Mate Claimed

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 f**k?” 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.