Tiger Shifters #5 -- Preview Excerpt!

Here's a little excerpt from TO TEMPT A TIGER (Tiger Shifters, Book 5), out now! Enjoy!

CHAPTER ONE

Rose Callaghan hugged her daughter, rocking her as another wave of pain wracked her little body. Panic and torment twisted in her gut, emotions she’d almost gotten used to over the last year. “I’m here, baby. It’ll be okay.”

“Hurts, Mommy.”

“I know, I know. We’ll fix it. We’ll find a way.”

The doorbell rang. Rose ignored it. Whoever it was could come back later. She rubbed the sweat-soaked hair from her daughter’s brow, wondering if she should take her to the emergency room again. It never helped. Nothing helped. The doctors never uncovered the problem. No test had produced an explanation. No specialist had found an answer. No one knew why her daughter went through these episodes of extreme pain.

All her prayers to God, Mary, and all the saints she could remember from mass didn’t seem to be working either. But she had to do something.

Rose was desperate—she just didn’t know where else to turn.

The doorbell rang again, followed by insistent knocking.

She growled, then said, “Baby, I need to go get that. I’ll be right back.”

Zoe nodded but as soon as Rose released her, she curled up into a ball on her bed, rocking as another wave of pain visibly shivered over her skin.

Rose ran to the front door, grumbling kid-safe curses, ready to take the hide off whoever was there. Why couldn’t they take the hint and just go away?

The doorbell rang again, and Rose hissed a not-kid-friendly curse. She threw open the door, her mouth open to yell at whoever it was—until she saw the man on her front step. She froze, her brain momentarily too stunned to work.

Vladimir Dubrovsky. The love of her life. The man she’d planned to marry.

The man who’d accused her of cheating on him and left her when he found out she was pregnant.

Rose blinked as the reality of Vlad being on her doorstep sank in. He looked the same—dark hair, dark eyes, sharp, sexy features, the perfect mouth, and a body designed to make a woman’s mouth water.

“Hello, Rose,” he said. “I realize this is a little…unexpected.”

His voice was still that deep rich octave that had always made her shiver. She released a loud huff.

“Unexpected?” She wanted to laugh. She grabbed his arm and jerked him inside. “Thank God. Get in here.”

His wide-eyed shock might have given her some satisfaction if she wasn’t so worried.

“Your daughter is sick,” she said, dragging him into her living room. “The doctors can’t tell me what’s wrong. She’s in pain right now. What did you pass on to her? This isn’t anything from my side—we’ve run tests and done the research. You need to tell me everything about your family medical history.”

Vlad stood in her living room staring at her, his head angled down slightly, his brow furrowed. He looked at her like she was speaking a foreign language.

Her patience didn’t stretch that far. “Damn it, Vlad, snap out of it. I need your help. What the hell is wrong with our daughter? While we’re standing here wasting time, she’s hurting, and I have to stop it. If you have any information that will help, you need to tell me. Now.”

“This isn’t the reception I was expecting.”

“I don’t have time for that right now. Can you help or not? If not, get out.”

He shook his head like a dog shaking off water and straightened. “May I see her?”

She hesitated. This man had abandoned them. She hadn’t seen or heard from him in four years. She wasn’t sure she wanted him around her daughter—even if he was Zoe’s father.

But if he could help with Zoe’s pain…

The familiar panic and desperation churned in her stomach and tightened her muscles. “Do you know what’s wrong with her?” she asked.

“I might. Is the pain cyclical? Does it comes and go? Does she complain her muscles and bones feel like they’re stretching and aching? Has she ever said her body feels like it’s coming apart?”

“Yes! The doctors have tried a bunch of stuff and none of it works.”

“None of it would. May I see her?” he asked again.

This time Rose didn’t hesitate. “Come on.”

If he could help with Zoe’s pain, she might just be able to forgive him for breaking her heart. Maybe. She’d certainly stop wishing the torments of hell on him.

At the entrance to Zoe’s bedroom, she spun to face him. The move brought them up close, and for an instant, her breath caught. He still smelled like the most delicious thing ever—spice and musk and male.

She pushed the thought aside and pointed a finger at him. “Don’t scare her or hurt her. If you do anything that pisses me off, you’re out of here. I’m too scared and worried about her to put up with nonsense. Also, no cursing.” She turned and walked into her daughter’s brightly decorated white and yellow room.

“Zoe. Someone’s here to see you.”

“No doctors.” Zoe’s frown was set, stubbornness in every cute, chubby little line of her face. Then her body jerked and she moaned.

Rose forgot about Vlad as she hurried to her daughter. “Baby, I’m here. I’m here. It’s going to be okay. I promise.” She pulled Zoe into her arms.

“Mommy, it hurts.”

“I know, baby. We’ll fix it.” Rose hated that she said this every single time and hadn’t been able to fulfill this promise. The words were like ash in her mouth.

“Zoe.” Vlad’s tone was soothing and soft.

Rose blinked. She’d almost forgotten him in those seconds of hearing Zoe’s pain in her voice.

“My name is Vlad. I’m not a doctor, but I might be able to help you. Can I sit next to you?”

She glanced up at Rose, pain pinching the skin around her beautiful dark eyes—eyes that had always reminded Rose of Vlad’s. Rose nodded her approval.

Zoe looked at him. “You got a funny name.”

He smiled, then very gently sat next to her on the bed. “When the pain comes, does it feel like your skin is stretching?”

She nodded.

“Do you…see any images in your mind when the pain hits? Does anything pop up in your imagination?”

“Tigers.”

He straightened and sucked in a sharp breath.

“What?” Rose asked. “What is it? Why are tigers significant?”

He ignored her questions and focused on Zoe. “I’m going to talk you through breathing and things to think about that should help ease the pain. Okay?”

Rose glared. Positive thinking wasn’t going to help her baby.

“I want you to take a long, slow breath,” Vlad coached.

“Can’t. Hurts.”

“I know. But this will help. I promise. One long deep breath, and imagine the way your arms feel when you feel good.”

Zoe nodded as she tried to take a deep, stuttering breath.

“That’s it. Good girl. Now close your eyes and concentrate on how your whole body feels when you feel good. How your two legs feel. What the shoes on your feet feel like. What it feels like to wiggle your toes against the inside of your shoes. Got it?” He looked up at Rose. “What’s her favorite toy or game? Something that involves physical sensation.”

Rose snatched up Zoe’s special blanket and handed it to him.

“I want you to imagine feeling your blanket against your fingers,” he continued, speaking to Zoe. 

“Do you remember what if feels like? Concentrate on the soft material against your skin.”

“She sucks on the corner,” Rose added.

Vlad nodded. “Remember what the corner feels like against your lips, on your tongue. How the blanket feels when it touches your cheek.”

As he talked in slow, rhythmic, soothing tones, Zoe’s breathing evened out and the tight lines around her eyes and mouth eased. Her little body relaxed and her shoulders slumped.

“Feeling better now?” Vlad asked.

She opened her eyes and smiled. “Better. I tired.”

“You rest, baby,” Rose said. Vlad stood and Rose tucked Zoe into her bed, making sure she had her favorite blanket in hand. “I’ll be in the living room if you need me.”

She nodded, then looked up at Vlad, her dark eyes narrowing toward sleep. “Thanks for stopping the pain.”

“You’re welcome.”

Rose felt tears pricking her eyes and sniffled them back. She didn’t like Zoe seeing her upset, not so soon after an episode. She motioned to Vlad, and they left Zoe to sleep.

In the living room, Rose stood for a long moment just staring at the pale carpet and breathing deeply. She felt so drained she wanted to sleep, too. And cry. She desperately needed to cry.

But she refused to do it in front of Vlad.

“Why are you here?” She kept her back to him until she was sure the tears pricking at her eyes wouldn’t fall.

“I’m not sure how to start.”

She finally faced him. “Let me start then…by saying thank you for helping Zoe. If you can tell me how to do that, I’d appreciate it. Then you can leave.”

Vlad scowled. “I can’t leave you.”

“You did before.”

“That’s not what I meant. It’s… This is a complicated story.”

“I’m too tired for stories, Vlad.” She crossed her arms and braced her legs to stave off the emotional exhaustion weighing on her. She wouldn’t let him see her pain, only her anger. Even if he had just helped with her daughter.

“I was expecting a different reaction to my being here,” he said.

“What?”

He shrugged. “I thought you might slap me.”

“Maybe if Zoe hadn’t been in the middle of an episode, I would have.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, and Rose’s heart thumped hard. Damn him, how did he do that to her with just a smile? She hated him. It didn’t make sense that she could feel anything else for him, especially not this longing.

“Don’t get cocky,” she told him. “I still might slap you if you don’t get to the point and then get out.”

“I’ll start with an apology then,” he said.

She snorted. “Little late for that now.”

“It’s offered anyway.”

“Why?”

He paused before saying, “I have reason to believe I was mistaken when I left.”

She gave him a deadpan stare that would have shriveled a weaker man. “Really? What led you to this epiphany?”

“Discovering I had a half sister I didn’t know about. Seeing the state Zoe was just in confirmed my suspicions.”

“How does you having a sister have anything to do with our past?”

“I was telling you the truth when I said we couldn’t have kids. At least, the truth as I knew it. You and I should not have been able to conceive a child. Because of that, I was left with no alternative but to think you’d been with another man.”

“We did have a child. I didn’t cheat on you. And if you’d truly loved me, you should have trusted me enough to believe me.”

“I believe you now.”

“Why now? Why were you so convinced back then that we couldn’t have kids?”

All those years ago, he’d been very clear about the fact that they wouldn’t be able to have children naturally. He’d always seemed sad when he talked about not having kids, and she’d really wanted them, too. But he’d been clear—if she wanted them, she either needed to find someone else, or they’d have to consider alternatives like adoption. She’d been prepared to adopt. So long as she and Vlad were together, it didn’t matter how they built their family. At least not to her.

When she’d realized she was pregnant, she’d been thrilled, thinking whatever Vlad had been told about his inability to reproduce had been a mistake. She’d expected him to be as excited as she was, and she’d even deluded herself into thinking he’d propose the moment he heard the news.

But he hadn’t proposed.

He fisted his hands against his thighs. “You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you. But for Zoe’s sake, you need to know the truth. Then we need to go somewhere safe for a few weeks.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you talking about? Why would we need a ‘safe’ place?”

“I’m pretty sure my brothers have figured out…about Zoe.”

“Vlad, you are as clear as mud right now. What the hell?”

“Okay. The truth.” He braced his feet a little farther apart and met her gaze. “I’m a tiger shapeshifter. Tigers and humans aren’t supposed to be able to have children. That’s why I thought you’d cheated on me. Then I learned about my sister. Her father is human, but her mother—my mother—was a tiger. Turns out it is possible for me to have children with a human woman. And if my brothers learn Zoe is my child, they will try to kill her.”


TO TEMPT A TIGER (Tiger Shifters 5) -- OUT NOW!

Excerpt Along Came a Tiger (Tiger Shifters #2) -- PG13

Here's a little excerpt from ALONG CAME A TIGER (Tiger Shifters #2), due out soon! (It's with the copyeditor now). Enjoy!!

CHAPTER ONE

Daniel Borowski stared through the darkness at the sleek black Jaguar parked in front of an isolated home at the edge of the park. The bastard with Sarah sat sideways, his profile visible through the back window. Daniel had no trouble discerning Bradley Williams’ dark blond hair and blue eyes, even in the dark. Tiger-shifter eyesight was handy that way. He only saw the back of Sarah Chu’s head, but he knew it was her.

He’d know Sarah anywhere.

His lip curled as he watched the two. Bradley was the kind of slick, rich asshole who always set Daniel’s teeth on edge, but this man’s pretty boy exterior hid a murdering evil that sent Daniel’s instincts into overdrive. Especially when the bastard was sitting next to Sarah.

Daniel dug his fingers into the bark of a fallen tree in front of him, trying to rein in his anger.

“You’re sure you don’t need help?” Alexis Tarasova asked from beside him.

He kept his gaze on the car, swallowing a growl as Bradley touched Sarah’s cheek.

“I’ll be fine,” he answered in a tight murmur, hoping his mentor wouldn’t pick up on the rage he heard in his own voice. Alexis might have been retired for ten years, but she was still one of the best Trackers he’d ever known. He was a better Tracker for her training. Sometimes, though, her perception was inconvenient. Right now, he needed her to concentrate on her part of this situation, not his straining control. “It’ll take both of you to keep Joseph away.”

He glanced at her, taking in her focused stare. Beside her, her husband Victor Romanov waited so silently Daniel might have forgotten he was there, if he couldn’t sense him.

To the west, not far from their position in the trees surrounding the front of the house, Daniel also sensed Joseph Bennett in his tiger form, waiting for his chance at revenge against the man who’d killed his sister. Joseph was so full of rage he wasn’t thinking straight.

Neither was Sarah.

Daniel looked back to the car in time to see the bastard lean toward Sarah and say something close to her ear. Daniel snarled.

Alexis nudged his arm. “Victor can handle Joseph if you need me. The point is not to kill the human.”

“I haven’t forgotten why we’re here.”

“You sure? Because you’re stripping bark off that log.”

Daniel scowled down at his hand. His fingers were buried in the thick bark. Fuck. If he couldn’t calm his temper, he would ruin everything. He was a Tracker. He should be able to control himself.

For Sarah’s sake, he had to control himself.

“I’ll be fine. Just make sure Joseph doesn’t get anywhere near that man. You have a place to…hold him until he’s thinking straight again?”

Alexis signed something to her husband, who signed back. Daniel didn’t understand sign language so he waited for Alexis to finish.

“We’ll take him to Victor’s retreat near the Canadian border. That should be far enough from Philly to keep him out of trouble.”

Alexis narrowed her eyes and her mouth tightened. The reaction was telling.

“You don’t think he’ll calm down, do you?” Daniel asked, facing the car again.

“Would you if Williams had murdered your sister?”

“No.” He’d want to rip out the man’s throat and drink his blood. He was already itching to tear him to pieces, and that was just for touching Sarah. He could only imagine what Joseph felt.

Or Sarah for that matter. Su-jin had been her best friend. Sarah’s rage and need for revenge no doubt matched Joseph’s—strong enough for her to risk her own life.

Among their people, killing a human being, especially in tiger form, was an automatic death sentence. There had been a few exceptions over the years, but that was before forensic science had improved so significantly.

There would be no leniency for Joseph, even given the circumstances. Killing a human risked exposing them all to the human world. Their people were already on the brink of extinction and desperately struggling to survive. They couldn’t afford for the general human population to learn that tiger shapeshifters existed.

Sarah might not be put to death because she was a rare female tiger, but she would be caged for life if she went through with this. Daniel couldn’t allow that. He loved her too much to let her to throw her life away.

“He’s getting closer,” Daniel said, jerking his head in the direction of Joseph’s approach.

A soft growl carried through the dense woods, quiet enough only the tigers would be able to hear it. The enraged tiger knew they were there to stop him and he was warning them off.

Alexis glanced at Victor, then back at Daniel. “Good luck. Keep her safe.”

Daniel nodded and watched as she and Victor slipped into the darkness under the trees. As they disappeared, he glimpsed Victor begin to disrobe. He would shift into his tiger shape while Alexis stayed in human form. Between them, they’d be able to handle Joseph, no matter how angry the man was. At least Daniel hoped so. As a former Tracker, Alexis had handled worse. But Joseph was Victor’s best friend. They’d try not to hurt him.

Daniel focused on the car again. Joseph was their responsibility. He had to trust Alexis and Victor to do their part. His job right now was to get Sarah out of this, unharmed. And to avoid killing the bastard with her.

He pulled in a deep breath, letting the warm, humid summer air clear his head. The scent of beech, oak, fresh cut grass, and soil settled him. He waited and listened to the others as they closed with Joseph. Then he rose from his hiding spot beside the drive and approached the car on Sarah’s side. The gravel covered driveway barely crunched under his light footsteps.

He snatched open Sarah’s door before Williams realized Daniel was there. Sarah, on the other hand, glared up at him. He knew she’d felt him approach. Hell, she’d known he was in the trees.

For a split second, the dark power of her gaze stilled him. Even angry, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. Black straight hair hung over her shoulders. The car’s interior light threw shadows across her sharp features, highlighting high cheekbones and the beautiful tilt of her dark brown eyes. Without thought, his gaze dropped to her mouth—those full lips had always captivated him. Right now, they were pressed tight together, and her jaw was clenched.

He blinked and forced himself to remember why he was here.

***

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Happy Reading!

Love and Extinction (reprinted)

For those of you who weren't able to follow my January blog tour, I had a couple of cool guest posts that had to do with the background world of the Tiger Shifters. I thought I'd republish a couple of those here for your enjoyment.

This was originally posted at Words of Wisdom from the Scarf Princess. (Thanks for hosting me on my tour, Jody!)

In my Tiger Shifter series, one of the underlying conflicts of the world is that the Tigers are on the brink of extinction. The number of females has been dropping for awhile, but they noticed two centuries ago that the female population was dangerously low. No one knew exactly why female numbers had dropped so much, so there was no easy solution to the problem. The imbalance led to some pretty extreme behaviors—death match fighting among the males, gang rapes of females which often resulted in the death of the female. Their entire species stood on the brink of chaos and destruction.

Sounds pretty extreme, right? Well I actually got the idea for this from a real life crisis with the Hawaiian monk seals. Back when I was in college in Hawaii, this issue with the monk seals was so extreme, biologists didn’t know what to do. Female numbers had dropped significantly and no one knew why. Males were raping and killing females in their desperation to breed, which only made the situation worse. The entire species stood on the brink of extinction.

Because my tigers have human intellect, they devised a way to mitigate the problem. They instigated the Mate Run—a single female runs from a group of males during her estrous, she allows one to “catch” her, and they spend the three days of her cycle trying to get pregnant. If they succeed, they can choose to stay together as a couple. Or they can part ways when they no longer want to be together. But unless the woman gets pregnant, she’s not allowed to be with any of the males. This was the only way to make access to the female tigers fair.

Into modern times, the Mate Run works for the most part. There are few fights among the males and they protect rather than gang up on the females. But after more than a century and a half of this tradition, things are starting to strain at the edges. Love, lust, jealousy, possessiveness, protectiveness, all complicate the basic biological problem of reproduction—just like they do in human relationships. And the tigers still haven’t found a way to fix their population crisis.

This crisis gives me a lot of room to play. And a lot of conflicts to explore! Especially when it comes to love.

If you give the tigers a try, I hope you enjoy their stories! There are many more to come.

Oh and for the record, the Hawaiian monk seals are still endangered. More than just the male/female ratio imbalance and male aggression plagues their efforts to survive. But in 2008, they were made Hawaii’s official state mammal in an effort to raise awareness and increase protection efforts.

 

You can learn more about the Hawaiian monk seals here and here and here.  

The Tigers' Story Begins!

Well technically, there was  a short story in this world already published in an anthology :) But for all intents and purposes, this is the beginning of the series and the world of the tigers.

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?