“Dying?”
“Yes, sweetheart. The Collars don’t mean we’ve given in to the humans. We chose captivity to save ourselves, and some of those without the Collar are getting wilder and wilder. If they let the animal take over, they go feral. Not a good thing. You feel the wildness though, don’t you?”
Of course Iona didn’t. She’d grown up like a normal girl—playing with toys, skateboarding, jumping rope, riding horses. Although the horses had always been a little nervous with her. Then she’d become a teenager and discovered that she liked clothes, makeup, shoes, and boys.
Normal. Sure.
Iona smelled the chocolate, winding around the hard craving inside her, and she shivered.
“You feel it,” Eric said.
Damn him. “How do I make it stop?”
“It will stop when you mate. When you and your chosen spend days together. When your body is convinced it’s doing the job it was made to do, which is to produce cubs.”
She stared at him. “How nineteen fifties of you. I have a life, a career.”
“You can still have a life. Just one with lots of sex. And cubs.”
“Oh, sure. While the men do whatever they want. I’ve heard that before.”
Eric leaned to her again, and her mouth watered. Need chocolate!
“Males have the same frenzy, sweetheart,” he said. “I have the frenzy.” He traced her cheek. “So whenever you feel the need to dampen it a little, you come and find me. We can help each other.”
He was offering to help her ease the pain with lots and lots of sex. Iona should be insulted, not tempted.
She was tempted.
“Give me another piece of chocolate,” she said.
Eric plucked her cell phone from her purse and started punching buttons, one-handed. “I’m putting in my number. When the need gets bad, you call me. If you want to go running around as a wildcat, you call me. You want anything at all, you call me.”
“I want the chocolate.”
Eric laughed. He slid the phone into to her purse and took back the bag of chocolates. He found one laced with citrus and held it up to her. Iona put out her tongue and drew the chocolate into her mouth.
Eric’s eyes went dark as he watched her, but he didn’t try to kiss her again. She craved the kiss, but she didn’t let herself reach for him.“Come on,” Eric said once she’d finished. He took her arm and kept hold of the bag of chocolates. “You’re going home.”
Diego gunned the jeep straight through the Shifters. Wildcats, wolves, bears—there were so many of them.
The Shifters leapt out of his way. Diego fishtailed as a wildcat tried to jump on the back of the jeep. The wildcat became dislodged, but not the bear that reached for Cassidy.
Shane roared, half changing, clothes ripping, and went for the bear. Diego saw Cassidy stripping off, heard her growls.
If Diego could get the jeep up to speed, they could beat the Shifters back to the plane. Even Shifters could run only so fast. But the jeep, ancient and worn out, gasped and chugged along. Diego drew his pistol.
A bear charged out of the darkness straight for the side of the jeep. Xavier brought up his shotgun and fired.
At nothing. The Ursine hit the dirt, the shot missing. The bear, a giant of a thing, regained his feet and swiped the shotgun out of Xavier’s hands.
In the next second, the bear had swept Xavier out of the jeep. Xavier fell and hit the ground, rolling, rolling. He’d try to get to his feet, snatch out his pistol, fire.
Diego hit the brakes, and the jeep swung around. The biker in the passenger seat held on, swearing and praying, his eyes closed.
Cassidy was out, her wildcat racing back to help Xavier. Shane rose on his hind legs, scraps of clothes clinging to him, the grizzly roaring his rage.
Diego grabbed his shotgun and jumped out, weapon ready, as he ran back to Xavier. Xavier made it to his feet, but the bear and now several wolves surrounded him.
Xavier didn’t want to shoot. Diego saw that in his stance. He liked Shifters, now that he’d gotten to know some, and he didn’t view them as dangerous animals that needed to be contained. He wanted there to be a way out that didn’t involve death.
Cassidy and Shane simply attacked them.
Shane hit the bear that held Xavier, and Cassidy went for one of the wolves. Diego ran on toward them, his heart in his throat.
Cassidy’s Collar went off as soon as she landed on the back of a wolf, her claws extended, but she kept on fighting. Shane, same thing.
But they’d tire, and the pain of the Collars would break them soon. The other Shifters were many, strong, and not restricted by Collars. Shane and Cassidy were like declawed tabbies trying to fight a horde of angry alley cats.
Diego heard the jeep behind him roar to life. The drug runners. Of course they’d steal the jeep and run out of there to save their own asses.
But they weren’t fast enough. A few bears broke off and rushed the jeep. They didn’t try to stop it or grab the men inside, they just tipped the damn thing over.
The engine whined, gurgled, and died. The bikers tried to run, but the bears and wolves were on them.
Diego took aim at the Shifters surrounding Xavier and fired. One bear fell, moaning. Diego cocked the gun one more time before it was knocked out of his hands. He found himself facing a wild wolf, with crazed eyes, brown teeth bared, its breath horrific.
Diego fought. His body took over, the lessons and experience of hand-to-hand combat closing down his brain. To think meant to die.