ONCE UPON A TIGER, book #1 in the series, introduces a lot of the tigers' world. The Trackers--tiger law enforcers. The elders--the tiger governing body. The Mate Run--the only way tigers are allowed to form sexual and romantic relationships. The fact that they're on the verge of extinction because there are too few females left.
And in the midst of all this, our hero and heroine are trying to find a way to be together when the laws of their people say they can't.
I hope you enjoy the first look at the tiger world. I look forward to bringing you more stories of their struggles and love! Below is a short excerpt from ONCE UPON A TIGER. Enjoy!
CHAPTER ONE
“Idiots.” Alexis
Tarasova growled low in her throat at the scent of five…no six male tigers
invading her territory. She couldn’t tell who they were yet, but in her current
state, their presence set off deep instincts.
Angry instincts.
This was her space.
No males were allowed here without her permission. And she had not given it.
She didn’t give a damn she was in estrous or that her body was a raw bundle of
need and lust. She didn’t run and
wasn’t going to be forced into it by anyone.
If she had to beat
the lot of them into bloody pulps to make her point, she would.
She stood in her
human form on the front porch of her small Catskills cabin and folded her arms
across her chest, staring into the trees. Despite the full moon shedding light
into the clearing in front of her home, the woods beyond were pitch black. She
was surrounded by the orange, gold, and red leaves that made this area of New
York so beautiful this time of year, but only shades of grey and black were
visible now. If she were an ordinary human, she wouldn’t have been able to see
much of anything beneath the trees. In tiger form, she’d see well into that
darkness.
She didn’t bother
stripping off her loose jeans and flannel shirt to make shifting easier,
though. She would face them in her human form to make a point. After twelve
years working as a Tracker—the only female Tracker—she didn’t need to be a
tiger to take them on. She’d been trained by her uncle to be the most deadly of
the elite enforcers of Tiger Law. She’d dedicated most of her life to upholding
her peoples’ rules, hunting down dangerous tigers, killing when necessary. No
one forced her to do anything—not even the Mate Run.
The males were
approaching fast, but carefully. She heard them now. They weren’t making any
attempt to hide their presence. Her quiet growl drifted out on the still air.
Alexis wasn’t opposed
to the mating ritual on principle. The Run had saved her people from
self-destruction. The female birth rates had dropped so significantly two
centuries ago it had left them on the brink of extinction. Out of desperation,
the males had started fighting too much, and raping—sometimes killing—the
females. The situation grew increasingly worse until the elders, the leaders of
her people, instigated a new law.
During estrous, a
female ran from a group of males, allowing one to catch her and spend that
cycle with her. The couple had as much sex as possible during those three days.
If she got pregnant, they were allowed to be mated—either permanently marry or
be together for as long as they wanted. If she didn’t get pregnant, she had to
run again. The tigress could choose the same male or a different male, but
until she got pregnant, she kept running.
The ritual had saved
Alexis’ people. No more gang rapes, no more death-match challenges amongst the
males. The female birth rates were still extremely low, her people were still
on the very edge of extinction and searching for some way to survive, but at
least they weren’t making things worse anymore.
But she was a
Tracker. An enforcer of her peoples’ laws. She required a level of fear and
respect from the other tigers in order to do her job. And having to run from
any of them was contrary to every instinct she had, even if she got to choose
who caught her.
She didn’t run. She
fought. She wasn’t chased. She did the chasing.
The elders had
supported her decision to forgo mating. Why these males thought they could
overrule their governing body and force this on her, she didn’t know. She
didn’t really care. She had no intention of giving in to the pressure.
If she got pregnant,
the entire point of the Mate Run, she’d be forced to give up her job. Not
something she was ready to do, and might never be ready for because the only
man she could see having a family with wasn’t allowed to mate.
She released a soft
breath and tried pushing the ridiculous longing she felt for Victor Romanov to
the back of her mind. She couldn’t have him. And no one else had ever come close
to capturing her interest. She’d wanted him for years, but they weren’t meant
to be. That made forgoing the Run easy.
She forced herself to
focus on her anger and those stupid fucks stalking through her land. Being
distracted now would only get her hurt. A cool autumn breeze brought her the
rich smells the surrounding woods, the moist dirt, the sweet, pungent detritus,
the earthy mix of beech, maple, and a hint of pine bark, the faint tang of the
few small mammals brave enough to frequent her territory…and the sharp bite of
male tiger musk.
Her lip curled.
When she sensed them
nearing, she let her growl carry into the trees, a warning and a challenge. Two
of the five answered with soft chuffing noises. Frowning, she studied the
darkness. Five. But she was sure there were six. Where was he now?
She let her senses
stretch, trying to find that sixth, but the appearance of the others divided
her attention. Three Siberian tigers and two Bengals stepped from the woods,
forming a semi-circle around the front of her home. She narrowed her eyes and
let their scent-signatures come to her, trying to identify them. Each had a
unique combination of feline musk and the complex weave of pheromones that were
impossible to put into human words. If pushed, she’d describe them as a kind of
individualized spice mixture, but some of the “spices” didn’t actually exist.
She knew two of the
invaders.
One Siberian, Nick
Jameson, was a fellow Tracker and until this moment she would have considered
him a friend of sorts. At the least, a respected colleague. She was more than a
little surprised he was a part of all this, as he’d never shown any particular
interest in her—not any more interest than he showed any other female.
The second, a Bengal
named Dev Gupta, was another story. He’d been pestering her for the last two
years. Despite her rebukes, he’d continued hitting on her, once getting so
aggressive she’d had to dislocate his shoulder to make her point clear. He
hadn’t been nearly as forward since, but she wasn’t shocked to see him.
She studied the other
three and thought she might recognize another of the Siberians. He seemed
vaguely familiar. She encountered a lot of tigers during the course of her job,
especially at the elders’ U.S. compound in West Virginia. As the seat of her people’s
government here in the States, the compound saw a steady stream of tigers in
and out for audiences with the elders or to deal with political and legal
issues. She could have met him there at some point, but she couldn’t put a
human face or a name to him.
The remaining two
were strangers to her, so she made sure to memorize their unique
scent-signatures. She held each of their gazes in turn, letting them see her
anger, her irritation, her complete lack of fear. She let another soft growl
fill the air.
The woods fell
silent. The air went still and cold. Alexis matched the quiet of her
surroundings—a dangerous predator waiting for her opponent to blink first.
Finally, Nick stepped
forward and shifted. She kept her attention on the group as she waited for him
to finish. The process took only a few minutes, which was a sign of a strong
male. She made note, filing the fact away for use in the fight she knew was
coming.
“Alex,” Nick said
when he straightened to his full height.
He was over six feet
tall with shaggy brown hair and dark blue eyes. He was muscular, a trained
fighter, not a tiger to be taken lightly.
“Nick. You have some
explaining to do.” As soon as she said the words, a silly part of her wanted to
say the line again with a strong Cuban accent, an imitation of Desi Arnaz’s
oft-repeated line in I Love Lucy, but
she resisted the impulse. This wasn’t a moment for her odd humor.
“You know why we’re
here,” Nick said.
“You know I don’t
run.”
“You’ve had your
little rebellion, Alex.”
She raised her brows
at his condescension but didn’t comment otherwise.
“What makes you
exempt from this rule of our people?” he asked. “There aren’t enough females
for you to be allowed to forgo mating.”
“I. Never. Run.”
Despite her
insistence, her hormones were high, her skin alive with sensation. Tingles of
unfocused lust skittered along her nerves, sharper for her anger. The presence
of so many ready males made things worse. She wasn’t a slave to her
reproductive cycle, but it did make her want
in a way that could be hard to control. The call to mate always left her edgy
and irritable. Usually, she escaped the need by picking up a human man and
taking him to bed for three days. But years of this got old, and all she wanted
now was to wallow in her own territory, alone, until the desperation passed.
“No female is allowed
to skip the Run,” Nick said, taking two steps closer to her porch. The tigers
behind him shifted quietly, low grunts and growls greeting his comment. There
was a bristling of fur, a slight adjusting of stance.
Alexis took in their
positions and sizes, automatically preparing strategies, both defensive and
offensive. The cool air brushed her skin as her senses heightened. She unfolded
her arms and let them hang at her sides, loose and ready. Then she held Nick’s
gaze as she repeated, very distinctly, “I don’t run.”
The tigers surged
forward. Alexis braced for the attack, then sensed the sixth tiger, the one
she’d lost track of, coming up on the left from behind her cabin. She cursed,
half-turned to face the new threat, and the sixth tiger, a blur of orange,
white and black stripes, leapt into the clearing between her and the others.
Facing the others.
Everyone froze.
Alexis blinked several times as she took in the fact that this newcomer was
standing between her and the males. A moment later, she caught his scent.
Victor Romanov.
Her heartbeat
quickened. A combination of panic, shock, and need tightened like a band around
her chest. The one man she was susceptible to, the only one she’d ever wanted…
What was he doing here?
What was he doing here?
