by RJ Blain
“I know this suite has two bathrooms, Anatoly. Get cleaned up and dressed. Between Todd, myself, and the Secret Service agents in the hallway who are itching for a fight, there won’t be any problems.” Mayor Longfellow made a shooing gesture until the tiger shifter snarled and stalked off, spewing curses. “He needs to bite himself a mate before he kills somebody.”
Todd snorted. “Biting is a wolf thing. Tigers do the face rubbing and attempted mauling thing.”
“They bite, too. Gabriel’s always complaining how my daughter keeps reinforcing her bite mark on him. His lionesses find it amusing. But you’re right. They do rub faces, too.”
“And the mauling?”
“I’m trying to avoid thinking about any mauling my daughter may or may not be involved with.”
I listened, intrigued by their discussion. Tigers bit, too? I was aware of wolves biting to establish their claim on a mate, but I hadn’t heard any rumors about tigers. Wolves had a reputation of taking mates, willing or not.
Todd chuckled. “That’s the only thing tiger species have in common. They get rough when it’s time to mate. Personally, I think it’s ridiculous. Why waste so much energy fighting? Bengals make the most sense to me. Runs Against Wind is a Siberian, according to Henry.”
“If anyone can identify a Siberian, it’d be Henry. Where is he, anyway?”
“Overseeing meal preparations. Cleo’s getting medication.”
Mayor Longfellow nodded before gesturing to Todd’s throat, which was ringed with the shadowy promise of a bruise. “That’s going to be spectacular later. You’re all right?”
“I’ll be fine. The lacerations healed when I shifted. The bruises will go away soon enough. Thanks, Runs Against Wind. I owe you.”
I turned my head and refused to meet the stallion’s gaze.
“They went for Anatoly first?”
“I didn’t have much warning. If the dart had hit Anatoly instead of his horse, I don’t think he would have had a chance to react before he went down. His horse went down pretty quick. I don’t know what they were using, but it worked fast. I would’ve gone down fast, too—and maybe broken my neck like his horse.”
The door opened, and Henry pushed in a service cart. The smell of fresh blood hit my nose, and I opened my mouth to taste the scent. “Speaking of Snapper, I did ask someone to get a blood sample to find out what was used. Cleo will handle the identification. That’s far more his specialty than mine. No problems?”
Todd shook his head. “None.”
“Good. Anatoly and Gentry are showering? You feed her. I’m going to check on them both.” Without waiting for an answer, Henry headed deeper into the suite.
“Bossy mystic,” the stallion muttered, heading to the cart, removing the cloth cover to reveal several large metal bowls. My nose informed me they were filled with meat, and I licked my fangs. The instant the first bowl came in reach, I snatched a piece of meat and swallowed it. Todd set the bowl in front of me, and I wrapped my paws around it and pulled it closer.
Maybe when I wasn’t quite so hungry, I’d be more concerned with eating like a civilized being. I took care to avoid choking in my haste to get as much meat down my throat as possible.
“She’s definitely a polite eater compared to Anatoly,” the mayor commented, taking a few discreet steps away from me. “And a great deal less aggressive.”
“She has manners, unlike him,” Todd grumbled.
“Clearly.”
“Are you soiling my pristine reputation and manners again?” Anatoly stepped through the archway into the entry, adjusting the cuffs of a dress shirt. A dark jacket was draped over his shoulder, and the mystic lights gleamed on his polished dress shoes. “Henry’s with Gentry. I told him I’d bite him if he didn’t leave me alone. Gentry’s probably a bit stiff but should be all right. Old bears get grumpy when exercised.”
“Anatoly,” the grizzly in question growled, joining us in the foyer wearing a towel around his waist. Muscles tensed and flexed beneath his skin.
“What? It’s true. Anyway, she’s going to need clothes. Once she’s eaten, I’ll have Henry check to see if it’s safe to induce another shift.” Anatoly inspected the cart, checked my bowl, and took it away, replacing it with a full one. He dumped the few scraps I hadn’t eaten yet on top. “Henry? This isn’t going to do more than keep her from mauling us.”
“The kitchen’s preparing to feed us all an early dinner. I was informed she could eat like a civilized human with the rest of us,” the mystic replied, returning to the entry. “She’ll be fine to shift. Cleo’s gotten the medications he needs, so he’s in the kitchen overseeing everything. I believe he means to add the medications directly to her dinner. Gentry, Ferdinand’s here. He found your sword and brought it.”
Mayor Longfellow glanced at me, frowned, and headed for the door. “I’ll take care of him.”
While Gentry growled, the mayor ignored the grizzly’s wordless complaint and left the suite.
Henry turned to Todd. “Go make yourself useful. You have clothes that should fit her. Fetch.”
Lifting my head, I stared at the mystic, chuffing at his fearlessness. Todd blew air in a huff, shook his head, and obeyed.
“And to think people claim shifters are frightening. Mystics are the ones who hold the leashes.” Anatoly chuckled and nudged my bowl with his foot. “Eat.”
I bit him, held his ankle in my teeth, and growled, not caring if I got blood on his dress slacks. Clutching the bowl with my paws, I unsheathed my claws and tapped the metal with them.
“This again? I’m going to have to change my clothes,” Anatoly complained.
“That’s not how you’re supposed to bite him if you want to claim him as your territory.” Todd halted at the door long enough to point at Anatoly’s neck. “You’re supposed to go for the throat or shoulder. Neck’s better; makes your mark visible and difficult for him to hide it. You want to bite him hard enough he bleeds without killing him. Not killing him is important. He’s no use to you if you kill him during your claim.”
I chuffed, released Anatoly, and turned most of my attention to my food, wondering if my first mark still remained on his stomach—and if I wanted to add a second.
He tempted me.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Anatoly took me to his bedroom; his scent filled my nose, both fresh and old. He closed the door behind him and sighed. “I’m sorry.”
Uncertain of what he had to be sorry for, I stared at him in silent questioning.
Instead of answering me, he knelt in front of me, cupped my face in his hands, and forced me to shift. Pain stabbed through me, and what started as a roar emerged as a whimper. I ended up sprawled on the floor, shuddering.
“I need to check your back,” Anatoly murmured, and he stroked his hand along my shoulders before trailing his fingers down my spine. I shivered at his touch, tense in anticipation of pain. The occasional ache of a bruise accompanied the warmth of his hand. “Better than I thought. You’re healing faster than before. Bruises, but the muscle and skin look whole.”
“Small blessings,” I croaked.
“Your voice, on the other hand, sounds even worse.” Anatoly stood, whipped the blanket off his bed, and dropped it on me. “Gentry and Todd stole my extra bathrobes, so I’m afraid that’ll have to do unless you want to wear my clothes.”
I tested my luck and lurched upright, wrapping the blanket around me. “You’re all right?”
“Worried about me?”
I wanted to deny it, but I clenched my teeth together so I wouldn’t lie. Enough lies littered my life. If I wanted to build a life for myself, I needed to start somewhere. Acknowledging my worry wasn’t a great start, but it was something. “When I didn’t see you, I thought you’d been taken. I was worried.”
I still worried. I frowned, staggered to my feet, and made it far enough to sit on the bed. How long before I confessed the truth? Could I?
The guilt of having already marked him once dug a
t me and refused to leave me in peace.
I swallowed. “They wanted Todd alive.”
“You’re certain?”
“Certain enough. They could have killed him. They roped him. They wanted to subdue him.”
“And you?”
Shrugging my shoulders woke the lingering ache from my captivity. “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking about it.”
Anatoly sat beside me. “You were too busy trying to protect Todd.”
“Right.”
“You slipped, you know.”
My entire body chilled. “What?”
“No one dives head first into danger like you did without having a damned good reason. You’re not Gentry, who has known Todd for decades. They fight, they bicker, and they’re rivals in every sense of the word. They’re brothers in all ways but blood, too, but don’t let either one of them hear you say that. Gentry diving into the fray makes sense. But you? No. You have no reason. You slipped.”
“Gentry told me to go with him,” I snapped, a mix of fear and apprehension cramping my muscles.
“You went straight to Todd, you rode him like you knew him, and you put your life on the line for him.”
I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong, and my breath caught in my throat. At least I could rely on the truth to protect me. “I couldn’t find you in the crowd. I looked.”
Anatoly’s eyes narrowed. “So you would have gone for me first if you had seen me?”
Something about the way he asked the question annoyed a growl out of me. At a loss for what to say, I glared at him.
“He’s a stallion. If you pick him, you will constantly fight for his attention. You will have to fight daily to keep your mark on him. He will erase it every night, because he is what he is. He can’t resist that part of his nature.”
The implication I wanted Todd when I knew full well we weren’t compatible annoyed me into baring my teeth and snarling, “How is what I do any of your business?”
Anatoly bared his teeth back at me. “I want it to be my business.”
“Maybe I’m just a nice person and saw he was in trouble and needed help. Did that ever cross your mind?”
The way he blinked made me think he hadn’t considered that as an option. “You ran your sword through someone’s eye.”
“That doesn’t make me a not-nice person. If he hadn’t gone after Todd, I wouldn’t have had to stick a sword in his eye!”
“Stabbing someone in the eye doesn’t make you a nice person,” he pointed out.
“What should I have done? Hit him with the flat of the blade, clapped my hand over my mouth, and apologized for hitting him? Grow up. What sort of predator are you?”
“He’s a jealous one,” Todd said on the other side of the door. “You two are yelling, in case you hadn’t noticed. And if you must know, Nate, when she decided to use me as a mode of transportation, it was ultimatum style. She gave me a ‘I will end you if you even think of bucking me off’ look. I’m pretty sure she would’ve followed through, too. If anything, you should be defending me.”
My face burned. “That’s true.”
Anatoly rubbed his brow. “Go away, Todd.”
“But it’s so entertaining listening to you try to dress down a tigress. I want to find out if she kills you or bites you. If she kills you, I’ll need to have a proper explanation for the Clan Council. If she bites you, I’m going to leave the explanations to you, but respectfully ask to be in attendance for the session. Also, you might be interested to know Henry grabbed Gentry’s sword and jabbed me with it, informing me he’d ram it right through my kidney if I didn’t tell you it’s time for dinner.”
Anatoly groaned. “Henry’s stabbing you right now, isn’t he?”
“It’s not comfortable, Nate.”
“We’re going to continue this discussion later,” Anatoly growled, striding to the door. He yanked it open, grabbed something, and tossed it in my direction. I caught the bundle before realizing it was clothing. “Bathroom is through that door. If you aren’t showered and dressed in twenty minutes, I’m coming for you.”
I hissed, flipped a rude gesture at him, and got up to slam the door. “You come after me, and I’ll kick your ass into next week, you insufferable freak!”
Anatoly roared through the door at me, and I roared back before spinning around and giving the door a kick.
“Men,” I snarled.
Todd’s taste in clothing hadn’t changed, and he either guessed my size, Henry had told him, or he remembered. Anatoly’s implications made me worry Todd remembered. The tiger was right; I had slipped.
Wearing skimpy purple lingerie beneath the white blouse and violet ankle-length skirt annoyed me so much I deliberately took longer than twenty minutes to shower and dress just to lure Anatoly into the room. The tiger would survive a pummeling, and he needed to learn I could take care of myself, even unarmed and barefoot.
He didn’t leave me waiting long, storming in while I waited to ambush him.
My foot met his face, and to make sure he remembered later, I rammed my fist into his gut. When the two hits didn’t drop him, I snarled a few curses, slapped my hands to his shoulders, and shoved him as hard as I could out of the room. While his feet slid back, I didn’t manage to knock him over.
“If you’re going to kick my ass into next week, you’re going to have to try a little harder than that.”
I roared in his face, putting every bit of strength I had in the sound.
All I did was make him smile. “You’ve gotten quite good at that, even with your sore throat. Very impressive. Are you finished?”
I panted, my breath rasping. “I’ve only gotten started.”
“Do I get a turn?”
“N—”
Anatoly hooked his leg around mine, tangling in my skirt, and jerking forward enough to unbalance me. I twisted to catch the doorframe and free my leg from his. Grabbing hold of my waist, he pulled me against him, his laughter soft and low. “I like your choice of clothes, Todd. Makes her so easy to catch.”
“She’s going to kill you,” the stallion predicted.
I had no idea how Anatoly had pinned my arms to my sides or turned me around, but my back pressed to his chest. Part of me enjoyed his warmth and the rumbling feel of his chuckles. The rest of me wanted to escape, resulting in me squirming against him without being able to free myself from his grip. “Anatoly!”
“I don’t feel like dying today. I’ve had enough close brushes with disaster for one day. Also, you might not want to kick anyone while wearing that skirt. While I think the view is spectacular…”
Heat spread across my cheeks and crept down my neck. “You didn’t see anything.”
Anatoly’s breath touched my ear. “They match your skirt, and what there is of them is very, very lacy. I’m not sure what the point of wearing them is; they don’t exactly cover a whole lot. I might let you try to kill me if it means I get a second peek.”
“She needs dinner before you get any ideas, Anatoly.” Henry shoved Todd aside, took hold of my shoulders, and glared. “Let her go.”
Anatoly sighed but obeyed.
With far more strength than I would have given him credit for, the mystic shoved me in the direction of the entry. “Damn shifters. Put an unmated pair in the same room and one of them will start trouble. Why do I always have to be the one to shake sense into people?”
I stumbled the first few steps before walking on my own. “I was only going to kick him in the face and beat him a little.”
“Sure. And after you had him down on the ground, you would have noticed how nice his throat looked, and then you would have encouraged him to try to prove he was worthy of your bite, which would have resulted in him trying to kick you in the face so he could beat you a little.” A hint of laughter lightened Henry’s tone. “Kicking a tiger is no different from flirting with him, Runs Against Wind. Tigers like it rough, which is a good thing, because tigresses are often short tempered and take their tempers o
ut on their mates. Any other species would be filing domestic abuse charges, applying for a divorce, or murdering their partner. Not even wolves get as vicious as tigers. He’s probably hoping you’ll continue beating him up after dinner.”
“Henry!”
“What? I’m just being honest. I’m not the one who decided to ambush him and kick him in the face. I thought you’d appreciate knowing you were flirting with him.”
“So if I want a useless man to go away, I really have to stab him, don’t I?” I snarled.
“Pretty much. Until you have a mate, you will be fighting off males of most species. It’s better you know. Anatoly has extremely good restraint, unlike most tigers.”
“I prefer fighting rested opponents,” the tiger in question chimed in.
Gentry fell into step beside me. “I’m more worried about Ferdinand. He’s going to try to bite you.”
“I’m going to need my sword. People are going to die. In high number. So, if I want him around later, I only incapacitate him so I can pursue him later?”
The grizzly sighed. “Essentially. Try not to leave too many bodies lying around. Clean up after yourself at least. As for your sword, Mayor Longfellow is retrieving it.”
“Should I apologize in advance for killing your wolf? I will if I must.”
“Apology accepted. Yours, too, Anatoly. If one of you doesn’t end up the death of him, I’ll be surprised.”
Todd huffed. “What about me?”
“You drag things out too much. You’d probably still be trampling him when someone heard his screams and stopped you from finishing the job. You’re far more vindictive than Anatoly. I suspect our tigress here will be so infuriated she rips Ferdinand to teeny tiny pieces before anyone can stop her. Then again, I doubt anyone would be willing to try to stop her.”
“If he’s such a risk, why hasn’t he been dealt with?” I demanded with a hint of a growl in my voice.
Gentry snarled and fisted his hands. I wasn’t the only one to back away and give the grizzly space. “He hasn’t done anything wrong yet. Unless he does, we can’t do anything. No one can issue a legal bounty for him. By the time it would be legal, it’d be too late for some woman.”