Mate Claimed

Graham’s Collar started to spark. He was about to go on a rampage. Eric shared the urge, but if they tore up the place, humans would figure out that they’d been there, and the Goddess knew what they’d do—to the Shifters they’d already taken, to Shifters in general.

Before he could tell Graham to take his ass back outside, Eric’s cell phone vibrated. He yanked it out of its holder.

“Brody. What?”

Eric listened to Brody’s excited and garbled words, then said, “Fine. We’re coming,” and hung up.

He looked up to find Graham an inch away, the man fully in his space, Graham’s breath fanning Eric’s face.

“Got them,” Eric said. “Brody’s found them—on a highway not far from here. We need to get there. Reid?”

Eric hated what would come with the teleport back to the motorcycles—the dizziness, the nausea—but as Reid grabbed Graham first, Eric had the satisfaction of watching Graham’s eyes widen in sudden, pure terror.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Eric slowed his motorcycle when he saw the bus canted off on the side of the road and surrounded by Shifters, both Eric’s and Graham’s. He also recognized the large pickup in front of the bus that belonged to Xavier Escobar.

Graham pulled up alongside Eric and killed his Harley’s engine. Eric didn’t stop Graham leaping off his bike and running to the bus’s open door.

“Tell me what happened,” Eric said to Brody, who came forward to meet him.

“We didn’t do this,” Brody said, indicating the bus that was half-sunk into the road’s soft shoulder. Brody looked much like Shane, with black and brown hair and dark eyes, but Brody, a little younger, wasn’t as restless as his older brother. Brody was Eric’s tracker, but Shane worked for Nell, his mother, though Nell lent Shane to Eric much of the time. “Not on purpose, anyway,” Brody went on. “When the driver saw us following him, he panicked and ran off the road. I decided to hold him here and wait for you.”

“Good thinking. Where did the bus come from?”

“We were driving around the area, like you said, and I just happened to see it pull out of an unmarked dirt road and onto the highway. Another few minutes, and we’d have missed it.”

“The Lupines are all there?”

“Think so,” Brody said. “I guess McNeil will know.”

“Thanks, Brody. You did great.”

Brody did his best to look modest, but grizzlies were bad at not looking smug. Eric patted his shoulder and went to the bus.

The human driver was still in his seat, looking terrified. Nell sat behind him, thankfully minus her shotgun, and she was twirling a set of keys that likely had come out of the ignition.

Xavier sat on a jump seat next to the driver, armed with a Glock, but the gun was holstered. Eric wondered whether the driver realized that Xavier was protecting him from the Shifters.

Xav nodded to Eric as Eric climbed past him. Shifter women and kids slumped in the seats, most of them asleep, others glassy-eyed and staring. Graham was halfway down the aisle, and an older Shifter woman in the seat he bent over was clinging to his arm and crying. The woman looked groggy, her face flushed as though she’d just woken.

“Everyone accounted for?” Eric asked Graham, moving past him.

“Not sure yet.” Graham’s voice was gentler than Eric had ever heard it. The man was trying to be calm, reassuring, so his Lupines wouldn’t panic.

Eric walked on through the long bus, the same size as a tour bus, and checked all the seats. Women, fast asleep, had arms protectively around their cubs. A few males were there, sitting alone, all sleeping or half-awake, staring unseeing as Eric went by.

In the back, he found two cubs, alone. The two wolves were very young, and in wolf form. Curled up around each other, they were all ears, big paws, and long tails, with noses too large for their little faces.

Eric, as a Feline, had an instinctive dislike for Lupines, but these two cubs were just so darned cute. He found himself smiling as he leaned over them, but at the same time, he felt a chill. They were alone—where was their mother?

“Hey, little guys,” he said. Their faces didn’t tell him their gender, but their scent did.

One of the wolf cubs opened his eyes. He stared at Eric in a puzzled way, then he growled. It was a tiny growl, the little body rumbling. His brother woke and blinked at Eric as well.

Their confused frowns only made the wolf cubs cuter. Eric was careful not to reach for them though, as much as he wanted to. They were waking up to a strange Feline, and if Eric put a hand toward them, he’d soon have a hand shredded by tiny claws and teeth.

“That’s Kyle and Matt,” Graham said, a note of relief in his voice. “Youngest in my Shiftertown. Thank the Goddess.”

The cubs, recognizing Graham, their alpha, went crazy with glee. Their tails wagged so hard their little bodies moved, and when Graham reached down and scooped up the two cubs, they began climbing him enthusiastically. Graham stayed very still while the cubs scampered up his tattooed arms, one perching on his shoulder, the other climbing to the top of his head.

The belligerent, angry Graham looked very different with a fuzzy little wolf on his head, Graham keeping his movements slow so as not to startle them.

“Where’s their mother?” Eric asked, looking back down the bus’s aisle.

“Lost her,” Graham said. “When they were born. Their dad before, in a car accident.”