Mate Claimed (Shifters Unbound #4)(83)
Author: Jennifer Ashley

She still saw the pain in his eyes, though, and it worried her. She knew right then that she’d rather risk going feral, or going insane from her mating heat, or being caught as a Shifter, than watch him go through that pain again.

Eric sent Reid to the roof to keep an eye out for activity while they waited for Kellerman, having Reid report via the phones Iona had taken from the researchers. Reid’s first call said that no guards were rushing to the place, and the humans he did see ignored the building.

His observations supported Eric’s idea that no one really knew what the researchers were doing in here, nor did they care. He suspected that no one took Kellerman’s research seriously, or else he’d offered to pay a lot of money to use the run-down facility.

The two researchers on the top floor were just coming around when Eric knelt next to them. Iona had hit them hard in her half-feral state, to which their bruises attested. But they were recovering. The woman wore shorts and a T-shirt with a spangled neckline; the man was still in a clean suit. Both opened their eyes now to find a naked Eric grinning into their faces.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m a Shifter. I’m about to destroy this lab and everything in it, so you might want to leave.”

The man blinked at him. “What?”

“I said…”

Iona leaned down next to him, her lovely face bearing a sweet smile. “You kidnapped me, my sister-in-law, and a newborn baby. You took my niece from her mother and stuck needles into her and wires all over her. I’d say you need to leave.”

“We weren’t hurting her,” the woman said quickly. “Just trying to figure out her gene sequence.”

“So you could clone her?” Iona’s voice continued to be deceptively pleasant.

“We only want to know how Shifters work. They could be the best weapons—”

“Shut up,” the man said quickly.

Eric said, “Is this how you got the government to fund you? Said you were creating secret weapons? You see him?” He pointed to the tiger, who was standing next to Graham, his yellow eyes pinning the researchers. “That Shifter was the only one who survived. The ‘experiments’ were a failure.”

“But we have new—” The woman broke off again when the man elbowed her.

“Shut up.”

“New DNA samples from the Lupine Shifters you abducted,” Eric supplied. “You thought you could revive the experiments, succeed where the previous ones failed. I have news. It can’t be done.”

Both researchers, the woman with her pale, lined face, and the man, younger and angry looking, said nothing.

“But we’re nice Shifters,” Eric said. “At least I am. My mate here wants to disembowel you for touching our niece. The tiger over there wants to gut you for what humans have done to him over the last forty years. The wolf just wants to shoot you because he can.”

Graham’s laughter rumbled. “And it would be fun.”

The woman flinched, but the man looked more angry.

“But I’m going to let Reid take you out of here before we get destructive,” Eric said. “Because I’ve learned how to be kind to stupid creatures.”

Eric unfolded himself and summoned Reid from the roof. The man and woman looked more perplexed than afraid as Reid approached. Lanky Reid in jeans, shirt, and jacket against the winter cold looked innocuous and obviously not Shifter.

“He’ll have to take you one at a time,” Eric said. “The male first, I think.”

“Where do you want me to leave them?” Reid asked, expression neutral.

“I’ll let you decide.”

Reid thought a moment, then he grinned. A dokk alfar was a frightening thing when he smiled, especially when his midnight eyes began to gleam. “I have just the place.”

Reid put his hands on the man’s shoulders, then both he and the man vanished.

The woman screamed. She tried to scramble away from them, but Iona put a strong foot on the woman’s leg and stopped her.

Reid slammed back in a few seconds later and reached for the woman.

“Where did you take him?” Iona asked.

“Las Vegas Police Department,” Reid said. “Processing cell.” He closed his hands on the woman’s shoulders, and then they were gone.

“Huh,” Graham said. “Good sense of humor, for a Fae.” He looked around the room. “So they brought the blood and tissue samples from my wolves here?”

“Maybe egg and sperm samples too,” Iona said. “If they’re trying to breed Shifters.”

“Shit.”

Graham strode to the cooling cabinets, ripped one open, and started throwing the test tubes to the floor. They shattered, whatever agar preserved the samples oozing out and mixing with the broken glass.

The tiger Shifter watched Graham a moment, then he walked to the next glass cabinet and tipped it over, without bothering to open it. The resounding crash was satisfying, and Graham gave triumphant cheer.

“You all right?” Iona came back to Eric, her hands warm on his arms, her blue eyes soft with worry.

“Much better. The mate bond is helping.”

“The mate bond,” she said. “Cassidy told me about that. She said it was magic.”

Eric cradled Iona’s face in his hands, thumbs brushing her cheekbones. “Whatever it comes from, it’s filling me. It’s making me know I love you.”

He saw the hunger in her eyes. “I love you.” She touched his face. “I never knew—I never thought I could love like this.”

“The Goddess must have known. I’m glad she did.”

Around them, crashes sounded, along with the satisfied growls of two Shifters enjoying themselves. Eric slid his arms around Iona. “I love you. I’m going to keep saying that because I like hearing it. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Iona smiled as she leaned into the warm curve of his body. “I wish we were home.”

“Soon, love. And then, we won’t come out for days.”

Graham looked around at them. “Will you two take it out of here? Your pheromones are making me crazy.”

He’d strapped the tranq rifle across his back while he found and broke things. The tiger ignored them all while he swept his arms over the lab benches and punched the glass out of the hoods. He finally looked happy.

“Watch him,” Eric said to Graham.

“Don’t worry. I’m on it.”

Eric craved Iona with his entire body, but he knew that would have to wait. “We need to search the rest of the floors.”