“No, I don’t.” And if Eric did things right, she wouldn’t have to wear a Collar, ever.

The urge to take Iona far away, to hide her somewhere from prying eyes, to protect her from the world was making him crazy. Protect the mate was the instinct that drove all males.

Eric caressed her wrists where he held them down. “If you don’t acknowledge the Shifter, if you don’t learn how to control what’s going on inside you, you’re going to go feral.”

“Feral?” Her sable brows drew down. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means what it sounds like. The beast in you takes over, and you forget what it is to be human, even in your human form. You’ll live only to kill and to mate. You’ll start resenting your family for trying to keep you home. You’ll try to get away from them. You might even hurt them.”

Iona looked stunned. “I’d never do that.”

“You won’t mean to, but you will. You can keep them safe if you learn how to be Shifter and live with Shifters. I won’t let humans know anything about you until the Collar is on you and you’re ready.”

“My point is that humans should never have to know I’m Shifter. No one’s ever suspected, but they will if an ass**le Shifter keeps following me around.”

Eric clamped down on her wrists, at the end of his patience. “If you go feral, they might not bother Collaring you. They’ll just shoot you like an animal, and your mother will go to prison for not reporting your existence. Is that really what you want?”

He felt her fear reaction, but Iona kept up her glare. “I’m half-human. Won’t that keep me from going feral?”

“Not necessarily. Sometimes the human side helps. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

“I’m not giving up my entire life to live with you in a ghetto because you say I might go crazy,” Iona said. “I’ll risk it.”

Eric growled. “I can’t let you go on living without protection.”

Her eyes widened. “How do you plan to protect me? Abduct me and lock me in your house? What would the human police say to that?”

Taking her home and keeping her there was exactly what Eric wanted to do. At any other time, he’d simply do it. Iona was getting out of control, and she needed help.

But Shiftertown might not be the safest place for her at the moment, now that the idiot human government had decided—to save money—to shut down a northern Nevada Shiftertown and relocate all those Shifters to Eric’s Shiftertown. The humans, in their ignorance, had decided that the new Shifters would simply be absorbed under Eric’s leadership.

What the humans didn’t understand—in spite of Eric talking himself blue to explain—was that Shifters of both Shiftertowns were used to a certain hierarchy and couldn’t change it overnight. The other Shiftertown leader was being forced to step down a few rungs under Eric, which wasn’t going over well, especially since that leader was a Feline-hating Lupine.

Eric at least had persuaded the humans to let him meet the other leader, Graham McNeil, face-to-face before the new Shifters moved down here. Eric had found McNeil to be a disgruntled, old-fashioned Shifter, furious that the humans were forcing him to submit to Eric’s rule.

McNeil was going to be trouble. He already had been, demanding more meetings with humans without Eric, insisting that Eric’s Shifters got turned out of their houses and crammed in with others so McNeil’s Shifters wouldn’t have to wait for the new housing to be built.

McNeil was going to challenge for leadership—Eric had known that before the man opened his mouth. McNeil’s Shiftertown had been all Lupine, and his Lupines were less than thrilled to learn that they had to adapt to living with bears and Felines.

And in the middle of all this, a young, fertile female with the rising need to mate was running around loose and unprotected.

Iona struggled to sit up again. It went against Eric’s every instinct to lift himself from the cushion of her body, but he did it.

She leaned against the rock wall and scraped her hair back from her face. Goddess, she was sexy, bare breasted in the moonlight, lifting midnight hair from her sharp-boned face.

Naked and beautiful, filling Eric’s brain with wanting. And if he did this right, she might provide the answer to some of his Shiftertown problems.

“I was coming to see you tonight for a reason,” Eric said. “Not just to track you down. I came to ask you to have Duncan Construction bid on the housing project to expand Shiftertown.”

Iona stared at him in surprise, letting go of the hair she’d been smoothing. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because I need someone I can trust to build these houses. Shifter houses aren’t just places for Shifters to live. I need them constructed in a way that’s best for Shifters. It’s important.”

She looked curious in spite of her caution. “What do you mean, in a way that’s best for Shifters?”

Eric couldn’t explain—yet. He’d have to wait before he revealed to her that Shifter houses didn’t simply hold Shifter families. They held secrets of Shifter clans that humans could never know about.

Even McNeil would need to protect the secrets of his pack; probably why the man wanted to move into the existing Shifter houses—they already had the necessary spaces. Eric had planned to modify the new houses the same way he and his Shifters had modified the old houses, a little bit, over time, so the humans never realized they were doing it. But Graham’s Shifters didn’t have the patience, and it would be smarter to do it right away. Using Iona’s company and guiding her through the process could get it done quicker, and help both her and Shiftertown.

“I can’t tell you until you win the contract,” Eric said. He met her gaze, not disguising anything in his. “Please.”

CHAPTER TWO

Iona blinked, for the first time looking at him in more than frustration, anger, or crazed need. “Are you saying you need my help?”

“Yes.” He said it simply, no shame attached.

“And what do I get in return? You leave me alone?”

Eric felt his grin spread across his face. “I can’t leave you alone, love. You’re unmated and unclaimed, in my territory. I need to look after you. But I think we can come up with an agreement.”

“Oh really? The moment I enter your Shiftertown, all the Shifters there will know what I am. How will that help me?”