“Don’t beat yourself up. A break will do you good.”
He nodded, lifted his beer to his lips and took a swig. Damn, it was good. Not as good as the homebrew they had at the village, but it was still good. Different. It was freezing cold for a start, not warmed over a fire.
“I lasted all of a month before I took a break.” Cavanaugh grinned at him, and August couldn’t tease him about that.
Cavanaugh had been pushed into a position that had taken him away from Eloise, had separated them because of their status, and it had almost killed him.
It was good to see the old Cavanaugh back though, the one who smiled and laughed. It made everything August had done worth it, and everything he was going through.
“Sometimes I feel as if I’m drowning in all the requests, and appointments… and all the bigger picture shit too… like this trade negotiation in eight days.” August swigged his beer again, savouring the crisp coldness of it that turned to heat as it slid down into his stomach.
Cavanaugh rested both forearms on the black bar top and his eyes searched August’s, his face a mask of seriousness.
“When were you thinking of going back?”
August shrugged. “The day after tomorrow. That’s the next flight.”
His cousin pulled his phone from the pocket of his black trousers, swiped over the screen as it illuminated his face, making his eyes more silver than grey, and then shoved it away again.
“Make it the one after. It’s only four days… but it will be good for you.”
He found himself nodding, because four days sounded heavenly. He needed some space, some time to get his head straight and learn from Cavanaugh about how to run the pride. He would still be back in time for the meeting.
Cavanaugh was right.
Some time away would be good for him.
He hadn’t noticed that the club was emptying until a door off to his left, beyond the end of the bar, opened, throwing a flash of white light across the room. He glanced there, and couldn’t stop the smile that curved his lips when he saw the pretty brunette stood with her back to the door, her golden-brown eyes searching the length of the bar.
Eloise.
She spotted him and her smile lit up her face. She lifted her arm, pulling up the hem of her plain dark t-shirt with it, and waved.
Cavanaugh’s dark grey gaze swung her way and brightened, a corona of pure silver ringing his pupils as he saw his mate.
Eloise hurried towards them on August’s side of the bar, and rocked him by pulling him into a hug the moment she was within reach. “I thought I smelled company.”
Cavanaugh growled at his mate, or was it him? It didn’t stop August from hugging her back, squeezing her tight and earning another low snarl from his cousin.
Eloise released him, leaned over the bar beside him, caught hold of the front of Cavanaugh’s white shirt and pulled him towards her. She kissed him. It was one way of shutting his cousin up. Cavanaugh grabbed her under her arms and hauled her over the bar.
August snatched his beer a split-second before Eloise’s legs swept through that spot, saving it and holding it at shoulder height. Damn good job he did too, because Cavanaugh twisted her into his arms, so her feet arced across the bar right in front of August. He was on the verge of lodging a complaint when Cavanaugh kissed her.
Damn, it was good to see them.
It made him feel that everything was worth it, really worth it, and that he had made the right decision, because they were so happy together.
But it also triggered that strange cold feeling that had kept him awake at night for decades, that had bothered him since the day he had realised Eloise was Cavanaugh’s mate.
He would never have what they shared.
It was rare for his kind to find their fated ones, because they were always another snow leopard, and their numbers were low and their prides spread far and wide. Most snow leopards settled for falling for another of their kind and mating with them, but the bond they shared was nothing compared to the bond between fated mates.
A bond Cavanaugh and Eloise shared.
One that made him a little envious.
One he felt sure he would never find for himself.
CHAPTER 2
Maya walked beside her brother, taking in everything as the sun cast beautiful evening colours across the sky above the city. A city. She had never imagined she would see one with her own eyes, especially one as large as London.
Grey grumbled something, but she ignored him. He was probably complaining about walking for the millionth time.
She had convinced him to ditch the taxi, mostly through begging and a small dose of guilt trip when she had mentioned how badly she wanted to experience a city before they continued their journey.
She felt bad about that.
It wasn’t like her to resort to such tactics with her brother, or with anyone.
She glanced up at Grey. He towered above her, a wall of muscle and darkness, glaring at anyone who dared to look at her, his ice blue eyes as cold as Antarctica. The evening breeze ruffled his unruly silver hair, brushing fingers through it. Beneath the ice, and the anger, she could see the beginnings of worry.
He was worried about her.
She had asked him to keep things upbeat during their journey, and he had managed it so far, had held his tongue and not mentioned how he was against what she was doing. He had even only made one attempt to convince her to go against their oldest brother’s, Byron’s, and their dead parents’ wishes and break the contract between her and the Altay alpha.
She hated it whenever he tried to make her do that.
He sounded so much like Talon, his twin. Talon had been telling her for years to call things off, had relentlessly tried to convince her, to the point where it had started to hurt and she had almost wavered.
Her parents had promised her to the Altay male though, a contract that had been formed at her birth, and she needed to honour their memory and that promise.
It was hard sometimes though.
She didn’t want to leave the pride.
Not because she feared becoming a mate to a male she had never met.
Because she feared for Grey.
She gazed up at her brother, soaked in the way his eyes leaped around the city, looking at everything, and that ripple of excitement she could feel in him, one that echoed her own feelings.
She wasn’t the only one who had spent the majority of their life in the pride village.
Grey had been stuck there too, because of her.
Their parents had given him the role of protecting her, one that always went to the son who was next in line from a daughter. Grey had relished the role when she had been a cub, doting on her, growing closer to her while he drifted away from the pride. Their mother had once told her that she had been the best thing to happen to Grey, and Maya hadn’t understood until she had finally noticed the way some of the pride treated him.
The role was both a blessing and a curse for him.
When their parents’ had died, and Byron had taken over the role of alpha, Maya had only been young, barely a century old. Byron had decreed that she wasn’t allowed to leave the pride village, and had taken Grey’s freedom together with hers.
She was glad that with her leaving, he might finally have some freedom, could experience the world Talon got to see, but she was worried too.
What was going to happen to Grey?
She brushed the back of her hand across his, and he glanced down at them, and then up into her eyes. He frowned, his pale blue eyes warming but then cooling again as he looked at her, searching hers for the reason she was upset.
She feared something terrible might happen to Grey in her absence.
Some members of the pride looked at him in a way she didn’t like, a way she knew Grey had noticed, silently scorning him because of his markings, making him feel like an outcast.
Making him feel he didn’t belong.
She knew he hated his colouring, that he believed his whi
te and black markings were ugly, and not beautiful.
All because of how people at the pride treated him, and how they talked behind his back.
He was beautiful though.
She had never seen a tiger as beautiful as Grey.
His frown hardened, and he stopped, turned to face her, and lifted his hand. She didn’t stop him as he swept his finger below her eyes.
“You don’t have to do this,” he murmured, a wealth of love in his blue eyes, mingled with hope.
“I do,” she whispered, ignoring that ache in her heart that had started five days ago when Byron had announced that he was changing the plans and she was going to head to the Altay pride in the coming week.
Grey looked as if he wanted to tell her that she didn’t, but he lowered his hand instead, and adjusted the straps of the pack slung over his left shoulder, cutting into his thick black coat.
His eyes shifted to his left. “You know he’s going to say the same thing, right?”
She nodded, and she was prepared for that, but she still had to see him.
She couldn’t go to Siberia without saying goodbye to Talon.
Grey sighed and started walking again, his long legs easily carrying him away from her so swiftly that he was at the corner of the street before she had even moved. She hurried after him, her deep gold dress flapping around her knees. She had chosen her favourite one, a knee-length affair in the empire line style, cinched beneath her breasts and capped with short sleeves.
When Grey had seen her in it, he had asked why she had chosen to wear her shield. She hadn’t understood at first, but as the journey to London had dragged on, she had begun to realise what he had meant. This dress was her shield. It made her feel confident and a little brave, and as if nothing bad could happen to her.
He turned the corner when she reached him, and she looked there, her feet sticking to the ground when she smelled the jaguar who had come to the pride with Talon when Archangel had attacked them and spotted the neon sign of the club.
A big male stood outside it, his tone gruff as he spoke with the people heading inside. She wasn’t sure what species he was, but he wasn’t human. Black jeans and a t-shirt hugged his broad frame, and a black skullcap covered his hair. Maya figured he was the bouncer, because he matched the image she had of them from the television shows and movies she had seen.
He gave Grey a puzzled look as her brother approached him. Understandable. Talon worked at the nightclub he protected, had been there for a few weeks now with his mate Sherry, staying at her home while she became accustomed to being a tiger shifter.
Grey and Talon were almost identical, separated only by their hair and eye colour.
Maya wished that they had come out perfect twins, because then Grey would have been happy, would have been accepted.
She hurried to meet Grey at the door of the club, and smiled at the bouncer as he let them in.
That smile dropped off her face when loud music assaulted her. She flinched away, grimacing at the horrific volume of it as it rang in her ears. Grey looked over his shoulder at her, seemingly unaffected by it. There had been a few instances when he had been allowed to go out into the mortal world so it was possible he had visited such a place before and had been prepared for the onslaught.
He could have warned her.
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the gloom, tugging her through the busy wide corridor at the entrance of the club.
She wrinkled her nose and covered her right ear with her free hand as the music grew louder, the heavy beat shaking the black walls of the warehouse. Gods. How could any shifter work here?
Her eyes darted around, but everyone she looked at didn’t seem to care about the volume, were all talking to each other. Among other things.
She passed a couple that were openly making out, the female pressed against the wall and the male’s hands on her sides, skimming up and down her bare flesh. Double gods. What sort of place did her brother work at now?
Was this a club or a sort of naughty den?
The number of couples lost in each other dropped significantly as Grey reached the main room of Underworld, where bright colourful lights danced over the long bar and illuminated the bottles that lined a mirrored wall behind it. The area around the bar was packed, four rows deep of people trying to order a drink. She took in the dance floor, her eyes widening at the sight of it.
She had attended celebrations at the pride, but they hadn’t come close to this.
Almost three hundred people swayed, grinded, pumped and jostled on the dance floor, a mass that moved as one, all of them plastered together, pressed up against each other. The music changed, and a cheer went up, fists pumping the air, and the dancing grew more frenetic, matching the rhythm of the guitar.
Gods.
She grunted as someone knocked her and came close to flashing fangs at them.
Someone else banging into her stopped her.
Because it struck her that she was knocking them aside.
She looked up at her brother, who mercilessly pulled her through the crowd, and then tugged on her arm, bringing her up to him, and pushed her in front of him. Her stomach met the brass railing around the bar and Grey caged her in, his body shielding her from the crowd.
Talon’s jaguar friend hurried past, four bottles of something held in his hands, heading towards the right side of the bar. Sherry turned away from the brightly lit bottles of liquor that stood on glass shelves against the mirrored wall, and stilled. A smile instantly burst onto her dark pink lips and lit up her blue eyes.
Was it really only four weeks since Maya had last seen the blonde?
She looked even more beautiful now, radiant, glowing with happiness.
Maya had feared the transition from human into a tiger shifter would have taken its toll on her, but Sherry looked brighter than ever, healthier too. She warmed inside at that, glad Sherry was handling it well, and sure it was Talon’s doing. Talon was probably doting on her like crazy since they had mated and bound themselves together.
“Cavanaugh, take over a moment,” Sherry called over her shoulder, towards the other end of the bar to Maya’s left.
Her eyes leaped there.
Landed on a huge male with short silver hair who stood with his back to Sherry, the lights playing across his broad shoulders changing his white shirt from blue to red as they shifted.
He twisted at the waist to look at Sherry.
Maya didn’t hear what he said.
She didn’t hear the music.
Didn’t hear anything but the thumping of her heart.
She stared at the male Cavanaugh had been talking to at the end of the bar.
A male with flame red tousled hair and piercing silver eyes that captured hers as he lifted them from his beer to her, looking past the bartender.
Heat rushed through her, fire that burst to life inside her so fiercely she couldn’t catch her breath, and she stared at him, transfixed, lost in those silver eyes as they turned liquid, glowed around his irises and pulled her deeper still, narrowing the world down to only him.
Who was he?
In the wake of the fire that blazed through her blood, her instincts flashed to life, sweeping through her in a devastating wave that stripped all control from her.
She snapped and snarled at the females near her, baring her short fangs at them as a need seized her and drove her to obey it.
A need to fight.
She growled at Sherry through gritted teeth, her fangs slicing into her gums as they elongated.
Sherry backed off, her blue eyes shooting wide as she distanced herself.
No.
On a low growl, Maya leaped onto the black bar, and swiped at her, claws cutting through the air. Sherry ducked beneath her blow, narrowly evading it. Maya’s hackles rose, the urge flowing stronger, driving her harder. She needed to fight. She needed to make sure every female in the vicinity left.
This was her territory now.
She would m
ake that clear.
She opened her mouth to roar.
Someone’s hand slammed down over it, and she struggled as strong arms hauled her backwards, dragging her off the bar. The male held her harder, wrestled with her and managed to restrain her arms, pinning them to her sides. She bit into his palm and he growled at her, a warning she wanted to heed but couldn’t manage to obey.
She needed to fight.
“Calm her the fuck down or you are both out of here, family or fucking not,” a male voice barked and she snarled at the owner of it—the jaguar. “Get this shit under control.”
“Come with me,” Sherry said and Maya struggled harder, needed to reach the female and fight her.
Needed to make this her territory.
Grey grunted and his grip on her tightened, and she flinched as pain arced like lightning through her bones. A show of strength. He was stronger than her, but she wouldn’t let him stop her. He could break her bones if he wanted. She would fight.
She kicked at him, battering his shins.
He bowed backwards, bringing her legs up and making it impossible for her to reach him.
Maya lashed out at everyone in her way instead.
All it did was help her brother by scattering everyone in his way, giving him an open route to take as he followed Sherry.
As she drew closer to the male with the fiery red hair, the need to fight grew stronger, drove her out of her mind and terrified her, leaving her feeling trapped inside her own body. She clawed at Grey’s arms, cutting through his coat and scoring his flesh, but all he did was hiss through his teeth. His grip on her remained too strong for her to break.
She needed to break it.
She needed to fight.
The scarlet-haired male’s silver eyes tracked her until she was level with him, and then casually he looked back down at his beer and resumed speaking with Cavanaugh.
Cold swept through her in response.
All of the fight flowed out of her and she slumped in Grey’s arms, reeling but unsure why.
Why?
As Grey carried her into a bright white backroom and the door shut behind them, awareness of what she had done slowly crept in, closing in around her.
Tamed by a Tiger Page 2