Tiger's Claim

by Celia Kyle

  Cole grabbed the lapels of the nearest man’s jacket and shoved him into his friend. Both men tumbled to the ground—down but not out. That small break was long enough for him to reach Stella. He snared her wrist and hauled her close, then shoved her behind him while the humans recovered. “Stay out of the way.”

  “You’re bleeding!”

  Cole grunted. He didn’t think he had to reply. The red blood staining his white button-down shirt was pretty fucking obvious.

  “You’re bleeding?” Grant’s rapid typing followed his question. “I’ve ordered a med team to meet you.”

  “I’m fine.” He thrusted the words past gritted teeth.

  He wasn’t fine. His side burned as if acid had been dumped into the wound. It scorched him through to his bones, and he wondered how far he’d ripped the cut open.

  “We need to get out of here.” Stella tugged on his arm. “Walters knows what I am.”

  Cole ducked the guard’s next punch and followed it with two uppercuts to the human’s torso. Then he straightened and threw a hook that connected with the man’s jaw. His attacker’s head snapped and down he went, out like a light.

  That left him with one.

  He ducked a punch and grabbed the human’s hand, twisting his arm behind him and holding tight. The man in his grasp screamed, and Cole twisted just a little harder. He hadn’t broken the man’s arm. Yet.

  “Team is close. Move your ass, agent,” Grant growled.

  Cole was gonna get him for that “agent” remark later. The only one who called them “agents” was Birch, and that was only if they’d fucked up royally.

  Cole still had this under control.

  Well, maybe not. James Walters burst from the building, gun in hand. Cole quickly spun and used the guard’s body as a shield. One, two, three…James Walters shot and killed the man in his arms, stepping closer with each bullet.

  All right, new plan.

  The moment Walters was close enough, Cole shoved the dead body at the Unified Humanity leader. He struggled beneath the deadweight while Cole grabbed Stella’s hand and dove into the thick foliage that lined the walkway. He dashed through the trees, running to get deeper within the camouflaging greenery. He couldn’t let the humans get him and Stella now.

  Walters shot randomly into the darkness, tree trunks exploding to their left and right. No bullets struck them, but they were way too fucking close.

  Cole jerked on Stella’s arm and shoved her in front of him, forcing her to run ahead so he could shield her with his bulk. He refused to let her be hurt—not if he could help it.

  More shots whizzed past…

  He grunted with the impact, a bullet slamming into his back near the stab wound. A new edge of pain joined the acidic burning. This one had a sharpness that felt like broken glass flowing through his body.

  Cole managed to remain on his feet, continuing to urge Stella on while he struggled for breath. The bullet had to have clipped a lung. He tried to inhale and coughed, and the familiar taste of his own blood coated his tongue.

  Normally, he could sustain a lot of damage and his tiger would help him heal almost as quickly as he was injured. Except these wounds weren’t normal. A poisoned blade, poisoned bullets…

  “Fuck, it hurts,” he rasped.

  “Keep your ass moving, Cole,” the wolf growled in his ear.

  “Stabbed and shot, asshole.” Snarling at Grant kept his mind off his injuries. “Poisoned.” A rough rasp. “Gimme a distraction.”

  Something to get the UH assholes looking elsewhere.

  “Light it up.”

  Cole stared at the sky, ears attuned to what was to come. It didn’t take long for Grant to set everything off in a blaze of fire. Boom. Boom. Boom…

  The explosions surrounded the island, Cole’s little presents scattered around Serene Isle. He waited for the yacht to go. It’d be the largest explosion of them all, and then…The ground shook with the bomb’s intensity.

  Ka-mother-fucking-boom.

  But he didn’t get a chance to enjoy his handiwork. The feel of that sharpened glass imbedded in his flesh stole more of his strength. A bone-deep numbness crept through him, and he stumbled, grasping a tree trunk to keep from falling to his knees. He grunted with the bright flourish of pain when he hit the ground and winced at Stella’s shout. He would do anything to protect her from harm.

  “Cole?” Her panicked whisper seemed muffled. “Cole!” Stella dropped to her knees at his side. “What’s going on?” She shook him. “You can’t die on me, Cole.”

  Cole snorted. She didn’t have control over life and death.

  “Agent, get your ass up and moving.” That rumble didn’t belong to Grant but to Birch. The wolf must have patched their team into the com. His voice pulsed with dominance and aggression. It demanded he obey, and Cole was too hurt to give a damn.

  “Fuck. Off.” He wheezed out a chuckle.

  “No, you fuck off,” Stella snarled, and the stinging scent of her anger overrode the tang of his own blood.

  He coughed, hacking up more blood, and he couldn’t stop to tell her his words were meant for Birch.

  Grant tried to give him another order. “Get off your ass—”

  Stella used her body as leverage to haul him upright. “Tell me the damn exit point or I’ll kill you myself.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Stella wouldn’t kill him. Not really. At least not yet. Maybe after he was healed. Then it was on, and nothing would stop her.

  Her blood surged with power and a soul-deep need to keep Cole safe. That rush of adrenaline gave her the strength to duck beneath his biceps and lift him. She grunted and growled, slipping beneath his weight for a moment before she got a good hold on him. The tiger had to have at least a hundred pounds on her. The ass was going on a diet after he recovered.

  “C’mon, Cole. Help me out here.” She wrapped her arm around his waist and gripped his wrist with the other. “I’m gonna get your ass to your team or die trying.”

  “No.” The sound was so low it was nearly lost in the human shouts.

  “You don’t get a choice in the matter.” Stella held tight and took a step, thankful her jaguar was able to help her. If she hadn’t had an inner cat…

  “Tell me which way to go.” They neared another walkway, the human’s yells growing louder with each step. She fought to block out the bellows and gunshots—the sounds of being hunted—so she could hear Cole.

  “North.”

  North. Okay, she could go north. If she knew the direction. “Your options are left, right, or straight.”

  Cole grunted. “Straight.”

  She spied the path and paused, glancing left and right while listening for any guards. “Can Grant tell us if anyone is coming?”

  Because that’d be super helpful.

  “Go.”

  Hopefully that order came from the wolf. She hauled Cole across the asphalt and deep into the opposite side. Not two seconds after they hit the trees, the heavy thud of at least ten guards raced past them.

  “High five to Grant,” she whispered, and moved on.

  Stella stumbled over roots and fallen branches, choosing the clearest path, but even that was littered with obstacles. Her toes hit a rock, and she lost her balance, tripping forward. She scrambled to remain upright. Cole’s weight shifted, and she gritted her teeth while she battled to hold on to him.

  “Have I mentioned that you need to go on a diet?” Sweat peppered her brow, body heating up the harder she worked. “Seriously. Twenty pounds, maybe thirty. Anything would help.”

  Cole laughed, but it quickly changed to a coughing wheeze.

  “Don’t laugh at me, asshole.” She skirted a large tree stump. “You may be sexy, but I’m serious. Lose fifty pounds if this is going to become a habit.”

  That was when the wheeze turned into a wet rattle and the scent of his blood grew stronger in her nose. The clouds parted and allowed moonlight to cast a soft glow across their path. Just enough fo
r her to glance at Cole and watch as blood bubbled from his lips.

  So not good.

  She dragged him another few feet, pausing beside a thick tree trunk, and let his weight gradually slide from her. She lowered him until he sat on the leaves, back resting against the palm tree.

  She shook his shoulder. “Cole? Hey, sexy, I need you to shift. Hot stuff, I’m totally down with days of bedroom-boom-boom if you’ll just grow some fur, okay?”

  Cole’s mouth formed one word. “No.”

  She grasped his chin and forced his head up. “Wrong answer. You shift, or we’re gonna get snatched up by UH. Personally, that doesn’t seem like a good time, but maybe you’re into that. Who knows?”

  His lips twitched at her comment. So at least his conscious mind was in there despite the pain. Not that it helped if he wasn’t going to do as she asked.

  “Maybe you didn’t know, but…” The heavy tromp of boots warned her that other UH guards were still hunting them. “But the girl is always right in a relationship, and the guy is always wrong. It’s a thing.”

  Stella’s cat snarled and growled at her, scraping her from just beneath her skin. The cat’s claws pushed against her human confines, forcing red lines to appear along her forearms. The cat wanted out. The cat was determined to do what Stella couldn’t.

  Force Cole’s shift.

  She mentally shook her head. Cole was so much stronger than her. So proud and fierce. There was no way a jaguar could overpower a tiger. No. Fucking. Way.

  The cat huffed, its own version of a laugh, followed by a screeching snarl. No, her jaguar couldn’t overpower a tiger in the jungle. But an injured tiger who couldn’t carry its own weight? He couldn’t help but obey her.

  Was this something she wanted to do, though? When he realized what she’d done to him she’d lose his trust.

  But he’d still be alive. She hoped.

  The stomping steps seemed to draw closer—her time nearly at an end.

  Stella leaned forward and spoke against Cole’s right ear. “Grant, I hope you’re listening and can hear me. I’m going to force his shift.” She suppressed the sob tearing its way up her throat. “Otherwise we’ll die.”

  Unified Humanity would see to it.

  She released Cole’s head and took one shuffling step back. She breathed deep, seeking her center, before she popped the mental lock on her cat’s cage. The animal crouched behind its mental bars, claws deep in the ground and muscles taut. It waited to pounce—to burst through Stella’s skin. She wrapped her fingers around the lock. She took one more deep breath and held it, steeling herself for what was to come. Then she tore the steel from the latch and allowed the door to swing wide.

  The jaguar didn’t hesitate to rip Stella to shreds. Her bones snapped and re-formed, her muscles stretched, and her skin burned. Her dress shredded with her changing shape. Couture was replaced by fur. Manicured fingernails were now deadly claws. Milky pale skin now sported deep yellow with black rosettes.

  The agony…It stole her breath, set her nerves aflame, and then wrenched a pained yowl from her feline maw. The cat voiced its displeasure.

  At being suppressed.

  At being attacked.

  At its mate’s injuries.

  She’d examine that last thought later. For now she had a male to manage.

  The jaguar crouched in front of the damaged shifter, eyes missing nothing, nose gathering every hint of his scent. Her ears captured sounds she hated. Not the Unified Humanity guards or James Walters. No, it was the deep rattle in Cole. She saw the blood. She scented the poison. She heard his lungs attempting to keep him alive yet failing.

  Stella’s beast reached out for him, paw to his head, and forced him to look at her. She snarled and snapped her teeth close to his face, threatening the big cat. Next a rumbling growl escaped her chest, giving the tiger another warning. She whacked his head with her right paw and then her left, claws sheathed. For now.

  Then one paw went to his chest, large paw flush against his pectoral, and she flexed her toes. Claws appeared for a split second and then sank into Cole’s flesh. She released a long, low hiss at the same time, daring the beast inside Cole to stop her.

  Tiger eyes flashed to hers, pure amber with wide, dark irises. A sprinkling of orange fur rippled across his cheeks. He gripped her cat’s ankle with one large hand and exposed a single fang. His hold tightened, and instead of releasing him, she dug her nails deeper.

  Come on, big kitty. Stop me.

  Cole hissed at her in return, the threatening sound turning into a roar when Stella grasped his calf with another paw. She didn’t claw him as deep on his leg, just enough to draw blood and add to his pain.

  Sure, hurting him when he was already hurt seemed counterintuitive, but her actions gave him a target. A target a human couldn’t defeat with bare hands, but a tiger…A tiger could destroy her.

  Easily.

  Cole’s other hand went to the paw attacking his leg, that grip punishing as well.

  “Let me go, Stella.” The low growl rumbled through the air. Her cat’s first instinct was to obey the stronger predator, but she let his order wash over her and off her back as if it were a suggestion.

  She leaned forward, giving her front paws more of her wait. The feline version of “make me.”

  The orange fur peppering his face spread, gliding over his cheeks and down his neck to disappear beneath the fabric of his dress shirt. She imagined it slithering over his arms, and it finally appeared to cover his fingers.

  But that’s where the shift stopped.

  Not enough.

  With Cole’s gaze locked on to hers, she gave no hint of her next action. She stared at him, cat’s eyes holding him captive until she…

  She darted forward, ducked beneath his chin, and wrapped her wide jaws around his neck. She growled low, the rumble transferring from her to him. Her fangs dug into his throat just shy of piercing his skin, but it wouldn’t take much. She had him—the jaguar victorious over the tiger. Unless the tiger got off his ass.

  Holding him in place as she was, her body connected with his, she caught the first hints of his shift. It started with the crack of one bone and the snap of the next. The rip and rending of muscle and tendons while he fought through the pain and threat of death.

  She knew it hurt—injuries and poison making the experience a hundred times worse—but at least he’d be alive. His tiger would heal the worst of it.

  Stella withdrew her claws and lifted her maw from him, stepping back just enough to give him room to shift. Then she watched his transition while listening for the humans.

  Bloodstained skin became blood-soaked fur. The black and white of his tux ripped and tore at his joints, buttons flying while his transformation destroyed the cloth. He shook and yanked on the jacket, pants, and shirt while he kicked his shoes aside. The tattered remnants of his tux clung to his orange-and-black-striped body.

  But at least he was in his orange-and-black-striped body.

  Cole soon stood on four legs and swung his head toward her, opened his mouth, and hissed at her. If Stella had more sense, she would have been scared. But compared to the mass of UH members hunting them, Cole’s tiger was as threatening as a housecat.

  Stella snapped her teeth at Cole and hissed in return, then jerked her head in the direction they’d been traveling. She propped him up with her own body, letting him lean his eight-hundred-pound bulk on her hundred-seventy-pound frame. Then wished she could talk to him telepathically. She’d remind him about his diet.

  They got moving, their steps slow but steady now. Blood no longer dripped in their wake, but that didn’t mean Cole was healed. Moving as fast as they could, they shuffled another two dozen feet until the shelter of trees disappeared. Now they stood in front of the eight-foot-high-wall—a hella-high barrier between them and freedom. She gulped and stared at the top, praying that her jaguar still had enough juice to help her out.

  Cole was big. She was small. That wall was high as a
motherfucker, and she was not.

  The Unified Humanity guys trailing them in the woods seemed to be closing in, and she had to figure out how to get them over this blockade. Then the echoes of pursuit were overwhelmed by a wave of bullets. Someone was shooting from the other side of that wall, the pop, pop, pop of guns followed by shouts of agony and fear.

  Then…PraiseJesushallelujahamen…She heard roars.

  Two wolf howls, different yet similar. She doubted Grant would abandon his post handling tech, which meant Pike and Declan were on the way. Scratches and scrapes came from the other side of the wall. The rustling of trees and snapping of branches joined the sounds. After that came a familiar voice from above.

  “Someone call for an Uber?” The male’s words were garbled, and when she looked up, she saw why—his face was half shifted into a wolf. Declan hopped over the wall as if it didn’t exist, and he landed in a crouch at their side. “Damn.” The werewolf inspected Cole with a sweeping glance and looked to her. “Can you partially shift and help me get him up and over? Then follow?”

  Stella nodded, an odd movement for a cat, and prodded her beast. The jaguar needed to step aside so she could become the horror-film version of a shifter, a perverted mix of beast and woman. She shoved the transition through her body as quickly as she could, some of her fur receding while paws turned into fierce claw-tipped hands. Her snout receded, but fangs remained. Fur shortened but refused to leave entirely.

  Now balanced on two legs, she reached for Cole, grasping him carefully. “Be careful. He’s been stabbed and shot. The knife was dipped in poison. I made him shift, but…”

  Maybe she’d waited too long.

  “Pass him up.” Another male voice, and she looked up to see Pike peering over the edge.

  With her help, the two men maneuvered Cole’s nearly dead weight with ease, getting him up and over the wall in no time.

  Then Declan focused on her. “Let’s go, kitty. Not leaving your ass behind.”

  He didn’t give her a chance to reply. He simply grabbed her half-shifted ass around the waist and tossed her as if she weighed nothing. She settled on the top of the wall with a grunt, then swung her leg over and hopped down. She landed in a crouch beside Pike and Cole.