Mate Claimed su-4

by Jennifer Ashley

  “And when you had to combine Shiftertowns,” Eric finished, “you saw an opportunity to take fresh DNA and other samples without anyone being the wiser. So you thought. Graham was going to notice when some of his Shifters went missing—why did you think he wouldn’t?”

  “They took too long,” Kellerman said impatiently. “The whole transfer and tissue harvesting was supposed to take only an hour or so. I’m surrounded by idiots.”

  “Tough break,” Eric said. He understood why Kellerman used the compound in the desert for the blood taking—it was closer to Shiftertown, and he’d never have gotten permission to haul twenty cages of Shifters into Area 51. He’d have his researchers take all the samples there then transport them to this facility later.

  “How did you get that other compound built?” Eric asked. “Without anyone being the wiser? No one noticed?”

  “I didn’t have to build it. It was already there. Researching the effect of radiation from the nuclear testing sites, or something like that. Another project that got defunded, and the buildings left there for me to find in another file. Temporary buildings just means they get left until someone remembers to take them down. I appropriated the place for my purpose.”

  “But you didn’t get enough?” Eric asked, letting his voice go deceptively soft. “So you thought taking my sister and her newborn was a good idea?”

  “Again, I’m surrounded by idiots,” Kellerman snapped. “I have a nurse on staff at that clinic who supplies me with samples from time to time. She called my researchers. They decided they couldn’t pass up the opportunity to study a Shifter baby, especially one that was half-human. So she drugged them and had them sent here. And once more, they took too long. They should have had them back to you by now. Scientists are like children with ADD. They get fixed into their experiments and forget what time it is. They wouldn’t change their socks if no one was there to tell them.”

  As he finished, Eric took the magazine out of Kellerman’s gun and crushed it in his strong, half-shifted hand. Bullets rained harmlessly to the floor, most of them bent. Eric then twisted the pistol in two in front of Kellerman’s face.

  Eric dropped the broken pieces of pistol. “Well, my friend, you won’t have to worry about your pet scientists anymore. We’re closing you down.”

  “You don’t have that much power, Warden,” Kellerman said, still too confident. “You’ll be arrested for abducting me, probably executed. And everyone in this room with you. Except Ms. Duncan. She’ll go to prison for aiding you, and her mother will likely lose her nice business.”

  “I’m not a Shifter,” Reid said quietly.

  Kellerman jumped. The Fae had remained in the shadows, and now he leaned against the elevator’s doorframe. “I used to be a cop before I resigned,” Reid said. “Believe it or not, abducting Shifters is against the law, and experimenting on them is too.”

  “I wasn’t experimenting on them,” Kellerman said quickly.

  “No, you were harvesting from them,” Eric said, anger in his voice. “To make a new species of Shifter. It didn’t work before. Why did you think it would work now?”

  “I told you. Technology has improved in the last forty years.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Reid said. “Shifters were never bred by men in the first place. They were created by the Fae, in Faerie. The Fae used genetic engineering and technology, sure, but also a good dose of magic. That, you don’t have, and you never will, thank the Goddess. That kind of magic doesn’t work outside Faerie anyway.”

  “Fairies?” Kellerman laughed. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Fae,” Reid corrected. “Or hoch alfar, as my people called them. Evil bastards. It’s interesting to me that, no matter how bad you are, you’ll never be as evil as the high Fae. You’re too petty and full of yourself.”

  “My backup should be here any minute,” Kellerman said angrily. “You are the overconfident ones. You’re going down. Fae, my ass.”

  “Why don’t you demonstrate, Reid?” Graham suggested, sounding eager. “Show him a little Fae magic.”

  Reid shrugged. “Nah. Waste of energy.”

  “Aw,” Graham said. “You’re no fun.”

  Kellerman looked Reid up and down, then back at Eric, his fear not as great as it should have been. “The fact that you stand around without clothes and don’t notice proves you’re animals. No one cares what happens to you, in the long run. Remember that.”

  And there were many Shifters, Eric though silently, who didn’t care what happened to humans. Humans walked a knife-edge, and they didn’t even know it.

  “What do you think?” Eric asked Graham. “Burn the place to the ground before we go?”

  “Sounds good to me. Lots of acetylene and gas around here. Make a nice little inferno.”

  Kellerman looked at the faces surrounding him. Eric saw him realize that they weren’t joking—Eric, for one, did not intend to let this building or anything in it remain.

  “You fucking bastards,” Kellerman said hotly. “This is years of work. Science. And money. My money.”

  “Can we stop talking?” Graham asked. “And start torching?”

  “Wait.” Iona stepped forward. “What about Eric? What did your files on Shifter research tell you was done to him?”

  “I’m not a scientist,” Kellerman said testily. “I don’t have all the details. But he was part of this—he and some others. They were messing around with chemical cocktails, bioengineering, trying to see if they could turn regular Shifters into killing machines, but under their direct control. Those experiments didn’t work.” He gave Eric a small smile. “They said you were too old. Their notes said they were annoyed that they had to work on you, not your son.”

  Eric went cold. Twenty years ago, Jace had been a true cub, a little over ten years old, and scared about the move to Shiftertown and taking the Collar. And these people had wanted to change Jace into something like Tiger Man, who was standing motionlessly behind Kellerman, the rage in his eyes mirroring what Eric felt.

  “And then they were ordered to cease,” Kellerman went on, oblivious of his danger.

  He was counting too much on his backup, who were taking their time. Eric remembered Diego’s grim enthusiasm about causing a diversion at the front gate if necessary, and he wondered if Diego was taking care of that.

  “I imagined it pissed them off,” Eric said. “But not as much as it pissed me off.”

  Something in Eric’s voice made Kellerman take a step back. Iona growled, with her panther’s anger, and Kellerman’s eyes widened suddenly. “Son of a bitch. You’re one of them! Ms. Duncan, you’re a Shifter.”

  Instinctively, Eric stepped in front of Iona. “A fact that you’ll forget.”

  “The hell I will.” Kellerman looked both disgusted and gleeful. “You’re going down, woman. You’ve been Collarless all this time, which is against about fifteen laws. Your pretty little mom is going down too, for not reporting that a Shifter got her pregnant—or is she a Shifter too? What about your sister?”

  Iona tried to get around Eric. “You leave them the hell alone.”

  “Control her, asshole,” Kellerman snarled.

  His words were drowned by a long, low growl, one of terrible menace that rattled the broken glass all over the room.

  Tiger Man had come to life, the big man’s stance radiating that he did not like Kellerman threatening Iona. At all.

  Kellerman blanched. He came out of his daze and tried to get to Graham, reaching for the tranq rifle Graham still held.

  Graham back-stepped out of the way, but before he could bring the rifle around to shoot Kellerman with it, Tiger, with a roar that filled the room, slammed himself into Kellerman.

  “Graham!” Eric shouted.

  Graham aimed the rifle, but the tiger had Kellerman pinned beneath him, Kellerman screaming as they grappled. Tiger shifted to his cat, a Bengal twice the size of a regular tiger. He’d been bred to be stronger than other Shifters—a killer, Kelle
rman had said.

  Eric changed to his half beast and sprang into the fray—he saw Graham shove the tranq gun at Iona and shift to half wolf.

  He and Graham tried to pull the tiger off Kellerman, but the tiger was far gone in rage, taking out his long life of fear, pain, and loneliness on Kellerman. Tiger fought for himself, for his dead cub, and for Iona, the first person to try to give him his freedom.

  Kellerman screamed as claws ripped into him, peeling flesh from his bones and bloodying the floor. The tiger slashed in hard, rapid strokes, then dove to latch his teeth around Kellerman’s throat.

  Eric heard the thunk of the tranq rifle, and Tiger Man shuddered. He let go of Kellerman, and Kellerman fell in a limp heap, his head bloody and lolling.

  Iona stood over them, holding the tranq rifle ready. Eric and Graham together grabbed the tiger and hauled him off Kellerman. The tiger landed on his side, still awake, his black and orange sides heaving.

  Kellerman was a mess. The smug face that Eric had often wanted to punch was now a bloody pulp, the man’s breath coming in bubbling gasps.

  “I can get him to an emergency room,” Reid said.

  Eric nodded and moved aside to let him, but Kellerman raised his head and glared at Eric. “Fucking Shifter bastards,” he whispered, then the life went out of his eyes, and he slumped back to the floor.

  “Shit,” Graham said.

  Eric studied Kellerman, the Shifter in him feeling glee, the man in him relieved that Kellerman would not now be able to expose Iona. He reached down and closed Kellerman’s eyes.

  “The Goddess go with you,” he said quietly.

  From outside, they heard the wail of sirens, security police, Kellerman’s backup finally arriving.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “This can blow up on us, Warden,” Graham said.

  Eric got to his feet. He took the rifle from Iona, who still stood where she’d fired the bolt into the tiger, her face too pale.

  “Get that fire we were talking about going,” Eric said. “Reid, take Iona and everything we brought and meet us at the roadhouse where Diego dropped me off. We’ll come cross-country. My clothes are there, and I don’t want them left around for police to find. Graham, everything here has to go. No DNA from any of our Shifters, nothing left of the experiments. Got it? No, Iona, don’t argue with me.”

  Reid was already gathering up the sat phone and Xavier’s equipment, the researchers’ phones, and anything they’d left behind. He piled everything into Iona’s numb arms.

  Iona glared at Eric as he bent to kiss her. “Don’t you dare blow yourself up, get caught, or get shot.” She melted into the kiss then, her look saying everything. “Come home to me.”

  “Don’t worry, love. I’ve done this before.”

  Iona smiled a crooked smile. “And I want to hear all about it.”

  Eric dropped another kiss to her lips and stepped back. Reid folded his arms around her, and then they were gone.

  Sabotage. Eric had gotten good at it during the last World War. It was amazing what a Shifter could do with a little gasoline, fabric, and matches. Shifters were good at getting away quickly and silently as well. The Nazis hadn’t known what hit them.

  No gasoline here, but plenty of natural gas lines and tanks of oxygen and acetylene. Eric got the tiger Shifter up and shifted back to his human form to help them build piles of debris and make them so explosive they would bring down the building.

  Eric took more tanks of acetylene and oxygen and went down into the basement with the tiger, setting the canisters leaking at strategic support points.

  They raced back up the stairs and out onto the roof as Graham finished on the top floor. When Graham joined them, Eric dialed the cell phone he’d left down in the basement to set everything off.

  They heard a distant boom that rocked the building. Tiger Shifter stood up in the dark and spit onto the roof. “It is finished,” he said.

  Graham lit an alcohol burner he’d brought upstairs with the lighter he’d found, and threw it hard into the stairwell. The three of them sprinted for the fire escape, flowing over and down it as the windows blew.

  Orange fire lit the dark as the building belched flame. The three Shifters, in their animal forms, leapt from the fire escape to the ground two floors below and sprinted into the darkness.

  Behind them, the building exploded, lighting the sky. A giant ball of fire arced toward the runway. Security police and a fire truck raced toward the runway, more worried about whatever planes were there than a building that housed iffy experiments.

  The tiger was running, following Graham, and Eric came right behind them as they headed west through the desert.

  Reid and Iona popped back into existence in what looked like a dark parking lot full of pickups and Harleys. At least, Iona thought she saw that before dizziness spun her around, and she started to fall. Reid caught her in surprisingly strong arms and held her upright.

  “That was weird,” she said breathlessly.

  “Not what I said the first time I did it,” Reid said. “I didn’t know I knew that many swear words.”

  “Where the hell are we?”

  “The roadhouse on the Ninety-five. There’s Shane.”

  Shane was running out to them, his big bulk made even bulkier by the heavy jacket he wore against the November cold. “Iona. Thank the Goddess.”

  He caught Iona in a large hug that stole the rest of her breath. “Mom drove me up here. I take it Eric’s on his way back?”

  “Running across the desert as we speak,” Reid said. “With Graham and…another Shifter. Hope your mom brought the big truck.”

  Nell had, and by the time she pulled her F-250 around to them, Eric came walking out of the desert, fully dressed, Graham at his side, flanked by the tiger Shifter—in his tiger form now. Eric didn’t stop until he reached Iona, who shivered in the darkness, and pulled her straight into his arms.

  “What do we do with him?” Iona asked Eric the next morning.

  She sat in the circle of Eric’s arms on the edge of the back porch, the sun streaming warmth but the air cool. Cassidy lounged next to them on her favorite Adirondack chair with baby Amanda in her arms. She’d liked the sling Iona had fashioned that kept Amanda against her, but Nell had found her one that was soft and pretty. Diego sat on the arm of the chair, his touch never far from his mate and cub.

  Graham was out making sure his Shifters were safe, while Reid was here, having decided to keep an eye on Tiger Man. The tiger Shifter was dressed now in sweatpants and T-shirt that Shane provided, the man as big as the grizzlies. Reid sat next to him on a picnic bench in the yard, Jace on his other side.

  Kellerman had been reported dead this morning in a fire on a military base—news reporters never said which base. He’d gone into a deserted building alone, according to the guard that had been stationed in front of it, and the building had blown up not long later. No survivors.

  The Shifter council said the appropriate things, such as, “He will be missed,” made noises about appointing a new head, and got on with it. The council people Graham had spoken to resigned. Tomorrow, the human council would come for the ground-breaking ceremony for the new Shifter houses. Life in Shiftertown would move on.

  Liam Morrissey had set out lawn chairs for himself and Kim, the pair of them sitting together, baby Katriona on Kim’s lap. Liam took a sip of coffee that Iona had seen him spike with something in a flask.

  “Well, now, I thought I’d take him home with me,” Liam said in answer to Iona’s question. “There’s room in my Shiftertown, and he needs somewhere to go. I’m also good with introducing Collars.”

  “Will he have to wear a Collar?” Iona asked in trepidation.

  The tiger Shifter was calm enough this morning, sunlight glistening on his tiger-striped hair. He’d showered and learned how to shave, courtesy of Eric, and Iona was struck with how handsome he was. Whatever unfortunate Shifters and humans had donated DNA to make him, they’d been fine-looking peop
le.

  “I think he’d better wear one,” Liam said. “They help keep us from going feral, and he’s going to need help. I hate to do it, but ’tis temporary.”

  “The Goddess go with him,” Cassidy said softly. Diego, sitting on the wide arm of her chair, leaned down and kissed the top of her head.

  “He needs a name,” Iona said. “We can’t call him Twenty-three or Tiger Man.”

  “What name do ye want, lad?” Liam called to him.

  The tiger Shifter looked up, but Iona had no doubt that he’d heard every word of the low-voiced conversation.

  “I don’t know yet,” the tiger said.

  Now that he’d had a chance to sleep and eat in a place he didn’t have to be driven by rage, the harsh throatiness of his speech had calmed somewhat.

  “Don’t be in a hurry,” Iona said. “The perfect name will come to you.”

  “She’s a generous lady,” Eric said.

  Tiger Man, watching Iona, didn’t respond.

  Eric still looked tired after the fight, his struggle with pain, and the charge back across the desert, but he kissed Iona with as much skill as ever. He’d been able to make love to her fairly robustly early this morning as well.

  “And you,” Liam said. “We need to be fixing your pain problem.”

  “About that.” Eric looked through the open patio door into the house, where Xavier sat at the kitchen table with Neal the Guardian, both of them taking advantage of another of Diego’s hearty breakfasts. “Xav, did you track down Murdock?”

  “He’s standing by,” Xavier called, not looking up from his chilaquiles.

  “Neal, what about that other thing?”

  “Got it,” Neal said.

  Iona gave Eric a questioning look. Eric leaned back on his elbows, his body as relaxed as ever, but something eager sparkled in his eyes.