Jennifer Ashley - Wild Cat

The hoch alfar had hated Reid, not only because they’d wanted his lands deep in the mountains, but because Reid could manipulate iron. He could make iron behave how he wanted it to, and weren’t the hoch alfar afraid of that? That was another reason the hoch alfar had exiled Stuart to this overbright and overheated place, full of humans who constantly fought among themselves. The hoch alfar had fully believed they’d handed Reid a fate worse than death. And they weren’t far from wrong.

Another of Reid’s deep-seated beliefs was that Shifters, the fighting slaves of the hoch alfar , were not to be trusted. They were Fae bred, and though they’d had the cunning to break free of the Fae, Shifters had shunned Faerie and chosen to live solely in the human world. Anyone not wanting to live in Faerie had to be insane. The Shifters’ own fault they’d been dying out and had to accept human restrictions.

In his years in Shifter Division, Reid had learned much about Shifters-how they pretended to be pathetic captives but seemed to survive just fine on subsistence-level jobs. They had resources somewhere, he was certain of it, and they were gathering strength. Reid didn’t miss how Eric Warden manipulated the humans to remain top cat while seeming to give in to human demands.

The humans were fools if they thought they had Shifters under control. The only thing that stopped Shifters now were their Collars, and one day, Stuart was sure, they’d figure out a way to break that power.

Because of his ingrained mistrust of Shifters, Stuart had convinced himself that killing one un-Collared Shifter and taking its blood to get him back home would be justifiable. But when he’d seen Cassidy grieve, he’d realized what he’d done. I, who thought myself so superior to the hoch alfar, have become just like them. I thought nothing of taking Donovan Grady’s life-husband, brother, son, potential father. I did that. And I can never pay enough.

So, when Eric had gotten the call from Marlo that Cassidy was in trouble, Stuart had been the first one out the door. With his talent for teleporting-something he hadn’t been able to do in Faerie-he could get in and save her. He’d been happy to save Xavier too, while he was at it.

Helping Shifters and their friends maybe could atone for what Reid had done. His guilt had made him come over to Nell’s this morning to see if he could do anything further for the women and cubs they’d rescued.

Nell put him outside on the patio to watch the kids play and make sure they didn’t hurt themselves. The cubs, tiny things, not sure about their change in scene but more willing to accept it than the adults, ran about in wonder.

Nell, on the other hand, scared the hell out of Reid. She was crazy, that one, violence with a smile.

The younger woman who now wandered out the back door worried Stuart far less. She was the mate of the dead Miguel, and the look in her eyes was dead too.

Not dead, Reid thought as she sat down on the patio chair next to his. Empty. She was free and safe but had no idea what to do.

The Shifter looked over at Reid with dark blue eyes and sniffed. Her hands curled on her lap. “I thought I smelled Fae.”

“I’m dokk alfar ,” Reid said. “Not the same as the bastards who made Shifters.”

A spark of curiosity touched her eyes. “ Dokk alfar? What’s that?”

“ Dokk alfar are the true, and first, Fae. We dwell in the deepest woods, in the earth itself. Our magic is the magic of nature. We don’t have to build glittery castles and hunt unicorns and all that shit.”

More curiosity. “So why are you here and not in the woods in Faerie?”

Bitterness lodged in his throat. “Because the hoch alfar decided to kill family and throw me out here. For fun. They thought I’d die in the human world, slowly and painfully. They’re idiots. But they made it so I couldn’t get back.”

“Oh.” The woman reached across the small space between their chairs with the Shifter instinct to touch. Her hand rested on Reid’s, her fingers warm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. No one’s even told me your name.”

“Stuart. Stuart Reid. That’s as close to my real name as I can manage here. Humans can’t pronounce anything.”

The corners of her mouth lifted the slightest bit. “Tell me about it.”

“Do you have name?”

“I used to. I haven’t heard it in a while.” She hesitated as though having to think hard to remember it. “Peigi. It’s Scottish.”

It was pretty. “How did you end up in Mexico with a bunch of un-Collared Shifters?” Reid asked her.

Peigi shrugged and withdrew her hand. “I believed in Miguel. I thought he was right when he refused the Collar and formed his own community of Collarless Shifters. I’d lost my family and no longer had a clan, so I decided to accept his mate-claim. I didn’t want the Collar either.” She touched her bare throat. “I guess I don’t have a choice now.”

The sad gesture stirred his sympathy. “So what happened? When did Miguel decide he’d take over the Mexican town and become an evil villain?”

“He went feral. I realize now that Miguel wasn’t the most stable of males to begin with, and then his beast took over. His idea of having his own Shiftertown, where Shifters ruled, made sense to me when we started. We’d be free of human restrictions but have the advantages that Shiftertowns are giving the Collared Shifters-peace, stability, a better chance of having cubs that survive. It worked at first, but then…” Peigi shrugged, looking tired. “It all fell apart. Lots of fighting between species, even within species, and Miguel decided that females should be sequestered. For their own safety.” Peigi’s smile was wry. “Really, so he could have first pick, and we couldn’t run away.”

Now Stuart felt disgust. He hoped Dylan Morrissey hunted down Miguel, if Miguel proved to be still alive, and ripped his head off. “Now you’re free of him. Are you all right?”

She shrugged. “I never formed the mate bond with Miguel. When I was young and silly, I believed it would form, but after I didn’t conceive any cubs, Miguel started taking additional mates, who did have cubs. I had to battle to keep my place in the hierarchy, or he would have thrown me to his men to see what they could get on me, or he’d have had me killed. It became a struggle to live, every day. The day I let my place slip as top mate was the day I died.” Peigi let out her breath. “Now it’s over.”

Stuart let her sit quietly for a moment. In his career as a cop, he’d seen the look Peigi now wore on the faces of women from abusive marriages, after their husbands had been killed or imprisoned with no hope of parole. The women didn’t dance around in elation; they sat quietly, stunned, confused, unsure of what to do or where to go. Realization that they were free would hit them later. Many of them had grown so used to being told what to do every second of their lives that they were terrified of going it alone.

“Eric said he’d release all of you once you were settled in,” Stuart said. “That he wouldn’t make you his mates.”

Peigi nodded. “That’s what Nell told me.”

“Would you want to stay with Eric?” Stuart asked.

Peigi’s eyes flashed, the first fire he’d seen in her. “I’m thinking I don’t want to be with anyone. At all. Ever again.”

She leapt from her chair so fiercely that the heavy thing fell back, then she stepped from the porch and moved across the yard in long-legged strides, not looking at the playing cubs. She wore borrowed jeans that hugged her legs, and her now-clean tail of black hair bounced against a white blouse.