She heard, dimly, Eric get to his feet. She didn’t have time to rejoice that he was able to do so. Fight first.
Blood. Kill. Defeat.
“Iona.”
Eric’s human voice was weak and full of pain. The pull of it made Iona turn to him, even as the Tiger drew back to strike her down.
Iona saw Eric’s green eyes looking at her down the barrel of a tranq rifle. Before Iona could blink, the rifle popped, and a dart thunked into her chest.
Iona stared at her mate, bewildered, the betrayal hurting more than the pinprick of the dart. “Eric,” she whispered, and then she collapsed.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Eric reloaded the tranq gun Graham had found as fast as he’d ever done anything, and shot the next dart straight into the tiger. The tiger roared and collapsed to the floor, but he didn’t fall unconscious.
The tiger shifted instead into a large man, with an immensity that rivaled even Shane’s. He had a strong face covered with unshaved whiskers, eyes that remained golden yellow, and hair, while matted with blood, showing the orange and black streaks of a tiger.
Eric stared at him a moment before another wash of pain cramped him. The tranq gun slid from his slack grasp, but Graham grabbed it, loaded another dart, and pointed the rifle at the tiger.
“Who the f**k are you?” Graham demanded.
The tiger remained slumped on the floor, watching them with angry eyes. “Twenty-three. I told her.”
“She said humans…created you?”
“Yes.”
“How? How is that possible?”
“I don’t know.”
Eric barely heard them. He crawled to Iona, who’d reverted to human form in her slumber, her beautiful limbs tangled on the floor and covered with claw and bite marks.
He’d seen her eyes before he’d shot her. Feral. His beautiful Iona. Eric had feared so much that her beast would take over, and now it had. Because she’d been fighting to protect him.
He lay down beside her and gathered her into his arms, burying his face in her neck.
Help me, love.
The mate bond warmed him, and the pain receded the slightest bit. The touch of a mate, her scent, that’s what healed.
He loved her, a love he’d fought and denied. Eric had told himself his craving for her was his mating hunger, or his loneliness, but he knew now that it was all her.
He’d fallen in love with Iona the moment he’d seen her months ago, she sitting in the corner of Coolers in that sexy blue dress, impatiently tapping her straw into her slushy drink. Her lovely face, her lush black hair, and most of all her clear blue eyes had wrapped around him and stolen his heart.
If Iona had taught him anything over the months, it was that true love wasn’t selfish. Iona had loved her mother and sister enough to hide her Shifter nature so they’d be safe from it. She’d fought her craving for Eric for them.
When Eric had more or less forced Iona to accept entry into Shiftertown, she’d embraced his family without hesitation. She could have hated them, fought them, derided them for being what she didn’t want to become.
But Iona had viewed them as individual beings and accepted them each for themselves. She’d loved his sister and his son, formed a camaraderie with Diego and Xav, and had willingly helped bring Cassidy’s daughter into the world.
Iona had stood up to Graham, she’d protected Eric, and she’d been down here fighting like a demon in this strange human place. Fighting, protecting—not cowering in a corner in terror, as she had every right to.
Eric loved her for all that, and also for her laughter, her quiet sense of humor, and her strength.
He stroked her hair. “I love you, mate of my heart.”
Iona’s eyes cracked open, the lovely blue untarnished by any feral red. “Eric?”
“Love.” Eric laid his body over hers, trying to pour the warmth she’d given him back into her. He kissed her, her warm lips parting for his.
“Eric.” Iona’s eyes widened in alarm. “Cassidy. She’s upstairs with Amanda. We have to help Twenty-three. The humans are doing some weird experiments, stealing DNA and things. We have to…”
“Hush now.” Eric kissed her again, silencing her.
“You shot me,” she said, a spark of anger in her eyes.
“I had to, love. You were going feral.”
Anger fled, and concern returned. “Are you all right? Is the pain still there?”
Iona touched him as though searching him for hurts, even though her own body was bloody with claw wounds. But her touch stilled the throbbing pain inside Eric and, at the same time, brought one interested part of him to life.
“I’m better,” he whispered.
“Are we going to get the hell out of here anytime soon?” Graham asked from where he still trained the gun on the tiger.
Iona struggled to sit up, pushing her long hair back from her face. “We have to take him with us. I promised.”
The Tiger Man, still awake, regarded her with groggy eyes. His body was scored with dozens of deep gouges, but still he looked like he’d be willing to go another ten rounds.
“You want to take him?” Graham asked. “What the f**k is he?”
Iona got to her feet. Eric decided that watching her long legs unfolding in front of him, all the way to her fine, tight ass, was a wonderful thing. “He doesn’t deserve to stay here and be experimented on,” she said. “I came down here to free him, and I guess getting free triggered his fight-or-flight instinct.”
“You think?” Graham growled.
“She’s right.” Eric sat up, not minding being right next to Iona’s fine legs. “No Shifter deserves to be a guinea pig. He comes with us. Tranq him if he gets unruly.”
“But what are you going to do with him? Take him to Shiftertown to steal our females and threaten our cubs?”
“We’ll figure it out,” Eric said. “Have faith, Graham. Leaders need that.”
Graham kept the tranq rifle firmly aimed at the tiger. “I swear to the Goddess, Warden, you are a piece of work.”
“Argue later. Find Cassidy now. Where is she?”
Iona reached down for him. “Upstairs. I’ll show you.”
Eric’s heart lightened as he put his hand in hers and let her pull him to his feet. Mated. They’d help each other, always.
“Bring him,” Eric said to Graham, the strength of command returning to his voice.
“Whatever.” Graham scowled at the tiger. “We need to find some clothes to cover that semitruck between his legs.”