Jennifer Ashley - Hard Mated

Cell phone use hadn’t been allowed on Jillian’s floor, so Spike had turned his off. In the dark and chilly parking lot, he turned it on again to find five missed calls from Liam’s number and the phone ringing again.

“Spike, where the fuck are you, lad?” The Shiftertown leader’s Irish baritone came flooding over the line. “We have a situation. Get back here. Now.”

“I have one too,” Spike said, his voice calm. “I’m gonna need a ride home.”

“So what’s the sitch?” Spike asked Sean Morrissey as they sped away from the hospital in Sean’s father’s small white pickup.

Jordan was still hidden under Spike’s jacket but was an obvious lump on his right side. Even if Sean hadn’t noticed the lump, he would be able to scent Jordan.

“What the hell is that?” Sean asked.

Spike couldn’t keep the pride from his voice, though he had an almost crazed need to hide Jordan from all eyes until they reached home. “My cub.”

Sean jerked the wheel, narrowly avoiding running into another car. “What?”

“My cub.” Spike was torn between laughing at the expression on Sean’s face or growling.

Shifters of old had stolen each other’s females and cubs, and males had put rival males’ cubs to death so they wouldn’t grow up to become threats. Sean had a mate and cub of his own, these were more civilized times, but instincts died hard. Spike didn’t like the way Sean kept trying to look at Jordan. He pulled his coat closed and gave Sean a warning look.

“What has Liam so bothered?” Spike asked. “What does he expect me to do?”

Spike was a tracker. That meant he worked for the Shiftertown leader as bodyguard, watcher, and fighter, finding trouble before it could escalate into a problem. Liam, as Shiftertown leader, trusted his trackers implicitly. Had to. Liam couldn’t be everywhere, and the Austin Shiftertown was large, covering three species, two dozen or so clans, and many prides and packs within those clans.

Spike’s pride family was small—he and his grandmother Ella the only survivors—and they were the only jaguar-type Felines around as well. Shifter Felines had been bred from all species, but families and clans tended toward one type of cat more than others. The extensive Morrissey clan, for example, were lions. The Morrissey clan had made Spike and his grandmother honorary members when Spike and Ella had first come to Texas, because all Shifters had to be part of a clan to survive.

Which was how Spike had found himself in the position of tracker to the previous clan leader, Fergus, who at the time had also been the leader of the San Antonio Shiftertown. Previous meaning now dead. Spike had never taken a mate, never had a cub, and with the limited number of Shifter females available, Spike thought he never would.

And now here was a cub of his body, born of a single night with a human, clinging to him, depending on him.

The sudden responsibility both elated him and made him viciously protective.

Sean turned his attention to the road, but he remained tense. “The situation is that gobshite. Gavan Thibault. Your old friend.”

Friend was stretching it. Spike, Nate, and Gavan had been the three top henchmen for Fergus, until Fergus’s untimely demise about a year ago. Spike and Nate had moved to the Austin Shiftertown to work for Liam, while Gavan had stayed in San Antonio with the new, and much calmer, leader there.

“What was up with him?” Spike asked, his attention only marginally on the problem. Gavan was a shithead and unimportant at the moment.

“He was up at the fight club whinging on about how the fights should be to the death, because we have too many Shifters around, and we need to start weeding out the weak. Typical ‘back-to-nature’ Shifter shite.”

True, some Shifters liked to moan about how everything had been better in the good old days, when Shifters had roamed free and lived in secret from humans. They’d also been starving, dying out, and killing each other for survival.

No decent beer or TV in the wild either. In this captivity, Shifters weren’t allowed cable or HD, but they were good at finding ways around the restrictions.

“Dad and Ronan made Gavan back down, but we thought you were still there,” Sean said. “But you were at the hospital. Picking up your cub? What the hell?”

Sean in addition to being Liam’s younger brother, was the Shiftertown’s Guardian, which meant he carried a big sword—tucked behind the seat—with which he dispatched the souls of dying Shifters. The Shifter’s body dissolved to dust when the sword went through the heart, releasing the soul and ensuring that the physical remains were undefiled. The idea of being buried or cremated in the human way sent a shudder of horror through every Shifter.

Sean’s status put him well above Spike in the dominance chain. With pinning looks from his Irish blue eyes, Sean was trying to make Spike open up about Jordan.

But this was too new, too wondrous. Jordan was his, something private, something family. Jordan belonged to his pride, not the Morrisseys.

Spike would have said nothing at all until they got to Shiftertown, except that Jordan woke up. Not only did he wake up, the kid jumped inside Spike’s jacket, and then he shifted.

Baby jaguar claws penetrated Spike’s flesh. The claws were nowhere near the size and deadliness of a full-grown wildcat’s, but it was like having ten needles driven straight into his side. Blood flowed, and Spike couldn’t stop his yelp.

Jordan took the opportunity to spring out of Spike’s coat and land on the dashboard, his little claws scrabbling as he tried to balance against the moving truck. His clothes had ripped and hung in shreds. Jordan crouched in confused terror, eyeing Sean, who stared at the cub in amazement until the pickup nearly ran up the back of an SUV sitting at a traffic light.

Sean hit the brakes. Jordan lost his hold on the dash and shot through the air. Spike caught him in both hands, and found himself struggling to hold on to a squirming ball of fur.

Jordan then did what any terrified little cat might do, and the scent filled the closed air of the pickup.

“Shit!” Spike held Jordan away from him. “Shit, shit, shit!”

“Stop saying that, man!” Sean cried. “Or he’ll do that too!”

The wet stream continued out of Jordan, half catching in Jordan’s shredded jeans, half all over Spike and the seat of the pickup.

“Damn it, this is Dylan’s truck,” Sean shouted. He squealed around the SUV and through the streets, charging around the last corner and into Shiftertown. He slowed the truck as the road became a lane passing old bungalow houses with deep yards and porches, mostly full of Shifters enjoying the October night.

Sean cranked down his window while Spike kept a grip on Jordan, who was writhing and fighting. Spike was the champion fighter of South Texas, rarely losing a battle in the ring, and here he was, barely able to hold on to a cub ten times smaller than him, while said cub peed a river.

Jordan gave his little body a sharp wrench, twisted himself free of Spike, scrambled across the dash, and dove out Sean’s open window. Sean stood on the brakes, and Spike was out of the truck before it stopped.

Jordan disappeared into the shadows between houses, but Spike was Shifter, and he could see the little wildcat running full speed into the green beyond. Spike sprinted after him, slowed down by thick motorcycle boots, not made for running.

Goddess, what a night. Jordan ran on, the scent of terror in his wake. Behind him, Sean was calling Spike’s name, and Spike wished his friend would shut the fuck up a minute.

Nothing for it. Spike braced himself on the bole of a tree, shed his boots, stripped out of his clothes, and shifted to his wildcat.