Mate Claimed
“Come on,” he said.
Iona scrambled out of bed, pulled on her jeans and a shirt—one of Eric’s—and followed him.
The lit passage ran five steps beyond the opening and ended in a stair going down. Eric flicked on another light, which illuminated the staircase and a door at the bottom. Everything was dry, dust-free, and very, very clean.
“Careful,” Eric said, leading the way.
Iona followed him on bare feet, the stone steps cool. The lights in the ceiling were nice canister spots, not bare bulbs, the walls finished and painted.
At the bottom, Eric punched a code into an electronic pad on the wall, and the door—which had no knob—clicked open.
“In the old days, we used elaborate locks that needed three keys in the right sequence,” Eric said. “Modern technology is so much faster.”
He pushed the door all the way open and ushered her inside.
Lights came on, flooding the large room Iona found inside. Correction—rooms.
The floor opened out into an area as big as, or maybe bigger than, the house upstairs. A small kitchen had been tucked into a corner, and other doors led to more rooms. Most of the doors were ordinary hardwood six-panel doors, but one was a slab of steel with no lock or handle that she could see.
The main area was a living room with comfortable furniture, a big flat-screen television, a computer workstation, and beyond a room divider, a pool table. A soft rug covered the ceramic tile floor.
Iona looked around in astonishment. “But…where did all this come from?”
Eric shrugged. “We pick it up here and there, over the years. Cassidy likes to remodel from time to time, and Jace likes gadgets.”
“Without anyone knowing?”
“We’re discreet.”
Iona walked slowly through the main room, noting that the oversized couch and matching chair were made of finest leather, the rug cashmere, the television a high-end model that cost thousands. “What?” she asked, marveling. “No wet bar?”
Eric didn’t laugh. “We mostly drink beer, and we only need a refrigerator for that.”
She turned in a circle, taking it in. “Do all Shifters have this under their houses?”
“Almost all. If a family is large enough to spill to several houses, they might have the underground area in only one house, where the whole pack or pride gathers. Cassidy likes to call this a man cave, but she’s got plenty of stuff down here too. Who do you think insisted on the pool table?”
“But…” High-end penthouse suites in the best hotels on the Strip weren’t this nice. “Why do you live like you do upstairs, if you can have all this?”
“Keeps the humans happy. If the dangerous Shifters live in near poverty, the humans think we’re under control.” Eric’s grin at her astonishment vanished. “These places are secret, Iona. Deadly secret. Only members of the pride or clan see them, no one else.”
“Then why are you showing me?”
Eric rested his warm hands on her shoulders. “I want you to see this, so you’ll understand exactly what we need from you.” He brushed his thumbs along her collarbone. “And because I’ve decided to trust you.”
“Trust me with this?” Iona asked.
“More than that. I’m going to trust you with this.” Eric took her hand and led her to the blank door at the end of the hall.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As they passed one of the six-paneled doors, it opened, and Jace filled the doorway, half-asleep and alarmed at the same time.
With his hair tousled, his green eyes, and his hastily pulled-on clothes, Iona marveled at how much he looked like Eric. At the same time he looked different from him; the shape of his face and set of his body had come from his mother’s Shifter family.
She wondered how he’d gotten down here—Jace had been in the living room when she and Eric had exited the bathroom and gone to bed last night. She would have woken if he’d come through Eric’s room.
“Dad?” Jace asked. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Showing Iona the vault,” Eric said calmly.
Jace rubbed sleep from his eyes and bolted in front of him. “Are you crazy?”
“She needs to see it.”
“Yeah, but, you haven’t been thinking too straight lately. Cass know about this?”
“She will.”
Jace stepped in front of them again, putting his back to the steel door. “Only mates of the pride, Dad. Only mates. Or did you have a full sun ceremony without telling me?”
“Jace.”
Eric’s voice took on a note of patience, a patience so old that Iona for the first time was struck with how long Eric already had lived. He’d lost his parents and his mate, had raised his sister and then his son on his own, had fought covertly in a war to help humans escape atrocities, had made the decision to move his family here and let humans put Collars on them, had prevented humans from torturing his son by taking on that torture himself.
The laid-back Eric, who lounged barefoot in his house or kissed Iona so sensually in the dark while he fed her chocolates, was a man of complexities and hurt so deep, she’d never understand it.
“We need her to see this, Jace,” Eric said. “She needs to understand how to help us.”
“Cass should be here, then.”
“Cass needs to rest for her cub. Leave her be.”
Father and son faced each other. Jace had the impatience of youth, Eric the calm of experience, but Iona sensed that otherwise, they were evenly matched. She wondered if Jace would ever decide it was time to take over from his father, and what he’d do then.