“A cub,” Walker said thoughtfully. “Congratulations. That will be interesting.”
Tiger shot Walker a fierce look. He got to his feet and hoisted Katriona to his shoulder. “I will help you, Walker,” he said, taking on a hint of a growl. “But you will stay away from my cub.”
Walker stared up at him, his blue eyes taking on a wary look. But then he relaxed, nodded, and stuck out his hand. “Deal.”
Tiger studied Walker’s hand without touching it. “And no shooting me to see how fast I heal the next time. That fucking hurt.”
“No more worries about that,” Walker said. “If you help us, you’ll work with us, not be a test subject. I’ve even put in the paperwork to create a new position for you if you’ll take it—Shifter Liaison to the Shifter Bureau South, Special Assignment. With a salary.”
Tiger stared at him in wonder, not quite taking it in. Walker was saying he wanted to give Tiger a job, with money paid to him, which meant Liam wouldn’t have to provide for Tiger’s every meal. Most Shifters didn’t worry much about money and were happy to share, but the idea that Tiger could pull his weight with them, as even Connor did, gave him a feeling of satisfaction, of belonging.
“Deal,” Tiger said and shook Walker’s hand, human-style.
Kim hugged Tiger around the waist. “I’m so happy for you, big guy.”
Tiger returned Kim’s hug carefully, not wanting to squash Katriona in the rejoicing. He handed the giggling Kat back to her mother, then he stepped to where Liam and Sean still hugged Carly, took them by the backs of their necks, and peeled them away from her.
“Hands off my mate.”
Sean laughed, shook off Tiger’s hold with surprising strength, and returned to the kitchen.
Liam stepped back, making a gallant gesture. “She’s all yours.”
“Yes,” Tiger said. “She is.”
Carly laced her arms around Tiger’s neck and pulled him down to her. “I love you,” she whispered before she kissed his lips. “My mate.”
Warmth flowed from her, and her words, to fill all the empty spaces inside Tiger. Nothing left out.
Walker had declared that he’d figured out what Tiger had been made for. But Tiger already knew.
He’d been made to find this woman, Carly, this mate of his heart. He’d been made for the bond that stretched between her and him, and he’d been made to bond with the child that grew inside her.
Tiger always seemed to know things before others did. Maybe that was part of his programming, a mechanism that let him find those in danger, as he had Olaf in the fire. He would work with Walker to figure out how he knew these things, and all about what he could do.
He did know, as he held Carly and kissed her back—the best new activity he’d learned since meeting her—that the child inside her was a boy. And that he’d live, and grow up, and be a tiger like his father. There would be more cubs, and Tiger and Carly, together for as long as it took.
Liam had told Tiger about the Fae spell that let humans live as long as their Shifter mates, as Kim would with Liam. Tiger would grab the Fae called Fionn and make him perform the spell on Carly right away.
Tiger saw their days stretched before them, Carly with him, and all their cubs. He pulled Carly close.
“I know what I was made for,” Tiger whispered into her ear. “I was made for you.”
That, and happiness. Tiger had reached for happiness in the past, only to have it shatter like a glass bubble when he closed his hand around it.
“I love you, my mate,” Tiger said, touching the softness of her cheek.
“I love you, Tiger,” Carly said again.
This time, as Carly smiled up at him, her green eyes the most beautiful things Tiger had ever seen, happiness stayed with him, whole and warm, and surrounded his heart.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Carly didn’t thoroughly understand the Shifter mating ceremonies, though Kim and Andrea had done their best to explain the symbolism. The circle dances called the Goddess and the God to the place; the flower garland in Carly’s hair represented nature, eternity, and fertility. The ritual sealed Carly and Tiger so that their union was sacred under the moon—the Mother Goddess—and under the sun—the Father God.
What Carly did understand was that the ceremony itself was brief, Liam saying, with a smile, “Under the light of the moon, the Mother Goddess, I recognize this mating.”
She also understood the party into which the solemn ceremony degenerated, music blasting from Sean’s back porch, the beer flowing, meat grilling, Shifters dancing, talking, laughing. Carly’s mother and sisters, who’d come to Shiftertown for the event, fit right in—Althea and Zoë already had Shifter admirers. Janine and Simon, her husband, were a little more reticent, but Olaf and Jordan soon had their son playing with them, and Andrea and Sean had the couple laughing and talking.
Likewise Yvette and Armand had come for the ritual, Armand with gifts of food and his beneficence, Yvette with a wise smile for Carly for following her heart. Yvette immediately joined Liam at the grill, first discussing with him and then arguing about cooking techniques, marinades, and what should be served with what.
Liam was in a particularly good mood, even beyond his excitement at presiding over a mating. The other Shifter leaders, he’d told Carly and Tiger before the ceremony, had agreed it was a good thing that Tiger would work with the Shifter Bureau in learning about himself. The arrangement kept Tiger out of trouble—in other words, made him someone else’s problem. And the Shifter leaders, particularly Bowman, Eric, and Graham, were interested in Liam testing out Collar changes on Tiger. Tiger had agreed to help in figuring out ways to get the Collars off Shifters, especially after Liam mentioned he wanted to get the cubs out of the Collars first.
As the night deepened and the food and beer were consumed, some Shifters started slinking into darkness to be alone together. Mating rituals stirred the mating frenzies, Kim had said.
Carly also understood how she and Tiger ended up in his bed under the eaves, moonlight streaming in to caress them.
They were alone in the house, Liam and company still out reveling. To thumping strains of party music coming from next door, Tiger gave himself over to Carly as though theirs would be the last coupling on earth.
Carly didn’t mind, as her body rose to his, her hands gripping the sweet tightness of his buttocks to pull him inside her. She arched to him, sweat hot between them, dripping to the sheets.
Tiger wasn’t silent, and tonight he wasn’t gentle. Gripped by the mating frenzy, Tiger drove into her with ferocity, and Carly, bound to him, wound up into frenzy herself.
Tiger opened points of pleasure in Carly she’d never known existed. Sounds escaped her mouth, incoherent, her throat aching with them.
Tiger filled her and loved her, his hands everywhere, his mouth a place of heat. He was one with her, and she with him, and that was all Carly wanted.
After a long time, Tiger growled, his eyes flashing golden as he neared his peak. He continued to rock into her, and she was crying out in joy by the time he spilled his seed. They fell together, spent and shaking, and the room went silent.
Carly lay in the tangle of sheets, her body scalding, with the hottest part of her the place where they were still joined. She ran her hands down Tiger’s back, his skin slick with sweat. But he was whole, healed, hers. The touch of a mate.
His touch healed her in return. Carly had never felt so well, so cared for, in all her life.
Tiger would never desert her. She understood that now. Even when Tiger had been gone, he’d been taking care of her.
Because he cared. Carly’s father had cared for only himself, had seen his family as an obstacle, a distraction. And so he’d left them.
Tiger saw Carly as his anchor in the roiling stream of life, and she now thought of him in the same way. Not because of a magical mate bond, but because he loved her and she loved him. Love, not programming, not magic.
“I love you,” Carly whispere
d, her voice ragged from their lovemaking. “You know that, right?”
Tiger rose over her again, his rare smile wide, his eyes warm with afterglow. “I do know,” he said. “And I know I love you, Carly. My beautiful mate.”
Carly traced his cheek. She wriggled her hips at the same time, Tiger still rigid inside her. Wildness touched her again.
“You know everything, do you?” she asked, teasing.
“Yes.” His kiss was lazy, warm. “I do.”
“Mmm. Then you know I want to do that again.”
“I want to do it too, mate of my heart. Right now.”
“Yep. Right now.”
“I know something else,” Tiger said as he brushed kisses down her neck.
He slid out of her, the friction delightful, the anticipation of more to come even better. Tiger kissed her breasts, then moved down to press a long kiss just below her navel.
“What do you know?” Carly asked, stroking his hair, which was already growing back in, black and orange.
Tiger chuckled, his breath warm on her abdomen. “That it’s a boy.”
Carly laughed in delight, the sound ringing through the room. She opened her arms, and Tiger kissed his way back up her body, his welcoming heat covering her as he slid inside her again.
Right where he belonged. The mate bond wound around her heart, and his, and Carly was complete.
Turn the page for a preview of Jennifer Ashley’s next Shifters Unbound novel
WILD WOLF
Coming January 2014 from Berkley Sensation!
Graham McNeil slammed his massive fist into the jaw of the attacking wolf just as his cell phone rang.
Graham got the wolf into a headlock and tried to reach for the phone, but the wolf fought and clawed, drawing blood, its breath like sour acid. Graham’s Collar sparked heavy pain into his throat, while the Collar on the wolf he fought was dormant.
Was this where things were going with the ludicrous idea that all Shifters should have their pain-shocking Collars replaced with inert ones? Shifters at the bottom of the food chain would try to claw their way up, using their fake Collars as an advantage.
Like this Lupine was. The shithead was from the family of one of Graham’s trackers, was supposed to be loyal to Graham. The wolf had decided today to wait in Graham’s house, until Graham walked in alone, and jump him.
Idiot. Graham had territory advantage, even if he still wore his true Collar, which blasted pain into him with every heartbeat. Time to show the attacking wolf who was truly alpha.
Except that Graham’s phone kept ringing against his belt. Because Shifters were only allowed to carry “dumb” phones, he didn’t have a fancy ring tone to tell him who was calling. The damn thing just rang.
Graham grabbed the insubordinate Lupine by the throat and threw it against the wall. The wolf howled, but did it stay down? No.
As the wolf prepared to launch another attack, Graham yanked the phone off his belt and flipped it open. “What?”
“Graham,” came the breathless voice of his more-or-less girlfriend, a human called Misty.
The picture came to him of the curvy young woman with the light brown hair she wore in ponytail while she worked at her flower shop, her soft face, and her sweet brown eyes. Graham wished with everything he had that he was with her, teasing her, kissing her, instead of trying to beat an annoying wolf into submission.
“I’m a little busy right now, sweetheart,” Graham said loudly as the wolf landed on him. A wooden chair smashed under them as they both slammed against the wall—damn, he liked that chair. “You break my TV, you’re dead,” Graham snarled.
“What?”
“Not you, sweetie,” Graham said into the phone. “A fucking Lupine. I’ll have to call you back.”
“You can’t. Graham, listen, I need you. They’re . . . Oh, crap.”
“What?” Graham bellowed. “Slow down. What are you saying?”
“I have to go. I don’t know when I can call you again.”
A soft noise sounded on her end. A human being might not have heard it, but Graham’s wolf hearing was gearing up as he felt the wolf inside him taking over. What the hell was happening at her house a long way from Shiftertown?
Graham’s shift was coming. In a few seconds, he wouldn’t be able to hold the phone, let alone talk. “Wait!” he yelled at her.
“I can’t. I’ve got to go. Graham, I l—”
The phone clicked, and Graham was shouting at a dead line. “What? Wait! Misty! Fuck.”
He threw the phone across the room and lifted the attacking wolf by the scruff of the neck. “Would you stop it, you asshole?”
The wolf snarled, teeth snapping at Graham’s throat. The wolf in Graham responded. He felt his body change, muscles becoming harder and leaner, face elongating to accommodate teeth, claws jutting from fingers that quickly became paws.
With an earsplitting snarl, Graham went for the other wolf’s throat, snapping his teeth around fur.
At the last minute, the alpha in him told him not to kill. Graham was this wolf’s protector, not an enemy. The wolf needed to be taught its place, not destroyed.
Not that Graham wouldn’t rough it up a bit. But quickly. He needed to find out what was wrong with Misty. The fear in her voice had been clear, the desperation palpable. They’re . . . What? Here? Coming? Killing me?
Graham’s Collar kept sparking, snapping arcs into his neck. He held on to the throat of the subordinate wolf, not letting the disadvantage of his Collar stop him.
Dominance didn’t have anything to do with Collars, or pain, or fighting. Dominance was about putting full-of- themselves, arrogant Lupine Shifters in their place.
Graham got the wolf on the floor and stepped on it. He shifted to human again, breathing hard, his clothes in tatters. “Stay down.” The words were hard, final.
The wolf snarled again, then became human—lanky, dark-haired, gray-eyed—typical Lupine. Except this one was female.
She looked up at him, still snarling, rage in her eyes. “This isn’t over, McNeil.”
“Famous last words. Your dad sent you, didn’t he? Thought maybe I’d mate-claim you if you couldn’t best me, right?”
The way she looked quickly away told Graham he’d hit upon the truth. She was naked, and not bad, but Graham hadn’t been able to think about any other female since he’d met Misty.
He hadn’t mate-claimed Misty, or even had sex with her. Graham had never had sex with a human before, and he feared he’d hurt her. Also, his position as leader of the Lupines in this Shiftertown—but not the overall leader of all the Shifters—was precarious. He couldn’t afford to bring in a half-human cub that might get the Shifters beneath him worried.
But her phone call had his gut churning. Graham got to his feet. “I have to go. I want you out of here by the time I get back. No more ambushes. If you want a mate, go chase some bears. They’re always horny.”
Graham turned around and walked away. The best way to show a submissive that they were submissive was to indicate you didn’t fear them jumping you the minute your back was turned. Making them know that if they did jump you, you’d stop them. Again.
His heart was hammering with worry, the wolf forgotten, as he detoured to his bedroom to grab clothes to replace the ones he’d shredded with his shift.
Graham left through the back door, mounted his motorcycle, started it, and rode noisily away from his house and Shiftertown.
Jennifer Ashley, Tiger Magic
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