She gathered the stole that went with her gown, and slipped from her chair.
"Where you going?" Ives asked. "Chaz is coming to sit, watch Ms McKitt with you."
"I have to use the lav," she told him. "I'll be right back."
"Oh. Well, take one of the guards with you, right? Chaz says you're not to go anywhere alone."
"Right."
Roxie had no intention of taking a guard with her. She slipped out while the two male guards were enthralled with Lorena McKitt's sultry new song, and slipped onto the next tram.
"Main lifts," she snarled, her voice rough. She sat, flexing her fingertips in her lap as the tram whisked along the passageway. Something was going on—something huge, something catastrophic. She was ready to leap out of her skin.
The Indigon seated across from her eyed her with chilly curiosity, and frowned. "Shouldn't you be cloistered somewhere?" the woman asked, her blue eyes uncomfortably penetrating.
"Mind your own business," Roxie growled, and flew out of her seat as the tram whirred to a stop.
She dashed onto the nearest lift, and turned to snarl at the human couple ready to follow her on. They backed up in a hurry, eyes wide, and gaped after her as Roxie ascended in the invisible lift.
She curled her lip at them. Anyone would think they'd never seen the lifts work before. But when she rushed out onto the landing outside the platinum suites, she saw her reflection in the mirrored door, and froze.
No wonder those other beings had stared. Something was wrong, all right. She was shifting. Her female mating moons were clearly rising. She'd known they would, but like an idiot, she'd let all the commotion with Chaz knock it right out of her head.
And she'd forgotten to take her latest dose of hormones to keep it under control. Hormones she'd bought from a sketchy cyber-med site, but they worked.
Except when, like a drooling canine, she forgot to use the patch.
Oh, Tygress. Her face was changing now, her nose flattening, her eyes were larger, brighter, more slanted, her pupils long slits instead of round apertures. She held out her hands before her and let out a mewl of despair. No wonder her skin prickled--she was sprouting a fine layer of silky fur.
And her hands were changing, the tendons strengthening, her nails lengthening into claws.
And under her long skirts, she could feel a sharp itching pain on her tail-bone. As if something were trying to burst from her skin.
She looked around her frantically. She had nowhere to go. Why in Tygress' name had she come up here? This was his suite, or one of the three was, anyway. The one on the left belonged to the obnoxious Serp female.
But wait—the suite on the right was empty, she remembered now. And as PR, she had clearance to enter.
Twelve
Chaz walked down the steps from the stage with a last wave at the audience, and a smile for the woman awaiting him at their table.
Except that she wasn’t there.
And when Burl and Ives told him she’d gone to the lav accompanied by a guard, Chaz looked pointedly at the guards lingering nearby, listening raptly to Lorena. “You mean those guards?”
“Oh, quark,” Ives muttered. “I knew she was being too compliant.”
“Yeah, you should have known,” Chaz said. “She’s sparky when she’s angry, and contrary to her little performance up there, I don’t think she’s over being angry with me. We’ve got to find her. I don’t like that Lessurant is loose on this ship at the same time as Roxie.”
Burl rose to alert the guards. One headed off to alert more of the guard team. The other stepped out of the theater to access the ship’s holocam surveillance system.
He came back in a few secs. Those at nearby tables watched curiously as he and Chaz conferred.
“She’s headed up to the platinum suites, sir.”
Chaz rose, already on his way to the nearest door. “I’m going after her.” Please God, let her be on the way to his suite.
“Wait, sir—I have intel you really should see.” The Serpentian guard trotted along at Chaz side as he headed for the tram. Once on board, he showed Chaz a portion of the surveillance holovid.
Chaz’ mouth dropped open as he watched Roxie stride onto the lift and sail upward through the air, like a warrior princess, scowling fiercely with her hair and skirts blowing about her. She was magnificent.
Then she reached the foyer outside his suite, and his breath froze in his throat as she halted abruptly, and then stared at herself. He watched her peer into the mirrors and then let out a mrrowl of despair.
“Oh, Great Tygress,” he breathed. “She’s shifting.” His Rouge was going into her mating shift—here on this ship. He had to get to her immediately—before another male did.
“Do you want us to tranq her, sir?” the guard asked him. “Have her transported to Bryght?”
Chaz narrowed his eyes, his jaw set in utter determination. “Hells, no. In fact, anyone who touches her will answer to me. She’s mine.”
The Serp eyed him, the ghost of a smile passing over his face. Then he nodded. “Yes, sir. We’ll see to it that you are not disturbed.”
Chaz rode up in the lift by himself, his heart pounding in a fierce rhythm as if he’d been singing the InterGalactic Anthem, his body and mind straining toward the female waiting for him above. His shift mate. He didn’t know why she’d returned to his suite, but he intended to make very certain that she didn’t regret it for a single sec.
In fact, he intended to be the best shift-mate she’d ever had. So good she’d want him back, for that and more.
Unfortunately, when he stepped out of the lift onto the landing before the cluster of three suites, the door that opened was the wrong one.
He froze, staring in revulsion at the vision of a Serpentian quazillionairess with her obsessed gaze fixed on him, and her forked tongue flickering out to touch her thin, glossy lips. The hackles raised on the back of his neck.
“Ms Lessurant,” he snarled. “What in the seven hells are you doing here?”
Turned out that was the wrong thing to say. He’d had years of training in fan diplomacy, and he completely quarked this encounter up.
She stepped aside, and two of her minions rushed out, guiding a phalanx of small airbots--all of which had very shiny hypodermic needles protruding from them. Okay, there were only four of the things, but they were as scary as flying vipers. God only knew what sort of crap she’d loaded them with.
“Guards!” he roared, whipping off his jacket and using it to swat one of the bots from the air. “Guards! To me!”
He ducked another bot and then whipped his jacket around to catch a third. Now there was only one on the loose, and he whirled to keep an eye on it, just as the door of the suite on the other side of his opened.
A deadly snarl split the air, drowning out the whine of the bot. Chaz dared one glance away from the bot, which hovered just out of his reach. Where the hells were those guards?
His eyes widened, and his heart nearly stopped.
Great God beyond, his Rouge was already in full shift, and she was the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen. Her hair curled wildly about her head and shoulders like a mane, and the rest of her, from her lovely face to the tip of her toes, was naked, and covered in the finest silk fur imaginable, just a tracing of it, enhancing her golden skin, and every curve and hollow of her naked body, except for the triangle of dark curls between her legs.
And lashing about her legs as she prowled toward him, flexing her claws in rage, was a slender, beautiful, sexy tail. O Great Tiger, a tail! Not every Tyger female grew one when she shifted, and those who did... oh, yeah. He shuddered with delight, already feeling it stroking across his bare skin.
But first he had to keep her alive.
“Rouge,” he ordered. “Get back inside.”
She hardly spared him a glance. Glaring ferociously at the Serpentian in the other open doorway, she drew back her lips, revealing glittering fangs, and snarled again.
The two S
erp minions paled. One scuttled backward into the suite. The other simply fainted, falling limp to the floor, her feet sticking out into the landing.
“Go away!” Lessurat hissed at Roxie. “Jaguari is mine. I saw him first.”
“No, no, I’m not,” Chaz gritted, gaze on the bot as it hovered in mid-air. Then, realizing its handler was gone, or unconscious, he flung his jacket at the thing. The jacket dropped, the bot immobilized in its folds with the others. He stepped away from the door, gesturing placatingly. “Now, both of you, back away,” he ordered.
Both females ignored him. “I’ll have him, or I’ll kill him to keep him from you,” Lessurat promised Roxie. Lessurat drew from the folds of her orange draperies a small, but unmistakable laser weapon. “I’ll kill you too, hell-cat.”
Rouge didn’t waste time with threats. She shot forward, low to the floor as a cat would, and hit Lessurat at the knees, throwing her backward into the suite behind her. They landed with a thud!
Chaz dashed after them, ducking as the laser fired, blasting the edge of the open portal beside his head.
“Roxie!” he roared. “Get away from her—she’ll laser you!”
As he leapt for them, a female’s scream rang out. Chaz heart nearly stopped. He dove for the two females, ready to kill the Serpentian with his bare hands.
But Lessurat sagged back onto the carpet, hands to her face. Her face was a mask of shock and pain, four deep gashes across it from one temple to her jaw on the other side. Bright blood welled from the streaks.
Roxie was drawing back her other arm for another blow—one that might well be a fatal slash to Lessurat’s jugular. Chaz grabbed her just in time, and pulled her back, kicking and struggling, in his arms.
“Rouge,” he crooned into her hair, a wary eye on Lessurat. “Rouge, I have you. I’m safe now. Stop, kitten.”
He kicked the laser weapon out of Lessurat’s reach, just in case. Although she had both hands to her face, moaning and hissing. Didn’t bother him a bit to watch her suffer, the way she’d no doubt made so many others suffer for her sick proclivities.
Chaz glared at the attendants, hovering in the shrubbery. “See to your mistress,” he ordered. “And if any of you so much as think of loosing any more of her filthy weapons, I’ll laser you myself.”
Letting go of Roxie, he bent and palmed the laser.
The Tygress snarled at the attendants, and they cowered in the shrubbery. “M-make her go away first, p-please,” one of them begged.
“Not until the ship guards arrive.”
Which they finally did, dashing in low, weapons at the ready.
In short order, the guards had Lessurat sedated and cocooned in a med-cart, ready to be treated and locked away to await the arrival of Inter-Galactic Bureau of Investigation agents. Her attendants were herded off to spend time in the ship’s brig.
The captain of the guard bowed to Chaz, his gaze politely averted from Roxie, who prowled restlessly in the shrubbery, her gaze on Chaz.
“I’m extremely sorry, sir. Our fault for allowing you to ascend un-guarded. I accept all blame.”
Chaz nodded curtly. “I’ll want a complete report on what happens to Lessurat. I’m prepared to testify that she cannot be allowed to go free any longer.”
“I completely agree, sir. And we have holovid evidence to support her immediate incarceration. Being who she is, it will no doubt be a sanatorium instead of a prison planet, but you, ah, and your lady will be safe from her. Now, please allow my guards to scan your suite and ascertain it is safe for you to enter.”
Chaz nodded again, already turning away toward the arboretum, and the Tygress prowling its confines.
She glowered at him. “Go away. I don’t want you.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, his jaw set.
“Sorry, my Rouge,” he said implacably. “You require a shift mate, and I am your only choice.”
“You lie,” she hissed, her eyes narrowing to slits, shooting sparks at him. “I am not your anything. And this ship is full of males who would fight to fuck a tiger female in heat!”
“Yes, and they would suffer for it,” he growled through his teeth. “If you think I’m going to stand aside and let another man take my place, think again.”
She screamed, the sound rising to a register of fury that nearly deafened him, but at the same time excited him unbearably. His nipples tightened, his balls drew up tight, his cock flexing eagerly.
“I’m leaving,” she snarled.
But as she moved to dash past him, he grabbed her arm. She used her own momentum to attack, bringing him down in the soft moss under the foliage, which rustled wildly as they fell through the branches.
Her scent, sweet and musky and delicate, filled his nostrils. His cock hardened to the point of pain.
“Ah, sir, madame, your own suite is safe to occupy,” the guard captain called from outside the arboretum. “And we will need you to vacate this one. Best to be sequestered when you get on with things, hmm?”
“We’re going,” Chaz called back.
“Now Rouge, get off me, before I have to hurt you,” he warned. “You’re not holing up alone, not like this.”
She leaned close, her lips nearly brushing him, nostrils flared as she took in his scent, her heat and nearness so intoxicating his eyes nearly rolled back in his head.
“Do you think you could hurt me?” she asked him, in that rough velvet purr that rasped every nerve ending in his body and stiffened them to full, roaring arousal.
“I know I could. I’m a Tyger male, and you’re so much smaller, softer, even in shift. But I sure as hells don’t want to.”
With a growl of displeasure, she slashed his shirt open with her claws, then curled her lip at him, her golden eyes full of fury.
“Well, you won’t have to worry about hurting me, Chaz. You’ve already done your worst to me. Now get out!”
“No, Rouge. You can’t stay alone. You’ll go mad.”
Her big eyes looked vulnerable for a moment, but then she slitted them and drew back her lips, showing him her enhanced fangs. “Then I won’t stay here. I’ll go find a male.’
“The hells you will,” he snarled. Then he sucked in a breath, and found calm enough to use the deep, smoky voice that zillions of females adored. “Rouge. I’m here, and I want you. Please, stay with me. I’ll guide you through your shift, and I’ll make it good for you, I swear it. Just let me have you, sweetheart.”
She snarled, the fierce, defiant snarl of an angry Tyger female. “I won’t have to go anywhere. I’ll call other males to me.”
That did it. “You will not!” he roared, on his feet and looming over her. She slashed his clothing again, this time his pants.
Chaz raised a brow, ignoring the brilliant flash of pain as one of her claws raked his leg. “If you want me to strip, puss, all you have to do is ask.”
She let out another scream, and he knew immediately he’d pushed her too far.
Thus, when she raced from the room, he followed her. She dashed into his suite, and signalled the door to close, but he slid through it after her, and then he played dirty.
He hit the signature-controlled lock that only the occupant or a guard could open.
She screamed again, and white-hot pain slashed across his cheek this time. Immediately she whimpered, her gaze tormented as blood welled on his cheekbone. “Sorry… I’m sorry.”
“I’m fine, tyger-lily.” He grabbed her waist and pulled her to him, all that silky, plush heat against his hardness. He flexed his hips, rubbing his erection against her mons. “Just a sting. Please, let me fuck you. Let me give you what you gave me.”
She was panting now, her breasts quivering against him, her hard nipples stroking him through his shirt, and rubbing herself on him, a mewl of need in her throat.
“Yesss,” she agreed, and his heart contracted at the note of defeat in her voice.
Bending, he swept her up in his arms and bore her to the perfumed cloister of his arboretum. Then
he laid her on the moss, and yanked his clothing off, and came down over her. She reached up for him, and he came into her in one smooth thrust.
Her pussy clasped him immediately, milking him like a hot, tight little fist. She mewled, a high sweet sound as she orgasmed.
He groaned in exquisite relief, and delight, and began to thrust, hard and fast. “That was only the first time for you, my Rouge. I’m going to make you cum so many times you can’t remember what it was like not to be satisfied by me.”
“Yes, Charlie,” she purred, already moving under him again. “Yesss.”
And he did.
Thirteen
Much later, Roxie lay draped on her shift mate in a torpor of satisfaction. Finally, the madness that had driven her was sated... for the time being.
Chaz had held her, urged her to surrender to the madness driving her, to let it take her. As he’d fucked her the first time, then used his hands and his mouth, then fucked her again, he’d repeated over and over that he had her safe, that he would be there to hold her, and to sate the lust overpowering her body.
“I thought I was going mad,” she whispered, her face snuggled against the curve of his throat.
He paused in his slow stroking of her tumbled hair. “Haven’t shifted many times yet?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured, gathering her even closer, his arms warm and strong. “Why?”
“I used hormones to delay it,” she admitted.
“What?” He tipped her face up with a finger and scowled up at her. “Roxie, that’s dangerous. You could have seriously messed yourself up. Why would you do that—and yes, I’ve done it, but only three times. Sounds like you’ve been suppressing longer than that.”
She nodded guiltily. “I... there was no one I wanted in the small town I’m from, outside Rawr City.”
“That’s so hard to believe,” he murmured. “You’re so beautiful, and sexy, and sweet and funny.”
She shrugged, avoiding his gaze.
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