Mate Claimed

Eric looked at the hand, Iona offering a handshake in the human way. He didn’t bother to take it. “No bargains, love. We do what’s necessary.”

Iona was gorgeous when she was fired up, blue eyes hot, her stance challenging. Eric’s reaction to her was obvious, even in the dark.

Her gaze dropped down his body, stopping at his very erect…erection. She put one hand on her bare hip and kept her voice light. “So what is that? An extension of your tail?”

Eric shrugged, unembarrassed. “I’m a male Shifter at the prime of life, and you’re a female entering her hottest mating years. What do you think it is?”

Iona’s eyes flickered, her need strong. Her pheromones filled the air until Eric could taste them. “Damn it,” she whispered.

She shifted to her wildcat. She couldn’t shift as swiftly as Eric could, and Eric saw that it was painful for her. His hard-on faded as he watched her struggle, but his wanting for her didn’t die. Iona was beautiful and wild, and he wanted her to be free. And safe.

Iona bounded past him. Her wildcat was sure-footed and fast, her pelt beautifully dark, her eyes as ice blue as her human eyes.

Eric watched in pure enjoyment before he fluidly shifted and ran after her.

Graham McNeil watched the humans shrink back in a satisfying way as he walked into the meeting room at the courthouse. They tried not to react to him, pretending they had all the power, but Graham knew he’d rule this room.

The only person who didn’t look intimidated was Eric Warden, the leader of the Vegas Shiftertown. Not leader for long, if Graham had anything to say about it.

The humans didn’t like Graham’s buzz of black hair, the fiery tatts down his arms, and his motorcycle vest. Eric had a tatt as well, jagged lines that started somewhere under his short-sleeved black T-shirt and wove down one arm.

Eric was going to be a problem. He was a strong alpha and had been leader of his Shiftertown for more than twenty years. As soon as Graham walked in, Eric’s jade green gaze fixed on him and stayed there.

The shithead wanted Graham to look away. To acknowledge that Graham was going to be second, maybe way less than that. Pussy.

Graham wasn’t about to look away. Neither was Eric. Graham felt his hackles rise, the wolf in him ready to shift. Eric’s eyes flicked to his cat’s, slitted and very light green.

They’d have stared each other down across the room for hours if a clueless human male, with no idea that a dominance fight was in progress, hadn’t walked between them.

“Mr. McNeil,” the man said. “Sit down, please.”

“Graham’s fine.” He’d rather remain standing, a better position for facing an enemy, but humans had a thing for chairs.

They wanted Graham to sit next to Eric. Idiots. Eric proved he wasn’t stupid by walking to the other end of the table and planting himself in a chair, leaving Graham to sit at the opposite end.

What did the humans expect Graham to do? Shake Eric’s hand, give him a big hug, wait for Eric to say, Welcome to my territory, let’s be friends?

They did, the morons. Amazing.

Graham’s Shiftertown had been tucked inside a mountain range south of Elko, a long way from anywhere, and he and his people had done pretty much what they wanted. A man with a check sheet came around every once in a while to make sure Shifters were behaving themselves and not eating people or whatever they thought Shifters did, and then he’d go.

But then someone in an office way back east, who’d never been to a Shiftertown in his life, had decided that times were tough, budgets had to be cut, and there was no reason to have two Shiftertowns in Nevada. So why not shove all the Shifters into one? The Shifter bureau could keep a better eye on them all that way.

Graham was used to the vast emptiness of rural Nevada, a place where a wolf could shift and run and run, never see a human for months if he didn’t want to. In this effing city, there were humans everywhere. They smelled like shit. Even Eric smelled wrong.

Graham had seen, on his way to the meeting, a sign on the top of a taxi advertising Shifter women dancing nude in clubs just off the Strip. Shifter females, taking off their clothes for human males. And Warden sat back and let it happen. That needed to stop.

He felt Eric’s eyes on him again. Graham returned the look with as much determination. You’re going down.

The trouble was, Graham was getting the same message back from Eric. This was going to be a long, bloody fight. The humans in this room had no idea what they’d started.

Eric took the seat on the opposite end of the table from Graham, not only to keep himself from ripping out Graham’s throat, but also to prevent Graham smelling Iona on him. It had been two days and many scrubbings since Eric had chased Iona in the wild land north of town, but he didn’t need Graham to catch any lingering scent.

Her sexy scent. Eric had dreamed of her for the last two nights, the dreams so vivid that he woke up surprised he was alone in his bed. He woke up hard and sweating, groaning as the sheets brushed his aching cock. He was like a Shifter in mating frenzy, but Eric had conquered that a long time ago, right?

Iona was made for mating frenzy. He thought of her with her long limbs curled around herself as she’d gazed at him in the moonlight outside the cave.

Eric needed to protect her, yes, but he also wanted to go to her, wrap himself around her, declare her his mate, keep her away from all others. A Shifter’s primal need was to hole up with a female for weeks at a time, keeping her safe while they sexed themselves mindless, nature’s way of ensuring that cubs came.