Turn the page for a special preview of the next Shifters Unbound novel by Jennifer Ashley
MATE CLAIMED
Coming October 2012 from Berkley Sensation!
I
ona smelled him long before she saw him—Eric Warden, the alpha Feline who ran the local Shiftertown and who’d decided to make Iona’s life hell.
She loped on down the desert canyon, sand grating on her paws. The Nevada night was hot, the sky a riot of stars, the glow of the city far behind. Out here, Iona could be what she was meant to be—a wildcat, a Feline Shifter, running free. Alone, where what she was wouldn’t hurt the human mother who’d helped her hide for more than thirty years.
For some reason, Eric wanted to end that.
Catch me if you can, Feline.
Iona ran on, the canyon’s rock walls rising around her. She knew by scent how far she was from Area 51, a place no Shifter was stupid enough to run to. The other direction, east and north, was safer.
Last night, Iona had stayed out until dawn, celebrating her sister’s engagement with about fifty friends—all human. They’d gone to a human bar, no Shifters allowed, thank God. They’d liberated the bar of plenty of margaritas before limping out in the light of early morning. Iona didn’t even remember how she’d gotten home.
The frenzy of that night out followed by the hangover of the day had triggered Iona’s need to shift. After work, despite her exhaustion, Iona had driven her red pickup out to her favorite spot in the middle of the desert, off-roading half an hour to get there. She’d barely shed her clothes before her wildcat had taken over.
And now Eric was following her.
He pounded behind her, a powerhouse Shifter Feline, his wildcat more snow leopard than anything else. Sleek, strong, cunning. Feline Shifters had been bred to be a mixture of all wildcats—lion, leopard, jaguar, cheetah, tiger, and others—but most Shifters leaned toward a certain type.
Iona’s wildcat tended toward panther, with a black pelt to match the hair she had while human. Her panther was long-legged, sure-footed, and a good jumper. This was her territory, and she’d leave Eric Warden far behind.
Iona dodged across a dry wash, kicking up dust in her wake, and scrambled up into the rocky crevices on the other side of it. She hopped from one sandstone ledge to the next, moving up the canyon wall, her paws scrabbling a little.
In spite of Eric’s pursuit, she loved this. The joy of being in wild country nearly impossible for humans to reach was heady.
This is what I’m meant to be.
Damned if Eric didn’t follow right after her, faster than she’d thought possible. Iona crested the ridge at the top of the canyon and kept going.
She ran along a ledge and dropped into another wash that snaked down the other side of the mountain. Before she got to the bottom, she ducked into a shallow cave she knew was there from previous exploration. From the top of the ridge, it would look as though she’d vanished.
But Eric didn’t need to see her to find her. He’d scent her. Ever since he’d spotted her in Coolers, one of the few clubs that allowed in Shifters, Eric had tracked her. Not that Iona had gone to the club as a Shifter—no one knew she was Shifter. Her human friends had dragged her there so they could watch Shifters and Shifter groupies, fascinated by the whole scene for some reason.
Eric’s scent had triggered something in Iona from the moment he’d sat down next to her in the club’s dark corner and told her he knew what Iona was. He’d filled her senses with a spicy scent like cardamom and cloves, and a musk that made everything female in her aware of his maleness. Not that his tall, hard-muscled body and tatt swirling down his arm hadn’t dragged at her also.
His scent was stronger now, overlaid with that of his wildcat. He was coming.
Iona ducked into the cave’s black shadows, but Eric was at the entrance, his leopard filling the opening, looking straight at her.
Iona faced him, ears flat against her head, fur rising on her neck.
Eric didn’t move. Dominants didn’t need to show teeth or attack to tell another Shifter who was in charge. They just looked at you.
His wildcat was larger than a normal snow leopard, his head nearly square on heavy shoulders. His pelt was creamy white and branded with the black jagged pattern of a leopard. Eric’s eyes, fixed on her, were jade green.
Iona’s wildcat was more slender than Eric’s but no smaller, though it would be an interesting contest to see whether she matched him in strength. The biggest difference between them, though, was that Eric wore a silver and black Collar, and Iona didn’t.
Eric rose on his hind legs until his head nearly touched the roof of the cave, then his fur and cat limbs flowed into human bones and flesh. His face was hard and square, like the leopard’s, his chocolate brown hair close-cropped. A black tattoo swirled around his large shoulder and trailed down his arm in a jagged, stylized design. The tattoo wasn’t magical—Shifters didn’t need tatts. Eric simply liked it.
His green eyes saw everything. There was no escaping his gaze when it fixed on you, even across a packed Las Vegas club. Iona still remembered feeling the burn of his stare across the bar; Eric was the first person in Iona’s life besides her mother and sister who’d looked at her and recognized her as Shifter.
Iona’s hormones kicked in, even through her worry and anger. Eric was a delectable man. He put to shame all the guys who’d tried to dance with her last night.
What was between Eric’s legs would probably put them to shame too. The man was
hung
.
“You can’t keep this up,” Eric said. His voice, deep and fine, with the barest touch of Scots, had lately started invading her dreams.
Damned hormones. Iona needed to get away from him.
She gave Eric a snarl to let him know he didn’t worry her. Which was bullshit. He could take her in a heartbeat and both of them knew it.
“Can you, Iona?” Eric took one step forward.
Iona sprang past him for the mouth of the cave. His leopard she couldn’t outrun, but she could outrun him when he was human. She barreled out into the rocks…
And found two hundred pounds of leopard pinning her to the ledge. His breath was hot in her face, and she looked straight up into his jade green eyes.
Iona had never been able to shift that fast. Shifting took a while for her, and it could be painful. Eric had flowed into his wildcat so smoothly it made her sick.
Eric’s growl became bad-tempered as Iona struggled. He opened his terrifying jaws and locked his teeth around her throat.
Fur protected Iona from the prick of his fangs, but she panicked. He could kill her right now, rip out her throat or slice her belly wide open. Iona couldn’t fight him—he was too strong. She couldn’t get away—he was too fast. She’d die far from help, never see her mother and sister again.
Iona shifted. She didn’t want to, but some instinct took over, told her he wouldn’t hurt her if she became a human. She felt her paws sprout fingers and toes, her pelt fade and withdraw to become human flesh.
Eric lifted his mouth from her throat, but he didn’t do anything to stop her shifting. He simply waited and watched until Iona was a human woman with a large, soft-furred snow leopard draped across her bare body.
The large, soft-furred snow leopard suddenly became a man. Eric’s shift was so smooth it amazed her. Iona quickly ceased being amazed when Eric, the strong human male, pinned her to the ground with shocking strength.
She struggled, but Eric trapped her wrists and held them against the cold ground. He wanted her to look away as he stared her down, but she couldn’t look away. Somehow Iona knew that if she did, she’d lose—not just now, but always.
“I told you to call me when you needed to go out running,” Eric said.
“So? You followed me anyway. Why should I bother calling?”
Eric’s weight held her harder. “I found you tonight because I was on my way to talk to you. I saw you take off, scented you fighting the shift even as you drove away.”
Iona struggled again, but it was like trying to budge a large boulder. “Why can’t you leave me the hell alone? If anyone finds out I’m Shifter…”
She knew exactly what they’d do. The human Shifter bureau would slap a Collar on her without listening to her protests, strip Iona of all her rights, and keep her in quarantine before releasing her to whatever Shifter they designated to keep her under control. Three guesses as to who that Shifter would be.
On the other hand, they might simply kill her. And who the hell knew what they’d do to Iona’s mother, who’d kept the fact that Iona was half Shifter quiet all this time?
“I can’t leave you alone, because you’re in my jurisdiction,” Eric said. “And you’re losing control, aren’t you?”
Iona shivered with more than anger. His long body was hard on hers, muscles gleaming with sweat in the moonlight. Eric’s living strength made the wild thing in her want to respond with fire.
“I was hung over,” she said. “I’m not like this every day.”
Eric lowered his head and inhaled her scent, his nose touching her throat. “You will be soon. How did you survive the Transition?”
“What transition? What are you talking about?”
“From cub to adulthood. You should have done it a few years ago. The Transition is your body telling you it’s ready for you to find your place in the pride, to start looking for a mate.”
Iona stopped, her heart squeezing. “Is
that
what that was?”
“Tell me what happened.”
Eric’s breath was warm on her, his hard thigh just fitting between her legs. It was difficult to think with him on top of her, difficult even to breathe.
“I wanted to fight everyone, all the time,” she said, remembering. She’d thought she was going insane. “I couldn’t stop it. And I hurt all over. Every day.”
Iona had tried to stay as far away from her mother and sister—from everyone—as possible. She’d gone up to the family cabin in the mountains, where she’d let herself shift and run and run. That had helped, but only a little.
Eric’s voice went quiet. “You must be very strong, Iona, to have made it through alone.” He sounded admiring.
“I thought I was going to die.”
“You were lucky. I remember what I did during
my
Transition.” He chuckled softly, which moved his body on hers in the best way. “I wanted to fight and challenge anyone—everyone. My sister kept threatening to hit me with a frying pan, those big cast-iron ones we had a hundred years ago.”
Iona suddenly wanted to meet this sister. “You obviously got through it.”
“Because I had help, had a family and a clan. You have nothing. You’re alone, open for a mate-claim by any male who chances on you. And your mating need is high, isn’t it?”
That need swirled through her, tried to make Iona’s body rise to his.
A male, ready for you, take him now!
“What I do is none of your business,” Iona managed to say. “Leave me the hell alone, Eric. My life has been fine so far without you in it.”
“But I’m in it now.” His voice was deep and rumbling, almost a purr. The tattoo that wound down his arm kept drawing her gaze, and she so much wanted to touch it…
For Eric’s part, he was barely holding on to his self-control. Iona’s scent was that of a female Feline who’d recently reached her fertile years, a little over thirty by human standards, a few years past cub by Shifter. This female Feline didn’t know how to control her pheromones, didn’t realize she was broadcasting her availability to every Shifter male far and wide. She might as well hold up a flashing sign.
Good thing Eric was so disciplined, still mourning his mate lost long ago, so uninterested in mating. Right?
Or he’d be hard as a rock, wanting to say,
To hell with it
, and take her. They were in the middle of nowhere, and Eric was within his rights to take whatever stray adult female wandered into his territory.
He didn’t necessarily have to mate-claim her. As clan leader as well as pride leader, he could father cubs on an unmated female belonging to no pride or clan if he wanted to. For the good of the clan, for the strength of his pride. So he could claim.
But those had been the rules in the wild. Shifters were tamer, now, civilized. Living together in a community, in harmony.
And all that crap.
Eric’s instincts said,
Screw the rules.
She’s unmated and unclaimed. By rights, she’s fair game, and I found her. That makes her mine.
Wouldn’t that be sweet? Iona Duncan had a face that was pure Celtic, her hair black as the night sky, her eyes the light ice blue of her ancestors. Shifters had been created about the time the Nordic invaders would have been subduing Celts in northern Scotland, and some of that mixture had gotten into Iona.
Now her soft but strong body was under his, and her blue eyes held longing, oceans of it.
“Does it hurt?” Eric asked in a gentler tone.
“Having a big Shifter male resting his weight on my wrists? I’d say yes.”
Eric wanted to laugh. He liked the challenge in her, liked that she wasn’t cringing, timid, and submissive. Untrained, yes; terrified, no.
“I mean the mating need,” Eric said. “It’s rising in you, and you can’t stop it. That’s why you’re out here, why you’ve been running around out here like a crazy thing. You want to be wild, to taste the wind. To hunt. To feel the fear in you flow to the innocent creatures out there, to make them fear
you
.”
Iona stopped squirming, her gaze fixing, pupils widening, spreading black through the blue. Eric read the hunger in her, the need to find a male, to mate in wild frenzy for days. Iona wasn’t stopped by a Collar. Her instincts would flow like fire. Untamed.
Eric’s own need rose in response. He wanted to kiss that fire, to taste the freedom in her that was now only a memory to him.
He leaned to nuzzle the line of her hair, already knowing her scent, already familiar with it.
“I’ll take care of you, Iona,” he said. “You’ll become part of my clan, and I’ll look after you. Me and my sister and my son. We’ll take care of you from now on.”
Iona’s glare returned. “I don’t
want
to be part of your pride, damn you. They’d put that Collar on me.” Her frenzied gaze went to the chain fused to Eric’s neck, the Celtic knot resting on his throat. “It’s painful, isn’t it? When the Collar goes on?”