Mate Claimed

Her eyes went dark, her scent filling with need. “If you want the truth, I can’t taste chocolate without thinking of you.”

“Good.” Eric licked the corner of her mouth. “I only like it when it tastes of you.”

“We could find a hose,” he heard Cassidy say to Diego.

“You’d just get the hallway all wet,” Diego answered.

Iona blushed. Eric touched a kiss to her mouth. “Ignore them. Cass likes to tease.” Eric could tell that Cassidy was pleased with Iona though.

Iona shivered and rubbed her arms. “I’m still hungry.”

Cassidy rose from the arm of Diego’s chair and headed for the kitchen. “Sweetie, when I went through my first mating heat, I wanted to eat everything in sight. Now that I’m pregnant, I want to eat everything in sight again. I say we have ice cream.”

Eric didn’t want to let Iona go. He wanted to lean against her there, in the hall, absorbing her warmth, her smell, the taste of her.

But eating would help her metabolism, which was going crazy, as all females’ did when the mating urge first touched them. Soon Iona would want to slake her hunger a different way, and Eric would be right there to help her.

Diego and Eric watched from the living room as Cass and Iona devoured a tub of ice cream at the breakfast bar in the kitchen.

The two women were already getting along, Cassidy talking in her open way, asking Iona about her family, the construction company, and her life growing up as a half Shifter. Iona, who always told Eric to mind his own business, readily answered Cassidy’s questions.

Then Cass and Iona put their heads together and started talking softly to each other. Occasionally they’d glance up at the two men in the living room, and snicker.

Females.

After the ice cream, Iona started yawning and declared she’d go to bed. She was exhausted from the wedding, the reception, the mate-claim, meeting all these Shifters…

Eric let Iona enter Jace’s bedroom alone. He knew that if he followed her in, he wouldn’t want to leave. He’d kiss her again, savoring more than he’d been able to in the hall, then he’d take her down to the bed, burrowing under her clothes and completing the mating.

In Iona’s current state, she wouldn’t fight him. But Eric didn’t want only a casual encounter with Iona, she looking to ease her frenzy. When Eric took her, he wanted it to be as full mates. Then he’d make Iona his, forever.

Iona looked a bit surprised that Eric only said good night and watched her walk into Jace’s empty bedroom, but she quickly closed the door behind her. And locked it.

A groan in the middle of the night woke Iona from a sound sleep.

Jace’s bedroom was the first one in the hall, with Eric’s bedroom, a narrow space that looked like a converted closet, next to it. Iona had seen, when she’d followed Cassidy to the bedroom she shared with Diego at the end of the hall, that Eric’s room held a bed and that was pretty much it.

The groan had come from Eric’s bedroom, through the wall separating Iona from him. A groan of pain.

Iona scrambled out of bed, the hem of her borrowed sleep shirt brushing her thighs. The clock on the nightstand—an old-fashioned folding travel clock, nothing digital—told her it was three thirty.

She stepped into the hall, surprised by how quiet the house was. No sound came from outside—no cars, trucks, motorcycles, or trains, and they were a long way from the airport. A faint breeze blew through the eaves, but that was it.

In the silence, Eric groaned again. She paused to see whether Cassidy or Diego would respond, but she heard no movement from their bedroom at the end of the hall. Either they were heavy sleepers or the fairly large bathroom between them and Eric’s room muffled the sound.

Iona walked softly to Eric’s door and opened it.

In the near darkness inside, her Shifter sight took in the bulk of Eric’s bed with him on top of it, his naked skin gleaming. The bedcovers lay in a pale heap on the floor beside the bed, where he’d thrown them off.

“Eric?” Iona whispered.

A stifled groan answered her. Iona quickly crossed the room to him and touched his shoulder.

She pulled back in alarm. Eric’s skin was burning and drenched in sweat. “Eric, are you all right?”

Eric’s hand closed on her wrist, fingers shaking but his grip strong. “No, I’m bloody well not all right.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Hell if I know.” His words cut off as a spasm wrenched his body. “I don’t know what the f**k this is.”

“Your Collar?” Iona touched it, finding the black and silver band cool, the Celtic knot at his throat quiet. “Is it malfunctioning?”

“Like I said, hell if I know.” Eric tried to rise but fell back to the pillow. “This is killing me.”

Iona rubbed his shoulder, wanting to do something, but she didn’t know what. “Let me take you to a hospital. I’ll get Cass.”

“No.” Eric grabbed her again as she started to straighten up. “A hospital won’t know what to do with me, and I don’t want to see knives or needles ever again.” He tugged at her. “Stay with me, Iona. Touch me. You’re already helping.”

Iona sat on the edge of the bed and put a tentative hand on his chest. His heart pounded beneath her fingertips, his skin roasting hot.

“Can you shift?” she asked. “Will that help?”

“I tried. Made it worse.”