Valentine's Day Tigers (The Holiday Shifter Mates Book 3)

by Kestra Pingree

  Lance missed him.

  They had never been separated for so long. They usually fought and had it all out in one go, but this wasn’t like every other time. This wasn’t even like when Yuri was sick because they had still been together. It turned out death wouldn’t be the thing to take Yuri away. Yuri was taking himself away.

  It was time to say something.

  Ash held fast and dug in their heels when they got Lance in front of Yuri. Lance couldn’t find any words. His jaw went slack, and he just took his brother in. He knew his brother like he knew the back of his hand, every tattoo, the color of his eyes down to the little flecks no one ever thinks about when describing someone’s eye color. Yuri was Lance’s twin, his other half—or so he thought. Did this mean they had outgrown each other? Was that a thing that could happen to twins?

  “Hey,” Yuri said as he pushed off the wall. “If you keep staring at me like that, I’m going to lock you in a chokehold until you pass out.”

  “Asshole.”

  “There we go.”

  Lance had a million things he wanted to say, and he couldn’t say any of them. So, he didn’t. He stepped forward, closing the small space between him and his brother. Yuri stiffened like he was expecting Lance to introduce his fist, but all Lance did was throw his arms around his brother and hug him as tightly as he could. Yuri expelled a rush of air and slapped Lance on the back a few times, sort of acknowledging his hug, but the slapping got more insistent the longer Lance held on.

  “Okay. Enough already,” Yuri said.

  But Lance didn’t let go. “God, I’m going to miss you, pain-in-the-ass brother. Will you at least check in once in a while? Once a week? Even once a month?”

  “I can probably handle that.”

  Lance didn’t care that everyone was watching. He didn’t care about anything other than memorizing his brother’s earthy scent all over again and hugging him hard enough to leave an impression of his warmth for years to come.

  Lance’s eyes burned. God, he was getting sick of that feeling. He was pretty sure he had cried more these last few months than he had in his entire life. He hated it.

  “You gonna let me go yet?” Yuri asked.

  “Can’t get away from me soon enough, huh?”

  “It’s not like that, Lance.”

  “Then what is it like? You’re suddenly leaving. You’ve always been impulsive, but this… this is—”

  “I finally have some direction. You should be happy.”

  “I never cared about that. Those are Gale’s words.”

  Yuri grabbed the back of Lance’s head and pressed his lips to Lance’s ear so only he would hear his next words. “You’re going to be fine, Lance. I’ve seen you with Ash. A day was all it took to see what you mean to each other.”

  “But what about you?”

  “I’m going to be fine, too.”

  Ash broke out of the almost-crowd surrounding the brothers; everyone was trying to give them some privacy, but it was obvious many were listening. Misty eyes were the most common sight in the Lodge as Ash wrapped their arms as far around both brothers as they could.

  “Come back and visit, Yuri,” Ash said.

  “You’ll wish I hadn’t. I’ll wreck the place.”

  “Shut up,” Lance growled. “You’ve already wrecked the place. What more could you do?”

  Mateo intruded next. He slugged Yuri’s arm and asked, “You sure about this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good luck, then. Beat Luc’s ass next time you see him for all the shit he’s done. Break free.”

  Yuri grinned. “You got it.”

  “And be careful.”

  Yuri rolled his eyes. “Okay, Austin.”

  “I told you to cut the shit out before Austin got here.”

  “Yeah, you and Lance always worried too much.”

  “You know that’s not going to stop.”

  Austin came over then and hooked his arm around Mateo’s waist. “I’m sorry for… well, for anything you felt I had against you. It wasn’t that. I just worried about Mateo, and sometimes you three would—”

  “Set yourselves on fire?” Ash asked.

  “Uhm, no,” Lance said. “That’s grade A Yuri right there. Mateo and I always had a little more sense than that.”

  “Yeah, like the time we broke the generator at the Lodge to sell off the parts to some psycho in Fairbanks,” Mateo added.

  “What?!” Gale roared. “That was your reason?”

  “The guy was weird. I wanted to see what would happen,” Yuri said. “He ended up trying to buy the parts off us for pennies, saying it was all he had and that we’d be doing this in the name of art. We gave him the stuff anyway, but I have no idea what the fuck he ended up doing with it. Pretty sure he had a few screws loose, but we got a tour of this shed he kept full of his unconventional junk art in the back of his house.”

  “Spirits.”

  “He was nice, though. Gave us hot chocolate and called us kids.”

  “We were twenty, not that old,” Lance reminded. “And Mateo was seventeen.”

  “Still, not kids.” Yuri cocked his head. “You know what’s crazy? You six,” he pointed out Gale, Cedar, Mateo, Austin, Lance, and Ash, “should form a club.”

  “Why?” Lance asked.

  “Because one after the other you’ve gotten mates for the holidays. Like, what the fuck is that all about? You’re now the Holiday Romance Club.”

  “Don’t like it,” Mateo growled.

  “It sounds terrible,” Austin agreed.

  Yuri shrugged.

  “Hate to break up this nice little chat after the Cold War has finally ended,” Cedar chimed, “but the Earth Alpha and her mate are landing soon. It’s time to go, Yuri.”

  The Valentine’s Day activities moved to where the fishing shanty sat along the Tanana River. The cubs who were too young for the dance came too. Then everyone took turns saying their goodbyes. Hugs, an exchange of words, handshakes, there was no shortage of those when it came to the permanent residents at least, members of the Toran Pack and Loike Clan.

  They all stood on a wide stretch of flat pebble-pocked land that eventually led into the water. Today, it would be used as a landing site for a helicopter. The helicopter could be heard now, blades spinning rapidly and sending out forceful winds that struck trees and picked up the snow weighing down their branches. Everyone stood safely away from the buffeting wind as the farewell came to an end.

  Soon after the helicopter landed, the engine cut out. The remnants of the warbling noise it had made caused Lance’s hearing to pulse, but it went away as soon as his attention was drawn to the Earth Alpha. She was tinier than he thought, much shorter than him and even Ash. And yet she, Rei, was one of the Celestial Alphas. Lance didn’t know what to make of it.

  Another shifter came out right after. He was the exact opposite of Rei. He was positively huge, likely even an inch taller than Gale. He smelled like a bear of some sort.

  “It’s good to see you again, Yuri,” Rei said and held out her delicate hand. It was like a bird’s wing.

  Yuri accepted her offer and gave one firm shake before letting go. “Yeah, likewise.”

  “This is my mate, Jasper.” She indicated the bear, who nodded his head rather than speak. “I hope you have the patience to learn everything you can about Terros Sight. The more you know, the better we’ll be able to utilize whatever connection Luc seems to have established with you.”

  “Yuri and patience?” Lance said. “Good luck with that.”

  “Hey, for once I’m trying to make a good impression,” Yuri said. But he held his hands at the back of his head, elbows extended, and swayed from side to side like he was bored already. Then the helicopter caught his eye and he stalked around it instead.

  “That has to fly you miles away. I wouldn’t mess with it.”

  “Lance, stop being such a fucking pill.”

  “Are you afraid of flying, Yuri?” Rei asked.

  �
��Nope. Haven’t done it in years and never in a helicopter, so hopefully it’ll be slightly interesting before it gets boring and I sleep the rest of the way there.” Lance could practically see his brother’s tail twitching. If he had been in his tiger form, it would have been.

  “Take care of him,” Cedar said. “He can be a handful.”

  “He might be the one to help us break through the Circle. Those Black Witches are connected to Luc, and they’ve been up to… something. We’ll take care of him,” Rei said. “Thank you for your willingness to help, Yuri.”

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s get moving then.” Rei signaled the helicopter pilot, and then she went back inside and got seated next to Jasper.

  Yuri headed for the helicopter’s open door too, but Lance grabbed his wrist. “Make sure you call, video, something.”

  “I will, okay? I promise.” Yuri rubbed his knuckles on top of Lance’s head, making his nearly white hair stand on end with the generated static electricity.

  Lance tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it stayed. If nothing else, Lance had to say this one last thing. He was certain Yuri already knew it, but he had to say it. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” Yuri said, and he didn’t tease. “Thanks for always looking out for me. I got better because of you.”

  “You got better because of Josh.”

  “Not like that, Lance. You never gave up on me. It wouldn’t matter if I was dealing with seizures and PWD now or not. I’d still be making this choice.”

  “I know that. The only thing that ever stopped you was the seizures that laid you up. And you’re wrong, Yuri. I did try to limit you and stop you from being so reckless even more because… because of a disability. I tried not to, but it was hard sometimes. You never did, though. If you wanted it bad enough, you took it. You never gave up on you.”

  Yuri grinned and hugged Lance so fiercely he lifted him off the ground. “Yeah, that too. But still. See you later, man.”

  “Bye, Yuri,” Lance managed to reply through squished lungs.

  Yuri let Lance go and climbed into the helicopter. He dropped onto his seat and the door closed moments after. Lance kept his eyes locked onto his brother as Yuri glanced out the window. Ash came to stand at Lance’s side and took his hand. He squeezed in reply, but he didn’t look away from his brother. Lance and Ash took one step backward and then another, until they backed up as far as they had to so the helicopter could take off.

  The helicopter’s rotor system got to work, sending another barrage of wind to everything around it. Lance shielded his eyes with one hand, and he kept looking. He looked and looked until he couldn’t see Yuri anymore and the helicopter disappeared into the quickly darkening sky above.

  It felt like a part of him was slowly tearing with the growing distance, but it wouldn’t rip off. He stayed together, in one piece, even though the twin who had been half of him, more than half of him, for so long, was leaving.

  Lance wasn’t a shadow anymore. Maybe he never really was. Maybe the real reason Yuri left was to prove that.

  Lance was solid, flesh and bone, and he would be just fine.

  EPILOGUE

  IT WAS TIME TO VIDEO chat with Lance. It’d been a week like Yuri promised, and he missed his brother anyway. It was weird not seeing him every day. But it had also been just fine. There was plenty at Trinity to keep Yuri busy—most of the time. His new teacher was literally everything he could have ever asked for.

  Yuri logged on to one of the computers in one of the communal rooms at Trinity HQ. It was a big-ass building with millions of windows, and Yuri had gotten lost in it more times than he could count already, but he was getting the hang of it. Also, this place, Talepeaks, was a shifter run and owned city. It couldn’t be reached by car, and it had strict flight regulations. The security was insane.

  This communal room had several little cubicles for privacy, and each one was equipped with a computer, a wide-screen monitor, a webcam, headphones, whatever. It could be used as a work station, for recreation (sort of, Trinity had a strict protocol for just about everything it felt like), graphic designing, programming, and so on. Yuri could still hear others talking outside of his chosen area, but he couldn’t make out the words. Privacy.

  He opened the Portal in a window and logged on there too. He had a notification from Lance already. Lance was his only contact right now, but he’d probably end up with more eventually. Or not. He wasn’t big on communicating this way, but he’d do it for his closest people.

  Yuri clicked on the icon of his brother and Ash. Figures he’d use one of those couple photos, Yuri mused. Lance was a hopeless romantic, and Yuri had never realized it. No one had. Hell if his brother wasn’t good at hiding things, but they’d always fester and get out eventually. That was how Lance worked.

  The message Lance left said he was ready when Yuri was. It was sent five minutes ago, the exact time they were supposed to be chatting. Yuri called and enabled video, and Lance picked up a second later.

  “Hey!” Lance answered after one ring. He was beaming. He looked better than Yuri had ever seen him. This was Lance at his happiest. His eyes seemed bluer than normal, darker maybe. They were less icy.

  Yuri grinned. “Hey yourself.”

  Ash smashed their cheek against Lance’s, smiling with the best of them. “Yuri, how’s it going?”

  “It’s going.”

  “Fun or boring?” Lance asked.

  “Both. If it wasn’t for all the shitty Terros Sight training, there’d be plenty of trouble to be had.”

  “Maybe they’re just trying to keep you contained.”

  Yuri shrugged. “The training is getting somewhere, so who knows. Went through a couple teachers already since Jasper and Rei are busy and important. Now I’ve got Zoe.”

  “Is she hot?”

  “Hot is an understatement.”

  “Don’t tell me you already slept with her.”

  Yuri shrugged and a lazy smile rested on his lips. “What can I say? I’m smooth.”

  “And things aren’t weird yet? You have to keep seeing her since she’s your teacher, right?”

  “Well, I nailed her before she was assigned as my teacher. The night I first spent here.”

  “On Valentine’s Day?”

  “Oh, my God.” Ash laughed. “That means you’re part of the club, Yuri. What did you call it? The Holiday Romance Club!”

  “I fucked her. She’s not my mate, and there’s no romance.”

  “But have you slept with her more than once?” Lance asked.

  “Yes.”

  “New record.”

  “Whatever. Zoe is cool. I guess we’re as much a thing as anyone, but we don’t do dinner dates and that shit. Dinner with Zoe turns into a food fight. I think everyone here is getting sick of us. We also have secret conversations all the time whenever there are boring Trinity meetings, so that’s nice.”

  “Secret conversations?”

  Yuri signed without speaking. He and Lance hadn’t used sign language much since his PWD went the way of the dodo, so Lance was taken by surprise, but he got it.

  “Zoe’s deaf?”

  “Yeah. Also, she’s wicked fast. I challenged her to a race when I was ready to flip my shit with all the sitting around and Terros Sight training. I couldn’t figure out what animal she was, so that was the deal. We shift, we race, and I fall on my fucking face.”

  “You’re a real poet, Yuri,” Ash said. “It sounds like Zoe was made for you.”

  “She’s fun.”

  Lance chuckled. “So, what kind of animal is she?”

  “A flying squirrel.”

  Lance’s chuckle turned into gasping laughs. “She’s absolutely perfect for you.”

  “How are things for you two?” Yuri asked.

  Lance wrapped his arm around his mate and kissed them on the cheek. “Good. I feel like we’ve figured things out.”

  Ash smiled softly, and their green eyes shimmered. “Yeah
, we’re good. Every day I spend with you gets better too. I like knowing you like this, without either of us hiding. It’s… it’s perfect.” Ash kissed Lance on the lips, soft and lingering. Their lips touched lightly, on and off, and Yuri wondered if they planned on going at this for hours.

  He rolled his eyes at the disgusting display of affection. He could deal with romance as much as he needed to, but hell if he didn’t gag whenever a couple sweet-kissed for too long in a movie or whatever. When he and Zoe kissed, it was foreplay and nothing else. That was how he liked it. Kissing like Ash and Lance did just felt weird to him.

  “Have you guys heard about the reporter?” Yuri asked. Finally, the two stopped kissing and took his bait.

  “Reporter?” Lance asked.

  “Oh, maybe it’s a no-no, but whatever, too late to take it back now. I thought Cedar and Gale might have said something about it.”

  “Spill, Yuri.”

  “Some chick named Haley Buchanan got shifter footage of some big shot named Cedric Snow.”

  “I’ve heard of him,” Ash interjected. “He’s a shifter?”

  “Indeed. Haley’s just an amateur human reporter, but she won’t let it go. She’s got copies of the video in who knows how many places. Trinity’s combed the web, but she’s smart. She’s got physical copies, and likely digital too, stored on her own local devices. Trinity’s kind of at a loss. She’s demanding to meet with the Celestial Alphas, and they’re actually considering it, or they’ve agreed to it. I don’t really know, but it’s been one hell of a drama around here. Guess the Celestial Alphas think they could use this tenacious human on their side.”

  “What? Wow.” Lance raised his eyebrows. “Does this mean shifters are… coming out?”

  “Could be.”

  “God, I hope not. I can’t even imagine what that would be like.”

  “Well, that’s sort of Trinity’s end goal, you know. They just want to do it in their own time and in their own way. Maybe they think this chick is the beginning of that. C’mon, Lance. It could be fun.”