“Going where?”
“Home,” Eric said. “My home. In Shiftertown.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Eric’s entire body hurt as he half dragged Iona in that luscious dress out of the office and toward her red pickup. She had the blueprints in a tube under her arm and was still protesting.
“You said yourself I can’t go to Shiftertown,” she said. “Shifters will know I’m Shifter, remember?”
“I mate-claimed and scent-marked you. They’ll know you’re my Shifter.”
“But you scent-marked me before and still told me to stay away.”
Eric yanked the keys out of her hand and unlocked and opened the truck. “That was when no one knew about you but me. Graham won’t keep his mouth shut, and he’s right. You’re fair game.”
“You just said all the Shifters will know you mate-claimed me.”
Eric stopped and faced her. “Iona, listen to me. You’re part of no pride and no clan. You’re unprotected, even with the mate-claim. If I’m not constantly with you to support my claim, others can cut you out and steal you away. Remember when I told you Shifters liked the chase and the capture? You’re fresh blood, ripe for the plucking. In Shiftertown, you’ll stay in my house where you’ll be protected by me, my sister, and my son, the three most powerful Shifters in Las Vegas.”
Iona started to answer, and Eric all but shoved her into the pickup, telling her to slide over so he could drive. She lost hold of the tubes, and Eric grabbed them and dropped them behind the seat.
The pickup roared to life, Iona frantically tugging at her seat belt before Eric shot out of the gate he’d opened.
Iona protested about leaving the gate open behind them, but Eric didn’t slow. He’d send Jace and Shane back to pick up Eric’s bike, lock the place up, and go to Iona’s house to fetch clothes and whatever for her.
“What about the human side?” Iona said as they raced down the street. “They’ll arrest me. They might arrest my mother…”
“As far as the humans know, you’re human. Graham hates humans more than he hates me, and my Shifters will obey me. We’ll say I met you when I came to see you about the Shifter houses. I liked you, invited you to shack up with me in Shiftertown, and you came along. You wouldn’t be the first human to do that.”
“Shack up with you in Shiftertown,” Iona repeated. “Don’t make it sound so glamorous.”
Eric laughed. His blood was up, his body pulsing with excitement. He’d made the mate-claim, and she was his, this glorious, beautiful, lush-bodied woman.“Only until we get this sorted out,” Iona said sternly. “I told you, I’m not giving up my entire life to live in Shiftertown.”
She would. But Eric would deal with that later. My mate. My mate. My mate.
“What fight club?”
Eric blinked, realizing that Iona was talking to him, and that he’d gone several intersections without noticing. He slowed the truck, trying to calm down.
“Shifters fight each other in organized matches to blow off steam. Humans forbid it; we don’t listen. I pretend I don’t notice my Shifters slipping off to fight each other illegally. They know I know, but we don’t talk about it.”
“What will your Shifters do when you show up in their secret club tomorrow to fight this McNeil?”
“They’ll live with it. I have to fight him there, because what happens at the fight clubs doesn’t count as a dominance change.”
“Dominance change? Which means?”
“If I lose the fight, it doesn’t mean McNeil gets Shiftertown. Nothing in the hierarchy changes. But I won’t lose.”
“But if you do lose, he thinks he gets me?” Iona’s glare intensified. “This is the twenty-first century. You don’t do battle over a woman, and I’m not meekly submitting to whoever wins.”
“I will win. And even if I didn’t, you could reject his mate-claim.”
“Then I reject it now! Take me home.”
“You can’t reject him until the Challenge is settled, and you still need to be protected. I won’t lose, Iona.”
“You’re saying I’m supposed to sit around and wait while you two fight over me? Forget it. I’m not playing.”
“It’s not play. It’s deadly serious. When I win this fight, the other Shifters will know they’ll have to Challenge me for you, and they won’t dare.”
Eric knew that Graham didn’t really want Iona—he’d made it clear he’d mate only with a Lupine and wouldn’t taint his line with a Feline. Graham had Challenged for Iona simply because he wanted to take her away from Eric.
A Shifter could mate-claim a female, even officially mate with her under the sun and moon ceremonies, and then never use her to make cubs. Pride and pack leaders of old had kept their packs and prides in line by mate-claiming all females not related to them and doling them out to the other males when they reached their mating years. Graham seemed the type to keep up that old tradition if he could.
Eric tasted the primal excitement of the rivalry. He hadn’t felt like this about a female since Kirsten, a need for a mate he thought he’d never experience again. He’d told himself he’d been keeping quiet about Iona all these months to protect her, but in truth, he was as old-fashioned as Graham, sequestering Iona from prying eyes while he worked on winning her. He laughed.