Tiger saw the fear flare in Carly’s eyes as she realized she was alone with an un-Collared Shifter, nothing to control him, nothing to restrain him.
Her lips parted as she reached to him and brushed one fingertip across the abraded skin. Her touch, that one caring stroke, untightened something inside him.
“You took it off?” she asked in wonder. “Looks like that was painful.”
“Yes.” He didn’t lie. Removing the false Collar had hurt, because Liam had made it to embed into Tiger’s skin, so it would better resemble the real ones. “But not as much as it could have, because I never had a Collar on at all.”
Carly stared at him for a heartbeat then her brows drew together. “What are you talking about? It was right there.” She brushed her fingertip across the line again.
“It was a fake.” Full disclosure, that was the term he’d heard. If Carly was to trust him and help him, Tiger had to give her all the information he could. Nothing held back. “I will tell you all of the truth. When I’m done, if you want me to leave, I will. You’ll never see me again, and I’ll make sure you aren’t bothered because of anything I asked you to do today.”
Carly’s eyes widened. “I think it’s a little late for that. I just parked a stolen car in my sisters’ garage.”
“They made me in a research lab in a place the humans call Area 51,” Tiger said, ignoring her and plunging straight in. “They were trying to create Shifters artificially. Shifters are born Shifter—they aren’t humans who turn into Shifters because they’re bitten or whatever, like in the movies Connor laughs at. I don’t know how they made me—they might have used Shifter DNA, or only animal and human. They never told me. I was the twenty-third Shifter they made. The others all died when I was still a cub.”
He told her about the long days he’d been left alone in his cage, then taken out only to be shot full of chemicals or given electric shocks or other things, then observed to see how he reacted. His reaction had usually been screaming agony. Tiger told her about the days they’d chain him to a treadmill and make him run for forty-eight hours without a break. They’d alternately starve him and force-feed him to see what he could take, then they’d enact an interrogation scenario, torturing him when he couldn’t answer their questions.
Carly watched him with her beautiful green eyes as Tiger revealed the horrors in his flat voice. They’d let him see his cub once, he related, before they took it away. When Tiger had asked to see his boy again, begged them, they’d told Tiger the cub had died. The grief of that had been worse than any torture they could ever manufacture.
Tiger had talked until his voice grew hoarse, he who rarely said many sentences together. “Walker said that when Eric destroyed the building in Area 51, it was investigated, and the investigators found files and notes that didn’t get burned. At first they thought I’d died either in the experiments or in the explosion, but Walker kept an eye out. When he found out there was a Shifter in Austin who came from nowhere, he started watching me. Today he told me that the Shifter Bureau wants to start the research again, officially. The Area 51 people were trying to create Shifter soldiers, off-book. Shifter Bureau now wants to see if the project is still viable, if they can make Shifters who will be controlled soldiers, using me as the prototype.”
Carly had gone very still, her gaze fixed on him in shock as he’d told the tale. Now rage flared in her eyes. “Dear God. I’m guessing they aren’t asking you to volunteer.”
Tiger shrugged. “Officially, I don’t exist. I’m not a registered, Collared Shifter. Feral Shifters, un-Collared, can legally be hunted and killed.”
She planted her fists on the counter. “This is all bullshit.”
“As a research subject, I’m perfect, because it doesn’t matter if I die.”
“It damn well does matter,” Carly snapped. “And Walker told you all this? Why, because you were nice and let him go?”
“He doesn’t like what the idea has been turned into. The Shifter Bureau sent a soldier out to wreck the car and shoot me as part of the experiment. The mission risked civilians, and Walker doesn’t like that.”
“How sweet of him. Well, consider me risked. Along with Ellison. And they had you shot in cold blood. Why didn’t they scoop you up and take you with them right then, if they wanted to watch what would happen to you?”
“They thought they could scoop me up anytime they wanted, and they didn’t want to pay for the medical care.”
“Let the Shifters foot the bill and spend the time taking care of you while the Shifter Bureau sits back and watches?”
“But now they’re ready to take me in. I’m pretty sure Liam will let them—and he won’t be given a choice.”
“Why would Liam let them take you?” Carly asked. “He seems pretty protective of the Shifters, at least from what I’ve seen.”
“The other Shifter leaders want him to put a real Collar on me. Or kill me. Liam’s choice. Except he told me to make the choice. He might see handing me to the Shifter Bureau and their special team as a way out of the problem.”
Carly blinked. “Liam told you to choose between putting on a Collar or letting him kill you? What the hell?”
“Liam’s job as Shiftertown leader is to protect all Shifters. I’m a threat, a danger to the Shifters in his Shiftertown. He has to contain the danger any way he can.”
“Tiger.” Carly pointed a polished fingernail at his face. “Don’t you even sit there and tell me that he’s right. If Liam’s supposed to protect all Shifters, that means all Shifters. Individually. You as well as all the others. None of this needs of the many crap.”
She was so beautiful, her eyes flashing, her face pink with anger and indignation. Carly was angry for him, at Liam and the Bureau, not at Tiger.
When Walker had called him and told him the Shifter Bureau wanted to start experimenting on him again, Tiger’s instincts had told him to run and never stop running. He could have simply disappeared, using his incredible ability to survive to see him through.
But Tiger had a mate now. He couldn’t go and never see Carly again. He knew he risked exposure and capture by calling her and coming here with her, but Tiger needed her. He needed to breathe in Carly’s scent, and touch her skin, if only one last time.
Carly came around the counter and leaned on it beside him. The stance pushed her breasts toward him through her thin dress and washed him in her scent.
“So, what are we going to do?” she asked. “You can’t go back to Shiftertown, obviously—that’s why you had me give Spike and Connor the slip. I’m betting the guy who shot you before will be after you too.”
“The Bureau doesn’t realize I’m gone yet. Walker met me on the edge of Shiftertown and gave me a ride halfway to where I met you and told me to disappear. I didn’t tell him I was going to call you.”
“I’m glad you did.” Carly leaned to him and slid her arms around Tiger’s shoulders, her warmth soothing the shaking deep inside him. “We should be safe here for a while, but eventually they’ll start checking with my friends and relatives. I’ll have to pull some cash if we’re going on the road, because credit cards are too easily tracked. And we have to get a different car. That one won’t hold up fifty miles. I bet the guy left his keys in it hoping it would be stolen.”
She wanted to come with him. Tiger sat in stunned silence as he realized that Carly was calmly planning how they could get away from Austin and anyone after him.
But the cruel fact was that Tiger could move faster and farther without her, could cover his tracks in ways she couldn’t imagine. He’d survive, but he’d have to do it alone.
Alone. Without his mate. Or his cub.
Tiger touched Carly’s lips. “You are my mate. You always will be and no other. But you will stay here and be safe, and I will go. Once I am gone, and they know you don’t know where I am, they will leave you alone.”
“No.” Carly jerked away from him, rising and taking away her warmth. “You’re not running out on me.”
“Keeping you safe,” Tiger said catching her wrist in his big hand. “I can run for days without stopping, I can live for days without food and sleep. You can’t.”
“But you can’t run forever,” Carly said. “The best thing to do is to hide in plain sight. As long as I can get my money in cash before we go, we can go anywhere. Mexico—I’ve always wanted a trip to Mazatlán, or Cabo. Once your neck heals, and if you hide your hair or dye it, we’ll fit right in. A young couple in a rental on a Baja beach. Sounds good to me.”
“It’s that easy to leave the country?” Tiger asked. He was skeptical. There were papers and cards for humans, and Shifters were forbidden international travel.
“They don’t pay much attention to a young woman hell-bent on shopping at every bazaar in a border town, or buying bikinis in Baja. You, Mr. Stealthy, can go cross-country when we get close enough to the border, and I’ll pick you up on the other side. Once we’re settled in Cabo, I’m sure I can find some enterprising person to make me a new ID.”
“You’d never be able to come back,” Tiger said. “Or see your family again. Taking a Shifter out of the country is illegal. You’d be arrested, maybe imprisoned.”
Tiger saw Carly’s indecision when he mentioned her family. The hope that had flickered within him for a few moments withered and died.
“I wouldn’t be taking you out,” Carly said. “Meeting you in a different country is a different thing.”
Tiger shook his head. “Too risky for you.” And for their cub.
Carly straightened and planted her hands on her hips. “Now, you listen to me, Tiger. I’m not letting you go.”
“I treasure you.” Tiger looked up into Carly’s eyes. “If the world changes, if Shifters are freed, then I’ll be back. I will always come back to you, my mate. No matter how long it takes.”
* * *
Damn him. Tiger sat there looking at her with those beautiful eyes, telling her he was leaving.
He couldn’t leave. She’d just found him.
Carly flashed back to the day she’d realized her father was never coming back. The pain, like a kick in the stomach, had flattened her for weeks. She’d gone to school in a daze, barely able to talk to anyone, unable to study or focus on homework. She’d started flunking her classes, which had made things worse; then had come the counseling.
Carly had struggled for years before she figured out how to go on living, how to push the anger and grief to the back of her mind so she could pay attention to what was in front of her.
“My dad left us when we were kids,” she said in a hard voice. “He left my mama and four teenage girls with no money and a mountain of debts. He just walked out.”
Tiger said nothing. His golden eyes fixed on her, and his hand around her wrist was warm. But he was still leaving.
“I agreed to marry Ethan because I thought he was safe,” Carly went on. “He wasn’t anything like my dad. Ethan wasn’t a wild drinker or a gambler, he brought home a paycheck, he owned a house, he didn’t have debts, and I knew he’d never walk out and leave me to solve his problems. Ethan prides himself on being Mr. Responsible. I was right about all that, but I was wrong about Ethan respecting me or truly caring about me.”
Carly leaned down to Tiger, her breath coming fast. “Then I met you. And I realized that all my life I’d been looking for safety. A good job, a nice place to live, friends I can trust, the right husband—anything to keep me from that feeling of falling with nothing to catch me.”
“But I’m not safe,” Tiger said. “Nothing about me is safe.”
“I know.” Carly started to laugh, but in a crazy way, not finding anything funny. “And wham, I realized that safety shouldn’t be the most important thing in my life.” She poked his chest. “You make me want to be wild and take chances and grab happiness while I have it. With Ethan I was content, and I admit, a little bit smug. But with you, I’m hot and happy, excited whenever I see you or hear your voice. You walk into a room, and I’m glad. When I woke up with you this morning, I knew it was the best morning of my life. I want more mornings like that, and I want each one to be even better than the last. I lost my dad, I lost the safety of marriage to Ethan, and for about the third time this week, I’ve probably lost my job. On top of it all, I sure as hell don’t want to lose you.”
Tiger watched her with the close stare of a predator. His tiger-striped hair was a mess, his face stubbled with whiskers and still marked with a few bruises from the accident. His black T-shirt under the flannel shirt was marked with sweat, his arms, exposed by pushed-up sleeves, corded with muscle dusted with golden hair.
He was absolutely nothing like the clean-cut, perfectly groomed man Carly was supposed to date, and then marry.
“You’ll never be safe if you stay with me,” Tiger said.
“And I say screw it.” Carly shook off his grasp but only to plop herself onto the slant of his lap. “I’m not going through my boring, safe life wondering whatever happened to you—wondering what would have happened to me if I’d grabbed you and held on to you with both hands. Don’t you get it, Tiger? I want you.”
Tiger kept looking at her. Whatever he was thinking or feeling, Carly had no idea, but she saw the emptiness behind his eyes. Her heart ached from his story of torture and terror, for his life of knowing nothing but anger and fear.
She leaned down to kiss him. Carly intended the kiss to be gentle, to show him how much she cared, but as soon as their lips touched, Tiger slid his strong hand behind her neck, and the kiss turned fierce.
Carly surrendered to his strength, letting his arms take her weight, as he slanted his mouth over hers, exploring, tasting. She ran her fingertips over the line where the false Collar had been, the ridge of skin already smoothing.
Tiger’s hand went to the back of her dress, tugging at the zipper. The little cap sleeves that just covered Carly’s shoulders came down quickly, Tiger’s hands warming her skin, the dress loosening.
Carly tilted her head back while Tiger kissed her neck then traveled down her throat with little nips. He pressed his mouth below the hollow of her throat as the dress eased down to reveal her breasts.
Carly had put on a lace and satin bra this morning, ivory to match the sheath dress Yvette had given her. She’d wanted to be pretty today, all the way to her skin. Tiger made her feel beautiful. Carly, who considered herself all lips and eyes, with a little too much curve on the bottom and not enough on top.
Tiger fumbled at the catch of her bra, but Carly was happy to reach back and release it for him. Last night, they’d been so crazed to make love to each other that they hadn’t gone slowly, hadn’t savored.
Tiger savored her now. He pushed Carly’s body upward so he could lick between her breasts, then tilted his head back to kiss her mouth as she gazed down at him.
“You are beautiful,” he said. “My mate.”
When he said mate, a warmth grew in her heart until it almost hurt. At the same time the warmth brought a flush of happiness, the like of which Carly had never felt before.
Tiger smiled, which made his eyes heat. “Do you see it? The mate bond?”
He moved his fingers to her breastbone, directly over the warmth. When Carly looked at him in confusion, not knowing what he was talking about, his smile grew.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I can see it. Like silver threads that bind us, my heart to yours.” He traced the air between them. “It’s like the threads on Sean’s sword, and in Andrea when she heals. But better. The Fae is wrong. This is magic.”
Carly still didn’t know what in the hell he was talking about, but if Tiger meant he felt about her the way Carly felt about him, fine.
She pressed her hand to his chest, liking how his heart beat strong and hard beneath her fingertips. “How do Shifters pledge themselves to each other?” she asked. “Humans say ’til death do us part.”
Tiger growled. “I don’t want to talk about death. Shifters say under sun and moon, I claim you as mate. B
ut we don’t need to say anything.”
“I want to. I like pledges. What is the Shifter woman supposed to say in return?”
“That she accepts the claim, under the Father God and Mother Goddess. But Shifters want the mate-claim to be witnessed.”
“I’ll witness it.” Carly smiled as she touched his face. “Tiger, I accept you as mate.”
Carly thought Tiger would growl again that they didn’t need to say anything—men were always embarrassed by rituals—but his smile spread.
“Yes,” he said, his look one of complete triumph. “Yes. My mate. My mate.”
Tiger dragged Carly up off the stool with him, kisses falling like fire on her neck, breasts, over her heart. He licked his way to her nipple, tasting it, pulling the tip into a point.
Carly ran her hand through his hair, loving the rough silk feel of it. The black locks were smoother than the orange, she observed distractedly. The rest of her focused on the fire of his mouth, the sharp tug of his teeth. Sweet goodness.
Tiger’s breath was hot on her skin, his own body temperature hotter than a human’s. He was a strange and exotic man, touching her so skillfully as he nuzzled and licked until she was crazy from it.
“Upstairs,” she murmured. “We should go upstairs.”
“Not yet.”
Tiger lifted her as he stood up, sitting her on the counter. He placed his hands on either side of her, closing her in, his mouth everywhere on her exposed skin.
Two days ago, Carly hadn’t wanted to go near kitchen counters or even think about what could be done on them. Today, she wrapped her legs around Tiger, pulling him to her.
She pushed his flannel shirt from his shoulders—how he could stand wearing flannel in this heat, she didn’t know, but he was Tiger. The T-shirt next. Carly enjoyed herself pushing it upward over his tight torso, until he tore it off over his head in impatience.
He had a fine body. Firm, muscled, tanned, like liquid bronze over a sculpture of perfect proportions. Carly ran her hands over him, seeing that the bullet scars had lessened further in the course of the day. Soon his skin would be whole and tight again.