Mate Claimed

Eric’s gaze on her told her he knew where her thoughts were going, and that he had the same thoughts.

Unembarrassed, he reached down and helped her to her feet. Iona landed against him, and he lightly kissed her lips as she tried to catch her breath.

“There’s something I want to check out,” Eric said.

Iona blinked at him, half startled out of her arousal. “Check out?”

“Something my trackers told me about this evening. I brought us out here, figuring we can take a look while we’re running things out of our systems.”

“Oh, right. Sure.” She stared at him, bewildered by the abrupt way he could change from seduction to being Shiftertown leader again.

Eric kissed her one more time, the warm, easy kiss of a man with a woman he liked. “Ready?”

Without waiting for her answer, Eric shifted back into his leopard. He stood against her a moment, his hot leopard breath fanning down her abdomen to her too-sensitive female places.

He made a low sound in his throat that Iona swore was a laugh before he turned and sauntered away.

Iona’s shift this time hurt, the stiffness from lying on the ground not helping. She shook herself once she became panther, and trotted off to catch up to him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Eric led her down the ridge, across a valley cut by another deep wash, and up another hill. At the top of this, Eric moved along a saddle between two boulder-strewn ridges, then climbed even higher to the top of the highest ridge.

When he reached the summit, he crouched low and moved in a wildcat slink that Iona hadn’t yet perfected. His belly nearly touched the ground, paws moving automatically to find the best purchase and balance his weight.

Iona copied his movements as best she could, her limbs stiff and sore. At last, Eric dropped all the way to his stomach and looked down the hill.

Sounds came to Iona from what must have been a half mile away, but her wildcat easily caught them.

People talking. Men, two of them, she heard distinctly. They weren’t saying anything important, just general conversation.

“Warm tonight.”

“Yeah, hear it’s going to be in the nineties tomorrow. Where’s winter?”

Hunters? Campers? There were no marked campgrounds out this way, Iona knew, but that didn’t mean hikers didn’t walk out and set up tents.

Drug dealers, maybe? But they sounded relaxed and ordinary, not worried about anything. As though they had every right to be out here in the middle of the desert in the vast darkness.

Eric sniffed the wind, making a soft sound in his throat. Iona sniffed too, and caught the scent. Humans. How many, she couldn’t tell, but not a lot of them. A crowd of humans smelled far different from one or two.

Eric dropped even lower. The light from the waning moon dappled both his fur and the ground around him, making the snow leopard almost impossible to spot.

Iona puffed a little as she moved closer to him, trusting her black fur to blend into the shadows.

Eric didn’t look at her. His gaze was riveted to what was below, and when Iona saw, she stilled as well.

Three rows of one-story buildings were strung along the desert floor, each about a hundred feet long but not more than about ten feet wide. Doors entered these at intervals, but there were no windows.

Square bulks of air conditioners that doubled as heat pumps squatted on the roofs. The three buildings were surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.

Few lights illuminated the place, only one on either end, each near a gate. The men they’d heard were two guards, standing together, smoking cigarettes, automatic rifles slung over their shoulders.

Iona tried to do what Eric had taught her this morning—reach inside and open up her scent ability. She widened her cat nostrils and drank in the wind.

She smelled very little out of the ordinary. The two men, the dust and creosote, the scent of coyotes, rabbits, birds, and reptiles that lay hidden in the brush. From the buildings, nothing. A bit of Freon from the air conditioners, but the units were silent.

Eric’s nose was twitching too, his sides moving as he sniffed and sniffed.

Finally he turned to Iona, his gaze unmistakably telling her it was time to leave. Iona let him lead the way, but as she followed, her foot caught on gravel, the stones grating. The trickle of pebbles didn’t fall over the edge of the ridge, but the rattle was loud and startling, sound carrying a long way out here.

“What was that?” one of the men said.

The other didn’t seem worried. “Probably a coyote. Or a snake. This place is crawling with snakes.”

“Yeah, no one’s stupid enough to come out here,” the first one said. “Except us.”

The second chuckled, Iona heard the flick of a lighter, and then she crept away after Eric.

Iona made no more noise as she picked her way down the ridge, back the way they’d come. When Eric reached the bottom, he broke into a run, leading her across the valley and back to the hill where they’d lain. Iona pounded behind him.

Eric didn’t stop, didn’t shift, but loped on, never doubting she’d follow, all the way back to where they’d left the bike and their clothes.

The leopard stretched when they reached the motorcycle, bending his front almost to the ground to unkink his forelegs, then lengthening to stretch hind. As Eric rose from the stretch, his body changed back into that of a delectable, naked man, his tattoo black in the faint moonlight.

Iona shook herself out, trying to dislodge gravel, stickers, and creosote leaves from her fur, while Eric watched her. He made no move to dress, but waited until she’d slowly and painfully changed back to human.