Iron Master – Jennifer Ashley Page 0,2

her bedroom, making her way to the kitchen. The first two bedroom doors she passed were open, the three girls and three boys who occupied each gone. All but one of the beds was made—Noelle usually rushed out after the others were gone, snatching sleep until the last possible minute.

At the end of the hall, closest to the kitchen and living room, lay Stuart’s small bedroom. That door always remained firmly closed.

She found Stuart in the kitchen cooking up a mess of bacon, six cubs setting plates on the table. Donny, the oldest at eight, supervised, and the youngest boy, Kevin, who’d been a baby when the cubs had been rescued, had the job of carrying the stack of paper napkins. Donny watched him with the grave intensity of an alpha protecting his pack.

Peigi took a minute to study Stuart, as she did any chance she could. He was slim rather than bulky like a Shifter, but his muscles filled out his black T-shirt and his back view wasn’t bad at all. His dark hair was cut short, barely touching his neck, which let her see the structure of his hard face. He was not drop-dead handsome on human terms, but his midnight eyes and intense strength lit fires inside her.

She opened her mouth to ask him if he was all right, but the cubs cut in.

“Morning, Peigi!” The greetings overlapped, filling the kitchen with high-pitched sound.

Three of the cubs were bears, though Hannah, the youngest girl, and Patrick, the middle boy, were gray-eyed wolves. Kevin hadn’t shifted yet, so they had to speculate on what type of Shifter he was. His mother had been human but died bearing him, and Peigi wasn’t certain which of the feral Shifters had fathered him.

“You overslept!” Noelle, a grizzly cub, crowed in triumph. “I was up before you.”

“Yes, sweetie you were.” Peigi moved past the crowd to Stuart at the stove. A bowl of eggs next to him waited to be broken and scrambled.

“Have you talked to Eric yet?” she asked in a low voice.

Stuart shook his head. “Graham. He’s heading over.”

Peigi’s eyes widened in dismay. “That’s all I need on an empty stomach.”

Stuart sent her a grin. “Better eat something then.”

Peigi made a face at him and grabbed a slice of bacon from the stack draining on paper towels. She didn’t always like pork—she was a bear and preferred fish—but salmon was expensive. Bacon would have to do.

She helped the cubs take the rest of the food to the table—thawed berries from the freezer, a stack of toast from the eight-slice toaster, the bacon, and plenty of butter and jam. Stuart started scrambling the eggs.

The cubs had learned to wait until all the food was on the table and everyone served before they started eating. When they’d first moved in, meals had been a free-for-all, the cubs fighting for evert crumb. The women confined at the compound with Peigi hadn’t been much better, though they’d let Peigi, the alpha, have the first serving of any meal. They’d all lived like animals, the cubs starting to go as feral as the males who’d sequestered them.

Peigi set out the toast and bacon and allowed the cubs to dig in. They couldn’t be expected to wait much longer. She was pleased to see they handed around the food politely, each taking no more than their share. Donny and Noelle made certain the younger ones had enough before they went for the rest. She warmed with pride watching them.

The scent of coffee—heavenly coffee—pulled at Peigi, and she turned back to grab a cup.

Stuart wasn’t there. The eggs were sizzling, almost dry, the spatula sitting in the middle of the frying pan, but Stuart was gone.

“He teleported,” Noelle informed her as Peigi stood staring in surprise. “I saw him.”

Lucinda and Hannah nodded. They gazed at Peigi worriedly, waiting for her to tell them everything was all right.

She wished she could. Stuart had the ability to teleport his body to any place he wanted, provided he’d seen that place before. But he rarely used the ability, preferring to walk or jog—or drive. And he never jumped out without telling her. He could be anywhere, for any reason, and the strangeness last night made her tighten with fear.

Before she could decide what to say to the cubs, the back patio door darkened, and a bulk of a man appeared on the porch. An even bigger man stood behind to him. One Lupine, one bear.

“Hey!” the Lupine yelled through the