Outlaw Tiger

by Terry Bolryder

  God, his mate was so wonderful.

  As he got into bed with her, he couldn’t help but worry about how all of this would turn out.

  How was he going to tell her?

  Even more concerning… How would she react?

  19

  Mel yawned as she sat down at the table in Dallas’s trailer and began to go through all of her research one more time. Behind her, Dallas was standing before the stove, frying up some eggs and bacon. His muscles were deliciously indented against the soft shirt he wore to sleep.

  As she sifted through the journal entries and other pieces of evidence, she realized that she had left her backpack in the truck. Hopefully, it was okay, as it had her recorder and camera in it.

  Dallas curiously cocked an eyebrow at her as she got up from the trailer and opened the door.

  “Just grabbing something,” Mel explained.

  He nodded, then went back to his cooking as she stepped out into the cool morning air. She walked over to the truck and pulled the door open to get the backpack from the seat.

  She unzipped the pocket for a second, eyeing the inside to make sure that her camera and recorder were there. When she was satisfied that they were, she zipped the pocket back up and headed back into the trailer.

  When she opened the door and stepped in, Dallas handed her a steaming plate filled to the edges with eggs and bacon and gave her a quick kiss.

  “I’ll be on the roof,” he said, smiling down at her for a second before he left the trailer.

  Mel sighed happily as she held the plate in one hand and backpack in the other.

  This was bliss.

  How awesome would it be to wake up with him every morning? She could hardly imagine it.

  Just a few more days of trying to make something come from this story. Then I can call it quits and focus on Dallas, she thought as she plugged her recorder into her computer. A few more days and there would be no more worries, just her and Dallas and blissful mornings, afternoons, and evenings.

  Mel scrolled down the list of recordings, noting with surprise that her last entry was somehow almost twenty hours long.

  Huh.

  She must have left it on after an interview the other day. Oops. To this day, it still amazed her that something so small could hold hundreds and hundreds of hours of content.

  It had probably caught some of their date at the carnival last night—if she was lucky at least.

  Everything had been perfect last night, from the carnival games to the food to the rides, and it had all been because of him. He’d been there for every second, making her smile, holding her hand, showing her that he cared.

  Just like he always did.

  The whole evening had been magical, even if he had seemed a little on edge at the end of the night.

  Had he noticed the tattooed guy as well? If he had, he hadn’t told her about it.

  As she went to edit the recording down to just the interview, she noticed that somehow there was audio recorded at the end of the file.

  That was weird.

  Curious, she clicked over to it and put on a pair of headphones to listen. At first, she couldn’t hear anything except extremely muffled voices, but then after a minute or two, three voices appeared.

  One was Dallas. The other two sounded like the men she had met at Dragonclaw. Harrison and the friendly one, Reno.

  She frowned. What could they possibly have been talking about? Her eyes widened as the conversation unfolded.

  Some of the parts were garbled, but there was more than enough for her to understand.

  They were talking about shifters, mercenaries, basilisks, tigers, and dragons. They were talking about the very things she was investigating!

  Like all of it was completely real.

  Mel knew that she shouldn’t listen, that she should delete the recording, but at the same time, they knew things that she didn’t. Maybe she could learn more by listening.

  The more she listened to the recording, the more she began to feel confused and lost. She knew that this wasn’t a conversation she was supposed to have heard, and it was true that she had stumbled onto it by accident, but she couldn’t help feeling slightly angry and betrayed.

  Dallas knew about everything that had been going on but had deliberately kept it from her. Possibly even hindered her search.

  Why?

  At that moment, however, Dallas stepped into the trailer, empty plate in hand. It looked like he’d come in to check on her, but his eyebrows furrowed at her angry expression.

  “So you’re a tiger, huh?” Mel blurted out, unable to hold back. She’d been searching for supernatural beings, him by her side all along. The irony.

  His eyes widened, and he just stood there, completely stunned.

  She took a deep breath, heart pounding, head spinning. “I heard you talking about it with your friend, Harrison. Accidentally recorded you. Actually, a tiger shifter is what it’s called, right?” She held up the recorder. “How many of you are there?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “I think just me.”

  So it had all been true. A small part of her hated the resignation in his voice, wanted him to tell her that he hadn’t been hiding things from her.

  Hadn’t been doing all this to keep an eye on her.

  But it looked like he had.

  And she’d fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.

  “What about Harrison?” she demanded. “Or Reno? Or the rest of your friends at Dragonclaw?”

  Mel would have been happy to have found this out earlier, but instead, they had all lied to her, especially him. It was different when people that were nice and friendly to her were all hiding this, knowing she was trying to discover it.

  Were they all laughing behind her back?

  Then again, they could transform into animals. Of course they wouldn’t go around shouting it from the rooftops. She wouldn’t either if she were a shifter just enjoying a quiet life out in the wilderness.

  But the betrayal still stung.

  “So did you think this was really funny?” she asked, confused. “Following me around when you knew the whole time?”

  Dallas looked stricken. He opened his mouth, then closed it for a second. It was a minute before he responded.

  “At first, it was to protect our secret,” he said. “But then I fell for you. I was going to tell you.”

  “Right.” Mel laughed frustratedly at that. “Tell me when? After I went home empty-handed after giving my all to this?” She waved a hand. “For all I knew, your other shifter buddies were the ones who broke into my apartment or cornered us that afternoon just to scare me off.”

  He shook his head. “No, we would never do that. But there are bad shifters, and they’re after you.”

  “Oh, so other shifters are after me?”

  Dallas nodded slowly.

  “Great,” she muttered, rubbing an eye, feeling tears of frustration begin to well up.

  He took a step closer. “I couldn’t tell you until I was sure.”

  “Sure about what?”

  “Sure about us.” He sighed. “The biggest rule of shifters is to never reveal ourselves except to our mate, our one and only. There are punishments if this rule is broken.”

  Part of her still couldn’t believe all of what she was hearing. Everything she had been looking into, all of it was real. And it had been right under her nose the whole time.

  She shook her head in amazement as all of the pieces finally began to fall into place. The whole world around her, everything that had been hidden before, began to make sense. The mysterious disturbances, the shapeshifting people.

  Dallas’s colossal strength.

  She could understand the shifter rule of never revealing oneself. After all, there were rules in the human world.

  Just the whole thing, all of it, felt like too much. It was too crazy to take in right now.

  And it made her wonder what, if anything, had really meant something to him. And wha
t had been just to distract her and keep her quiet.

  She decided to use all her fury and just focus on this story that everyone was determined to push her away from. She’d been harassed, pushed aside, and lied to at every turn just so he could keep this secret.

  A secret that needed to come out.

  “I need to go,” she said, moving to leave.

  But Dallas stepped in front of her, blocking the way and holding his hands up.

  “Please,” he said, his eyes pleading. “Come with me. Leave this behind you.”

  Mel shook her head. “I can’t. Can’t you see that? This is way bigger than either of us. And you have no right to tell me what to do when you were just keeping an eye on me for your precious secret.”

  “No, not true,” he replied adamantly. “You’re my everything. I meant what I said on the Ferris wheel. I want you. Forever.”

  She looked up into his warm amber eyes, seeing pain and desperation there. As much as she wanted to just fall into his arms and leave behind everything for him, she just couldn’t.

  This was all too much.

  “I-I can’t,” she replied, broken inside. “This isn’t about you or me now. It’s about the whole world. This is going to get out whether you like it or not. The fact that everyone is trying to stop me just means I shouldn’t let them.”

  Mel tried to step past him, but he wouldn’t budge.

  “I’m trying to protect you,” he said in a low growl. “Protect you from the people trying to stop you.”

  “That’s not your decision to make,” she retorted.

  He growled. “The hell it is.”

  She stood up to her full height. “I’m going to figure this out on my own.”

  Dallas slumped to the side slightly, looking torn. “At least let me be with you to make sure nothing happens.”

  “What, so you and the others at Dragonclaw can hide more things from me?” She shook her head. “I just can’t do it, Dallas.”

  As she looked up into his dejected eyes, she realized that, deep down, she still loved him. She still wanted him, and she could understand why he’d done what he did.

  But that didn’t make it right, nor did it make it any easier to reconcile the facts with her feelings.

  Heartbroken, she pulled all of her things together and stuffed them into her bag and threw it over her shoulder. Once she was done, she walked over and stared up at Dallas who was still blocking the door.

  “I’m going whether you like it or not, and you can’t stop me.”

  He took one last, lingering look at her, his eyes begging her to stay, but when he realized that she wouldn’t, he stepped aside and looked away, broken.

  Guilt and pain surged through her, but there was nothing to be done, so she stormed out of the trailer, back to the hotel parking lot where her rental car was sitting.

  She’d rented it after Trent had left, just in case. But she hadn’t thought she would actually need to use it. She’d thought that Dallas would be beside her until the end.

  She tossed her bag in the back seat and hopped in the front, then relaxed back against the headrest.

  Where did she go from here? Part of her wanted to run right back to Dallas’s trailer, and another wanted to go home, but she couldn’t. Not yet.

  As she was debating, her phone dinged in her pocket, and Mel pulled it out.

  It was from Sally, the woman who had seen the basilisk in town. Mel had gotten her number after the interview.

  S: I think the monster’s back! Something weird’s going on. Help!

  Eyes wide, she dropped her phone into the cup holder and put the car in gear, ready to head to the last place the basilisk had been seen, desperate for a lead.

  Anything to distract her from the sinking emptiness now that she and Dallas were broken up.

  Would she get there in time?

  20

  Dallas stared as Mel drove away in her rental car, driving down the slowly waking Main Street of Parson’s Creek.

  His tiger was broken. Broken at the sight of her leaving. Broken by the things he couldn’t control.

  If he’d just been a normal shifter… If she hadn’t been here trying to discover the very thing he needed to keep hidden…

  But life didn’t work that way. She was still his mate, even as the horrifying fact that he might never see her again rose to the forefront of his thoughts.

  Fuck the rules. Fuck Jasper and the Blackhearts.

  Fuck his past and the cruel fate that seemed intent on teasing him with the idea of happiness in his mate’s arms, only to have it yanked away from him.

  His fists clenched in rage, and he stood just as an unfamiliar scent caught his nostrils.

  Not cougar. Not any other kind of shifter. Unfamiliar but familiar. He whirled around and was surprised when he saw the huge, tattooed man from the other day standing in front of the trailer.

  Furious and at the end of his rope, Dallas strode toward the man. He had haphazardly shorn dark hair and a rough appearance made rougher by the long, intricate tattoo patterns that swirled up the length of his muscular arms, disappearing beneath a dirty shirt.

  “What the fuck do you want, and who the fuck are you, and why do you keep appearing around me?” Dallas growled, anger fueling his words as he came up to the man and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. Was he just another secret agent watching to make sure Dallas’s and Mel’s happiness got blasted to bits?

  The man, who was built more like Beck, the mountain dragon, than any other person Dallas had seen before, was utterly calm as Dallas yanked him.

  Then Dallas saw something he couldn’t fully comprehend.

  As he looked into the man’s eyes, he noticed two starkly different-colored irises peering at him with an unearthly glow.

  One glowed dark red, sinister and aware.

  The other glowed bright medium blue, calm and watching Dallas intently.

  And then sudden realization flooded Dallas just as the man’s scent finally flared with recognition.

  Earth. Rock. Fresh soil and crushed stone.

  A basilisk.

  “What?” The word escaped Dallas’s lips, and the man’s eyebrows turned down in response.

  “Human. Danger.” His words were harsh, rough like sandpaper, as if even speaking were unfamiliar to the creature.

  Dallas let the man go and stepped back, not sure how to make sense of any of this.

  He was looking at a basilisk. One of those titanic, prehistoric monsters that came out of the ground after rain. In human form. Walking around.

  So basilisks were shifters too?

  How had they never discovered this before?

  But even as Dallas’s brain tried to keep up with all the sudden, new information, the basilisk stepped forward, undeterred.

  “Help. Friend. Save,” he said with a rough growl that sounded like gravel. So basilisks could talk?

  But Dallas didn’t have time for curiosity, as a familiar voice called from somewhere behind him in an evil, singsong tone.

  “Oh, Killerrr, up and at ‘em!”

  Dallas turned to look over his shoulder just as Jasper appeared from a black SUV parked on the other side of the street.

  Dammit, why do things keep getting worse?

  He looked back toward where the basilisk had been standing just a few feet away.

  But he was gone.

  No scent. No footprints.

  Just… gone.

  But he didn’t have time to wonder where because Jasper was already making his way toward Dallas, flanked by five men who also smelled of cougar. Probably fellow assassins, if Dallas’s luck was any indicator.

  Dallas strode toward them, hoping they’d seen Mel leave a few minutes ago. Hopefully, she’d headed home, back to safety.

  Jasper hopped up onto the sidewalk, sneering at the trailer and brushing some invisible specks of dust off his tailored black coat. “So we going to do this the easy way or the hard way, Killer?”

  “She’s gone. W
hat more do you want?” Dallas replied.

  He waggled a finger imperiously. “Not according to my sources. In fact, if we’re lucky, she’s about to be shifter bait here in the next ten minutes. Which means I still have a promise to keep since you didn’t uphold your end of the bargain.” His grin widened. “I’ve fantasized about killing you.”

  Shifter bait? What on earth did that mean?

  He had to find Mel, fast.

  “Where is she?” Dallas growled furiously. The tiger in him would burst out at any second, right here on Main Street.

  Which, even at this time of day, was populated with a few pedestrians going about their day, fairly oblivious to the climactic events unfolding around them.

  Jasper shrugged. “The other side of town, way out in the desert. You’ll never reach her. Just thought you’d like to know she’s going to die a horrible death either way.”

  So near the last basilisk sighting?

  But was that the basilisk he’d just seen a moment ago or a different one?

  Nothing made sense.

  The only thing that mattered was getting to Mel.

  He’d tear apart anyone and anything that got in his way.

  “Honestly, Killer, you’re way too predictable. You never could give in to that murderous instinct. Always had to protect people, stand up for the other trainees even when they were just getting the punishments they deserved. And now this? Getting feelings for a human just because you were protecting her too? That’s a new low for you.” Jasper finished crossing the distance until he was standing only a few feet from Dallas.

  But Dallas could barely hear Jasper’s voice, as the sound of his tiger roaring inside became nearly defeating to his own ears.

  He’d never wanted to hurt. Or kill. Never wanted to fully give in to his animal or turn into the monster they’d always said he was.

  But if it meant protecting Mel from the very assholes who’d tried to break him as a kid?

  They’d see what a fucking monster really looked like.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Jasper said with a gleeful grin. “I know. I’ve always been a better planner than y—”

  Dallas’s booted foot flew forward, slamming into Jasper’s chest with full strength. With a screech, Jasper sailed backward across the street, flying horizontally until he hit a lamppost, bending it in half before the top of the post creaked and crashed onto the street.