Mate Claimed

“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.

Iona gave him 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.

Eric took one step forward. She crouched, waiting, letting him take another step, and another.

Once he’d cleared the entrance to the cave, Iona leapt up and sprang past him. His leopard she couldn’t outrun, but she could outrun him in her animal form while he remained human. She barreled out of the cave and onto the rocks…

And found two hundred pounds of leopard on top of her, pinning her to the ledge.

How the hell did he shift that fast? Shifting took a while for Iona, and it could be painful. Eric flowed into his wildcat so smoothly it made her sick.

His growl became bad tempered as Iona struggled. His ears went flat, and he 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 open her belly. The panther sensed his strength—a fight with him would be tough. She couldn’t get away—he was too fast.

Iona shifted. She didn’t want to, but some instinct told her he wouldn’t hurt her if she became a human. She felt her claws change to fingers and toes, her pelt fade and withdraw to become human flesh.

Eric lifted his long teeth from her throat, but he didn’t do anything to stop her shifting. He waited and watched until Iona became a human woman, one with a large, soft-furred snow leopard draped over her bare body.

That large, soft-furred snow leopard suddenly became a man. One minute Iona had a big kitty lying on her, the next, a strong, naked human male pinned her to the ground.

She struggled, but Eric trapped her wrists and held them against the cold gravel. He wanted her to look away as he stared her down, but she refused to. Somehow Iona knew that if she ever did look away, she’d lose—not only now, but always.

“I told you to call me when you needed to go running,” he growled.

“You follow me anyway. Why should I bother?”

“I scented you fighting the shift even as you drove away. It’s getting harder, isn’t it?”

Iona tried to ignore the stab of fear his words gave her. “Why can’t you leave me 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 assigned to keep her under control. Three guesses as to who that Shifter would be.

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. You’re in my jurisdiction, my responsibility. 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.

“I was hung over,” she said. “I’m not like this every day.”

Eric lowered his head and inhaled, his nose touching her throat. “You will be soon. Your mating need is high and getting stronger.”

That need pounded through her, tried to make Iona’s body rise to his. A male, ready for you—take him!

“What I do is none of your business,” Iona managed to say. “Leave me the hell alone. 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 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 alone 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 a lone 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 say.

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.”