by Shara Azod
Ivan sighed, running his hand across his brow. “How did Uncle Valeri manage to find a tigress in the wilds of Alaska?”
It was odd how Fate seemed to work. Just when they needed it the most, she had smiled on them and given them their fondest wish. But they had to be strong enough to keep it.
“We will get to all that later,” Ivan went on. “As for now, I need your help. We’re expecting company very soon. Not the pleasant kind either. Ilya and I were just about to go out to set some traps.”
“Well, go.” This time Megan was on her feet in seconds, retrieving baby Caleb from Ilya’s arms.
“Yes, all of you get out of here and make sure it’s safe.” Mica, who was just starting to give signs of a rounded belly, joined her adopted mother, Elba following at her footsteps.
“We’ll take care of the little guy,” Megan assured them, cuddling a delighted Caleb in her arms. “We will stay here to welcome the new additions to the family.”
Ivan had never been an emotional tiger, but he could feel tears burning his eyes. He had to turn around to gather himself for a moment. Family. It was a precious thing that he and Ilya had truly thought they’d lost. Not because their family didn’t love them, but because they’d had such a hard time accepting it had been their sire who brought so much pain to the people sitting here now, ready to go to bat for them.
“I’ll stay.” Ilya spoke with uncharacteristic authority. “I can’t have Aya waking up to a house full of people she doesn’t know and both of us gone. As soon as she smells other tigers…”
Ilya let the sentence hang, but Ivan didn’t need further convincing. The rest of the family were more than a little curious, but bless them, no one said a word.
“Come on.” Grigori was the first tiger out the door. “I’ll scope the landscape first, pick up any foreign scents because goddess knows you all are hopeless.”
Grigori was the best damn tracker Ivan had ever seen, far superior to even Uncle Valeri. Ivan often wondered if, during the time when they’d all been looking for Gleb, Grigori hadn’t found him more than once and just let him be. His little cousin was a hard one to figure.
“You’ll protect the women and the cubs?” Uncle Valeri rose to kiss his mate. She was the one who had killed Gleb in the end. They were all in awe of the fierce tigress. Ivan was frankly surprised she’d agreed to hang around. No one threatened her family.
“I’m right here,” Ilya groaned, rolling his eyes.
“Of course you are.” Megan nodded solemnly. “And I promise to leave you the scraps of anyone stupid enough to threaten anyone in this house.”
Chapter Nine
There were tigers in the house. As soon as Aya woke, the myriad of scents assaulted her nose. Lying perfectly still she tried to identify the two scents that had come to mean the world to her in such a short amount of time. There was Ilya, and Caleb, but where was Ivan? And who were all the other tigers in the cabin? For the briefest seconds she was terrified her rescuers, now her mates, had betrayed her. But she quickly dismissed that notion. One thing was certain—Ivan and Ilya were the best of the shifter world.
“You’re awake.”
Ilya. Aya breathed out a sigh of relief. He had been sitting by the bed and she hadn’t noticed. She really needed to work on deciphering her senses.
“Our family—my uncle, his mate, and our cousins have arrived. I didn’t want you to be bombarded by a million question and unfamiliar people as soon as you woke,” he explained.
Hiding a smile, Aya stretched, loving the way her body felt well loved; a little sore and thoroughly satisfied. Then it hit her. Wait—his entire family?
“I don’t have clothes,” she groaned, hiding her flaming face. Of all the things to worry about, it seemed such a little thing. She knew they were going to have questions. Her situation was far from usual. Questions were only natural, but she would feel so much better if she were fully dressed before she had to answer the inquiries she knew was coming.
“My cousin Misha’s mate, Elba, is around your size. She sent some clothes up.” Well, it was something. “I prefer you in nothing at all, but you may not want to face the females of the streak in the nude.”
No she certainly didn’t. Like the dear he was, Ilya waited until she had refreshed herself in the bedroom and was fully dressed before escorting her down to meet the family.
The first thing she was aware of was the delicious smells coming from the kitchen. There was a woman who was quite obviously pregnant on the rug in front of the fireplace playing with Caleb and two slightly older cubs. The peals of laughter from the foursome were so natural, so from the heart, it brought tears to Aya’s eyes. It had been so long since she heard genuine laughter that wasn’t the result of someone else’s pain. Two other women were talking in the kitchen as they bustled about; one of the women was an African tigress.
For a moment, Aya was rooted to the spot, simply staring at the sight of a woman who looked so much like her mother it hurt. Then she turned and smiled at her, and Aya lost her battle with the tears she’d been trying to hold back. It didn’t matter that this tigress was unknown to her. It didn’t matter that she didn’t even know her name. They were the same people in a world where so few of them still existed. Running into the woman’s outstretched arms was like coming home.
After so very long trapped in hell—a real home.
*****
Nicoli howled as he backhanded the simpleton who’d been in charge of keeping Aya’s scent. The deeper they got into the Idaho forests, the weaker the scent became, until it was gone altogether. The idiot had come trotting back to the search party claiming Aya must have gone in another direction. But Nicoli trusted no one, least of all the simple-headed tigers that worked for him. Mutts, all of them. He was a pure blood; he was not so easily fooled. Someone had erased her tracks. The absence of any scents at all in the area meant someone was trying to deliberately hide her whereabouts.
So the little bitch had found help. Not human either. No human could’ve been this thorough.
“We should go back,” Davi, a half Bengal, half Siberian whined, sniffing at nothing. “What if she doubled back to try to free the other females?”
Aya wasn’t that stupid. Which was why she was perfect for him. She had the kind of understated strength that bred kings, and Nicoli was planning on building an empire. No more simple raids for him. He would breed an army of invincible tigers and rule a kingdom that would threaten even the human world.
But the silly wench had run, taking that weakling cub with her. He was going to have to beat sentimentality out of her. One would think after the last “lesson” he taught her on refusing his kindness, she would understand he was not a tiger to be trifled with.
“We go on,” he growled to the four tigers he had taken with him. “I smell food on the wind, which means a cabin ahead. Davi, Max—you approached from the south. Igor, circle around from the east. I will come in from the west. She’s there—I can feel it.”
But before any of them could move, the underbrush rustled a warning, and they found themselves surrounded. Pure white Siberian tigers, fully shifted, formed a loose circle around where they stood.
“Don’t move!” he ordered, but too late.
The idiot Davi shifted and sprang at a massive tiger to his left. Midair, he was gutted by a razor-sharp claw from gullet to throat, his entrails spilling out on the snow. One down, and the odds increasingly against them. Damn it! How the hell had Aya managed to run into a fucking streak of pure-blood Siberians? White tigers at that. There was no hope. He was going to have to escape, but that meant sacrificing his men.
“You don’t want to come looking for what is ours,” the oldest, massive white tiger growled, while in animal form. The voice was clear and concise, a feat Nicoli hadn’t managed to perfect in his all his years of attempting to talk in tiger form.
He was a Siberian, yes, but he wasn’t a white tiger from the edges of Siberia. They were the gods among the shifter world, an
d supposedly rare. Yet here were seven surrounding them now.
“The female belongs to me,” Nicoli snapped before he thought the better of it. A younger tiger from his right sprang, swiping at his leg. Because he was in human form, the gash was deep, but he managed to pivot away.
“She is ours,” the tiger snarled, but didn’t immediately attack. “Shift and end this like tigers.”
There was no fucking way Nicoli was going to do that. Aya was lost to him. It was infuriating, but he wasn’t about to lose his life over a bitch. Her loss was always going to be a sore spot, but he had at least four others he could choose from and a surefire way to acquire more, given they existed.
“When I give the word, shift and attack,” he told his men, edging back just a little. He was going to shift all right; shift and get the hell out of dodge. He saw his path, one leading away from the smells of the cabin. He wouldn’t stop running until he was back in Oregon.
“Now!”
Leaping backward, Nicoli didn’t wait to see what was happening. He sprang away from the melee, running full speed in tiger form far, far away from the tigers he couldn’t hope to defeat.
One day his strength would rival these white tigers. But that day was not today.
After
It was hard to believe she was well and truly free. But it was true. Nicoli was gone, at least four of his men dead. The chances of him coming after herself or Caleb were slim to none. Nicoli was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.
Watching her new adopted family fuss with putting up not one, but three Christmas trees, she sighed happily, burying her face in Ilya’s chest. As soon as the winter storms passed, they would all be traveling to Alaska, which would be her new home.
“I never dreamed I would have a home or a family like this,” she murmured to Ilya. “I’ve never been happier.”
Of course she felt a deep sadness her sister would never have this, had never known this kind of commitment. But Aya swore she would do everything in her power to make sure Larissa’s son never knew anything but love and acceptance from his family.
“Believe it or not, Ivan and I never dreamed this would be possible for us either.” Ilya gave a hard squeeze of a hug. “You are a miracle to us.”
Later she would tell them both they’d managed to create another miracle through their whirlwind courtship and mating. Maybe on Christmas Day.
*****
“The leader got away,” Maxim spoke low, his father standing outside the cabin. Their stepmother was all tigress, so there was no way he and Grigori could have this conversation inside anywhere near her ultra-sensitive hearing. “Aya did say there were other females captive there. Tigresses.”
“We want to go free them,” Grigori cut in impatiently. It was funny how a tiger who claimed to be so against mating too young was in such a surefire hurry to find these tigresses. “The male was crazy—there is no telling what he may do given his loss.”
Maxim could’ve told his younger brother there was no need to pour it on so thick. Their father was sure to give them his blessing. There was no way he would ever agree to leave such rare, exquisite creatures in the hands of a mad tiger.
“After the holidays.” Valeri nodded. “You will take Sergei and bring the women to Alaska if they so choose.”
It was a warning his sons didn’t really need. There was no way any of them would take a woman against her will, tigress or not.
“After the holidays,” Maxim agreed, his heart pounding in excitement.
There was no guarantee he’d find a mate in Oregon. But maybe, just maybe.
The End!
Fruitcake: A C.A.K.E Story
By
RaeLynn Blue
Twitter- @raelynnblue
Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/raelynnblue
Hyperlink to Other Titles
a. C.A.K.E.
http://mochamemoirspress.com/c-a-k-e-the-complete-series/
b. Native Hearts: Lasso a Lover
http://mochamemoirspress.com/native-hearts-lasso-a-lover/
c. Beauty & the Geek: Rocket to Love
http://mochamemoirspress.com/beauty-the-geek-rocket-to-love/
Chapter 1: Nuts
December 23
“You know that crazy girl from Fernando Vila’s Mexican restaurant?” Kevin O’Bryan asked his best friend and boss, Stephen Silver.
“Sophia, wasn’t it?” Stephen replied. The CEO of C.A.K.E. and Kevin’s former high school football teammate, kept his gaze glued to his laptop’s screen. Standing in Stephen’s huge office, Kevin couldn’t believe his bad luck. Mondays really sucked.
“Yeah, the brunette with the rosy cheeks and the very nice set of…”
“…hands,” Stephen finished for him. “Yes, I remember you mentioning her. Is she pregnant?”
“No, no! She took a baseball bat to my car windows! Two days before Christmas!”
Stephen rolled his eyes and looked up from the screen. He sighed. That meant a lecture would follow. They’d been friends too long and knew each other too well not to be able to read each other’s mood.
“You know, if you would stop using women like napkins to wipe your insecurity on, then maybe you wouldn’t have these problems.”
Kevin ran a punishing hand through his short-clipped ginger hair. “Not now, Steph. Please—not now!”
Stephen shrugged in his immaculate dark navy suit. “You know I’m right.”
“This isn’t about you being right.”
“No, but what comes around, goes around.”
“Come on, man. It’s the holidays.” Kevin couldn’t believe that Stephen would just lay all the blame at his feet. Surely the woman could’ve expressed her displeasure in a less violent manner. Not all cheating had to be addressed as described in a country music video.
“Okay, I’ll bite. Tell me everything.” Stephen put down his pen and tented his hands in front of him.
Seated in one of the two soft leather camel-colored chairs in front of Stephen’s desk, Kevin rested both elbows on his knees. The tag from his cobalt-blue shirt itched, but all his nerves were sensitive and frayed after last night. Stephen had asked what happened; where to start? Kevin closed his eyes.
“It isn’t my fault that all women are fruitcakes. Look, Sophia tried to pull a Tiger Woods on me. She slammed that damn bat at my car’s tinted windows like she just warmed up for the majors. I told her I didn’t want to see her again, and she went nuts. Okay, maybe taking my new date, Angel, to the restaurant riled things up, but Fernando Vila has great fajitas.”
Stephen dropped his head.
Kevin put his head in his hands. “All I know is that the damn crazy-ass woman is going to pay for the damage she inflicted on my sports car.”
Behind the desk, Stephen closed his laptop and stood. “You’re an idiot.”
Kevin glared at him.
“…But seriously, Kev, take it from me, once you find true love, real love that goes behind the physical, accept it. Your life will be so much better.”
“Can you kill the happy-go-lucky sweetness? She even keyed the driver’s side door! I need moral support, not chastisement. My baby has been beaten and battered. And it’s Christmas in two days. No way is it going to be repaired by then.”
Stephen’s hand rose up in defense—or surrender; Kevin couldn’t be sure.
“I know how much you love that car, but get a rental. Add the expense to your reform.”
Kevin took out his pocket mirror and, with swift fingers, fashioned his hair back into flawless feathered waves. He thought about all the little details he would have to run through just because some woman couldn’t handle rejection. He didn’t get it. All he did was take a beautiful woman to dinner. Yes, she spent time in his bed that night, but he hadn’t promised marriage or anything resembling commitment.
“I called the insurance adjuster last night after Sophia smashed the windows to pieces outside Vila’s. Well, I called the cops first. The adjuster told me what th
e deductible amount was, and the cop took my statement. Angel—my date—was so shaken up, she won’t speak to me.”
“Oh, I’m sure she won’t.” Stephen shook his head.
“Really, Stephen. What kind of wing man are you?”
“A married happily one,” Stephen retorted.
“Dude…”
Kevin could tell he had stopped listening. More than likely, his head swam with wedding memories. The last few months had been one long series of—in Kevin’s opinion--vomit-causing sweetness and romance for the staff of C.A.K.E. With Stephen’s wedding, the entire mess saturated most office conversations. That’s all anyone wanted to talk about. Who wore what? Who was invited and who was snubbed? Kevin had become nauseous with the details, but as best man, he had dealt with it.
Now, he wanted life to get back to normal.
It wasn’t jealousy, like some of his co-workers believed. Kevin didn’t envy Stephen or Cree at all. He liked Stephen happy and in love; well, except for his lecturing about how Kevin should conduct his own love life. Outside of that, he wished them happiness.
What bothered Kevin centered on how perfect Stephen and Cree seemed. Kevin had dated a lot of women, and in his experience, he hadn’t found any worth the money, time, and commitment Stephen had given to Cree. He just didn’t see the point in wasting one’s good years to be with one woman. Not when there were so many to try. He’d dated enough to know.
So, he didn’t get it—the whole love thing. Love was like a fruitcake, filled with nuts and cherries and heavy as fuck. That’s why it kept getting passed around, but never consumed.
“Listen, this is a slow time for us. Take a few days to get your car situated,” Stephen suggested. “Come over Christmas Eve for the annual dinner.”
“Stephen, I…”
“I’m not taking no for an answer. It’s Christmas. You’re like a brother to me. I want my family with me during the holidays.”