Mate Claimed Read Free

down, but she refused to. Somehow Iona knew that if she ever did look away, she’d lose—not only now, but always.
    “I told you to call me when you needed to go running,” he growled.
    “You follow me anyway. Why should I bother?”
    “I scented you fighting the shift even as you drove away. It’s getting harder, isn’t it?”
    Iona tried to ignore the stab of fear his words gave her. “Why can’t you leave me alone? If anyone finds out I’m Shifter…”
    She knew exactly what they’d do. The human Shifter bureau would slap a Collar on her without listening to her protests, strip Iona of all her rights, and keep her in quarantine before releasing her to whatever Shifter they assigned to keep her under control. Three guesses as to who that Shifter would be.
    And who the hell knew what they’d do to Iona’s mother, who’d kept the fact that Iona was half-Shifter quiet all this time.
    “I can’t leave you alone. You’re in my jurisdiction, my responsibility. And you’re losing control, aren’t you?”
    Iona shivered with more than anger. His long body was hard on hers, muscles gleaming with sweat in the moonlight. Eric’s living strength made the wild thing in her want to respond.
    “I was hung over,” she said. “I’m not like this every day.”
    Eric lowered his head and inhaled, his nose touching her throat. “You will be soon. Your mating need is high and getting stronger.”
    That need pounded through her, tried to make Iona’s body rise to his. A male, ready for you—take him!
    “What I do is none of your business,” Iona managed to say. “Leave me the hell alone. My life has been fine so far without you in it.”
    “But I’m in it now.” His voice was deep and rumbling, almost a purr. The tattoo that wound down his arm kept drawing her gaze, and she so much wanted to touch it…
    For Eric’s part, he was barely holding on to his self-control. Iona’s scent was that of a female Feline who’d reached herfertile years, a little over thirty by human standards, a few years past cub by Shifter.
    This female Feline didn’t know how to control her pheromones, didn’t realize she was broadcasting her availability to every Shifter male far and wide. She might as well hold up a flashing sign.
    Good thing Eric was so disciplined, still mourning his mate lost long ago, so uninterested in mating. Right?
    Or he’d be hard as a rock, wanting to say to hell with it and take her. They were alone in the middle of nowhere, and Eric was within his rights to take whatever stray adult female wandered into his territory.
    He didn’t necessarily have to mate-claim her. As clan leader as well as pride leader, he could father cubs on a lone female belonging to no pride or clan if he wanted to. For the good of the clan, for the strength of his pride. So he could say.
    But those had been the rules in the wild. Shifters were tamer now, civilized. Living together in a community, in harmony. And all that crap.
    Eric’s instincts said, Screw the rules. She’s unmated and unclaimed. By rights, she’s fair game, and I found her. That makes her mine.
    Wouldn’t that be sweet? Iona Duncan had a face that was pure Celtic, her hair black as the night sky, her eyes the light ice blue of her ancestors. Shifters had been created about the time the Nordic invaders would have been subduing Celts in northern Scotland, and some of that mixture had gotten into Iona.
    Now her soft but strong body was under his, and her blue eyes held longing, oceans of it.
    “Does it hurt?” Eric asked in a gentler tone.
    “Having a big Shifter male resting his weight on my wrists? I’d say yes.”
    Eric wanted to laugh. He liked the challenge in her, liked that she wasn’t cringing, timid, and submissive. Untrained, yes; terrified, no.
    “I mean the mating need,” Eric said. “It’s rising in you, and you can’t stop it. That’s why you’re out here, why you’ve been running around like a crazy thing. You want to be wild,