ask you to stay here and keep watch over Iona?”

  “Forget that,” Iona said. “I’m going with you.”

  Eric growled. “Do none of you understand how dangerous McNeil is?”

  “We’re all going,” Cassidy said. “Get over it, Eric.”

  Eric growled some more, but said nothing. Iona sensed his uneasiness, his conflict over what to do. She understood why he wanted his family out of harm’s reach, but on the other hand, he wanted them close where he could watch over them, and where they could all protect each other. It had to be hell being so paranoid.

  “About time to go, then,” Diego said, ever practical. “I’ll grab Xavier on the way. I’ll try to talk my mother out of coming, but I can’t guarantee she’ll listen.”

  Eric’s blood was hot by the time they reached the location of the fight club.

  He’d always known where it was, tucked deep inside an old casino resort, about thirty miles outside of town, that had closed years ago, too remote and expensive for anyone to buy or redevelop. The advantage was that the road to it wound around manmade hills that screened the abundance of vehicles and milling Shifters from any cop passing on the highway.

  Eric had never attended the fights, wanting his Shifters to be able to work off steam without worrying about hierarchy or what their leader would think. Eric pretended not to notice the majority of his Shifters disappearing any given night, and they pretended to think he didn’t know. He trusted his people to keep themselves in line and not get caught. He also trusted his trackers, like Brody and Jace, to keep everyone relatively safe.