by Cara Wylde
Too many thoughts running through my head. This was insane, right? It had to be. I’d come to feel something for the three men who owned me. And now they’d promised to avenge my family by taking care of Petrov and his men. I knew very well what taking care of someone meant in their world. More blood, more death. I should’ve been disgusted by the idea, but instead I felt… excited. Deep down, I knew that if Petrov were no more, I’d feel better about my new life with the three tiger shifters. And speaking of their true nature… Now I knew that was what Petrov had meant when he’d said I should pay attention to Aryan, Dev, and Navin. Yes, he had planted me here as a spy, and my three lovers were right to be suspicious of me. I wasn’t going to betray them. No way. I was actually fascinated by their ability to turn into tigers, and I thought they were so rare and special in this world that was dominated by greedy, materialistic humans who’d lost their connection to nature. There was something raw about them, something in the way they enjoyed life and perceived the things around them. Something about the way they appreciated the sun, the water, the grass, the vegetation in their expansive garden. I could feel that they would’ve loved to have more freedom, but it simply wasn’t possible in the big city. They’d made the best of the land and the mansion they had.
I wanted to be part of their life. I wanted them to keep me because I had nothing to go back to. If I ever went back to Russia, I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself. My friends didn’t care about me. Because I had no real friends. Those who hung out with me didn’t actually like me or appreciate me for the person that I was. They just wanted to be seen with Vera Kudrina, the only daughter of the well-known mob boss that sometimes made the news or the papers. Every time we went out, I was the one who had to pay for everyone’s drinks. It wasn’t fair. And I’d known it all along, but what could I have done? Not have any friends?
I could now see how pointless the connections I’d made in my past were. When I was truly in need, I had no one I could count on. But I could count on my lovers, right? Aryan, with his dark blue eyes and curly hair. Dev, with his mountain-like stature, long hair, and grumpy personality. Navin, with his strong, lithe body and cheerful attitude. I smiled as I rolled onto my side and closed my eyes. Thinking about them calmed me down. Imagining what we were going to do the next day, how our life together would unfold now that they trusted me and I knew I wasn’t going to ever try to escape… It all gave me joy. My breathing slowed down, my heartbeat followed it, and soon I was drifting to sleep.
I woke up with a start. I tried to scream, but there was a heavy hand over my mouth. My wide eyes stared right into Petrov’s dark orbs.
“Shh… Don’t scream, or I’ll make you regret it. It’s me, Vera. It’s me.”
I stopped struggling. Right. For some twisted, inexplicable reason, Petrov thought that I was on his side. He thought that I must be glad that he’d come back for me. Wasn’t he supposed to be here next week? He was a week early, and when I saw the men that climbed in through the window, I understood that something was wrong. In the middle of the night, he wasn’t here for business. He was here to cause trouble.
He removed his hand, and I dragged in a deep breath.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered.
He furrowed his brows. His men were already checking the room and the bathroom. One of them opened the door carefully, as silently as he could, and peeked down the corridor.
“I told you I’d come back.” He motioned for me to get out of the bed, and I did so slowly. “What do you have for me, Vera?”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you to pay attention. What have you learned?”
I shook my head. From the corner of my eye, I saw that his men were carrying guns. They were four tall, bulky soldiers that I’d seen before on that dreadful day when I’d lost my family. I swallowed heavily.
“Nothing. I don’t know what you want from me.”
Petrov grabbed me by the jaw and squeezed so hard that I thought my bones would snap.
“The bosses. Aryan, Dev, Navin. What have you learned about them?”
“I don’t know… Nothing special. They live a secluded life. They sometimes travel for business, but they’re mostly here, in their home offices, talking on the phone.”
“Have you gone through their offices?”
“N-no. My access was limited. They… they kept me in a cage for days. They just let me out last night. I swear, I don’t know anything. I don’t even know what kind of information you’re looking for.”
“Bitch.” He released me, ran a hand through his dirty blond hair, and paced the room for a minute. He turned to me once more. “They’re animals.”
I sighed. “Isn’t everyone in this business an animal?”
He was so angry that he could have killed me on the spot. But he needed me. I understood that now.
“They are actual animals, Vera. They are unnatural. Beasts. They’re not human, like you and me. I wanted confirmation before proceeding, before doing what needs to be done. But you’re useless. No matter. I will do it anyway.”
He signaled to his men to start looking for the three targets. And that was when I did something that I shouldn’t have done. I jumped to my feet, grabbed his arm, and pleaded to spare them.
“You can’t. You have to stop this.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “And why would I do that. Vera, they used you.”
“You gave me to them,” I said through gritted teeth. “You thought they would hurt me, but they didn’t.”
“What did they do, then?” He looked around the room, more attentively this time. “I see. They’re treating you like a princess. I bet you lied about being held in a cage.”
“I didn’t!”
I raised my voice, and he immediately covered my mouth again. I grabbed his wrist. In a swift motion, he stepped behind me, twisting both my arms behind my back, and grabbed me by the jaw.
“If you scream, you’re finished. I will snap your neck on the spot.”
“Please…” I knew he would do it. His hand moved to my mouth again. He also covered my nose, and I struggled to breathe.
“You’re with them now, aren’t you? You’re their whore. Why else would you sleep peacefully in your bed when you’re on the ground floor and the windows are right there? Traitor.”
I was getting dizzy. He pushed me out and onto the corridor. His men were already climbing the stairs to the first floor. My lovers didn’t sleep on the ground floor, so it was possible that they hadn’t heard Petrov and his soldiers. They had been very careful, and even as they moved up the stairs, they barely made a sound. I thought the only thing I could do was make some noise. But I was afraid that Petrov would indeed snap my neck. He was in the perfect position to do it.
He forced me to climb the stairs. We stopped in front of a door, and two of his men opened it. Aryan jumped out of the bed. He was wearing a plain T-shirt and black boxer briefs. His first instinct was to attack the intruders, but then he saw that Petrov had me, and he forced himself to calm down.
“What are you doing here?”
“You’re done,” Petrov said. “You and the other two beasts. I know what you are. When I bring the families your severed heads, they’re going to thank me.”
Aryan shot me a questioning glance. I shook my head. No, I hadn’t told him anything. If Petrov really knew that they were tiger shifters, he hadn’t heard it from me.
“What do you think you know?”
“You can shift into animals. Wild animals.”
So, he had no idea what animal they shifted into.
“You’re wrong. Who put such crazy ideas in your head?”
“Are you saying I’m crazy? Are you insulting me?”
Aryan raised his hands in an attempt to appease him. “I’m not trying to insult you, Petrov, but you’re in my house, in the middle of the night, one week before our agreed upon meeting. You’re armed, and so are your men. And you’re holding my woman hostage.”
&
nbsp; “Your woman?” Petrov spat on the floor, then laughed.
“Our woman,” I heard Dev’s voice from behind.
The other two men had brought Dev and Navin with them. Dev was shirtless, and Navin was wearing an oversized T-shirt. They were both awake and alert. The only reason why they hadn’t killed the armed men was because they’d probably heard that Petrov had me. My heart melted at the thought. They cared about me. They were willing to delay the violence if that meant they could get me to safety first.
“Let’s take this downstairs,” Petrov said. “These narrow corridors are giving me claustrophobia.”
The four soldiers made Aryan, Dev, and Navin walk in front of them. Petrov and I were last, and I could tell that my lovers tensed up every time I was held out of their line of sight. We reached the living room, and Petrov guided everyone in a circle. He removed his hand from my mouth, but even though I was frozen with panic, I tried to stay calm and collected. He pulled out a gun and pointed it at my lovers, who were right in front of us, the four soldiers behind them, guns at the ready.
“Maybe you’d like to make this easier,” Petrov said. “Confess, tell me what you are and how you turn into animals, and I will make it quick. I will shoot you straight in the head, and then I’ll let her go.”
“Don’t do it,” I whispered.
Navin shot me a worried look. He wanted me to shut up.
“Petrov, I don’t know what you heard and from whom,” Aryan tried to reason with him. “It’s not true. What you’re talking about is pure fantasy. Shifters? They don’t exist.”
“Don’t take me for a fool!”
I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t just shift and get this over with. In tiger form, they could overpower Petrov and his men in seconds. Even Dev was glancing at me worriedly from time to time, which meant that I was the problem. They weren’t going to do anything as long as there was a chance I might get hurt. That made pure rage bubble in my chest. These three men were willing to risk their lives and their home to keep me safe. That was when I realized that I was stronger than they thought. I was stronger than I thought. I wasn’t helpless. My father had insisted that I learned martial arts with a private instructor, so I’d be able to defend myself if the need ever arose.
I acted on instinct, hoping I wouldn’t make things worse. Petrov didn’t see it coming, and that was the only advantage I had. I stomped on his foot, threw my head back, and hit him right in the chin. He yelled in pain and stepped back, releasing my arms. Everything happened fast. I fell to the ground, knowing that bullets were going to fly. In seconds, Aryan, Dev, and Navin shifted, and Petrov’s men were so stunned that they didn’t know what to do. One of them shot Dev, but he was such a humongous tiger that the bullet didn’t bother him in the least. With a roar, he lifted his paw and struck the man over the face.
I crawled behind the couch and covered my head with my arms. All hell had broken loose, and it was all my fault.
Navin
I saw red. I rushed out of my room only to have the barrel of a gun pointed at my face. Dev was a few feet away, in the same situation. I sneered at the intruder and tapped into the rage and the power of my tiger. The beast wanted to rip the man in front of me apart, and my hands and feet began to morph. I couldn’t understand why Dev was still in his human form. And then I heard it… Petrov’s voice. He was in the house, the soldiers who’d ambushed us were his men, and he had Vera. He was talking to Aryan, and Aryan was trying to negotiate with him, trying to convince him that he was wrong. That he was making a mistake. I forced myself to calm down. I took in a deep breath, released it slowly, and let my body fall back into its human shape. The tiger was, once again, buried deep down. The man with the gun had noticed the slight changes in me. His hand was shaking, so I gave him a sarcastic grin. For now, he had the upper hand. But not because his stupid gun could hurt me. More than a few bullets would be needed to take down a tiger shifter. Because his pathetic boss had Vera. Our princess. She was our priority, and the second she was out of harm’s way, these fools were dead.
The armed men walked Dev and I to Aryan’s room, and from there, we all went downstairs, into the living room. Petrov had Vera in his grasp. He’d locked both her arms behind her back, twisting them painfully. He’d kept her mouth covered most of the time, but now he’d removed his hand so he could take his gun out. The idiot pointed it at Aryan.
I was honestly surprised at how brave Vera was. She didn’t scream, and she didn’t even try to talk to us, like women usually did in these circumstances. She didn’t plead, didn’t try to appeal to Petrov’s humanity, since she knew very well that he had none. She was calm and collected, and for a second, I had the impression that she was thinking about something, that she was trying to figure something out. And then, out of the blue, she struck Petrov so hard that the idiot stumbled backwards, involuntarily releasing her. It was probably the shock of it, and the surprise that such a small, fragile creature had had the courage to hit him, more than anything else… Just as bullets started flying, Vera pressed her body to the floor and scrambled away. She was smart. She knew that the only way to help us was to get out of the way and stay safe while we dealt with the problem.
Petrov. I shifted and went right for him. A bullet hit my shoulder, and another one grazed my side, but I barely felt them. Pure adrenaline was rushing through my veins. Later, a doctor would have to take the bullets out, and I’d have to lick my wounds clean so they’d heal, but right now, the wounds weren’t an issue. They didn’t even slow me down, and I knew that both Dev and Aryan had gotten hit, too. It didn’t matter to them, either.
In my tiger form, I was bigger, stronger, and faster. Petrov cursed, regained his balance, then looked for Vera. He knew that if he got to her again and threatened to take her life, we’d stop the massacre. It was too late. She was behind the couch, and Petrov saw her, but I lunged at him, catching him between my heavy body and the floor. I rose and roared in his face. He’d dropped the gun. His dark eyes were wide and filled with terror. I roared again, contemplating what I should do to him. Spare his life? That was out of the question. He’d hurt my mate, threatened her, and used her to get to me. To us. Not to mention that he’d killed her entire family just a week before, and we’d all promised Vera that we were going to avenge her. I bared my fangs at my prey, and he shrunk, trying to make himself as small as possible. I could have mauled him. I could have torn his every limb, leave him there, on the floor, to bleed to death. But I didn’t. I wanted it to be quick, satisfying to me, and I wanted it to serve as an example to anyone who thought of messing with my mate. I leaned over and took his entire throat in my mouth. I sank my fangs into his flesh, and it all happened so fast that Petrov barely had any time to register that I was going to literally separate his head from his body. He let out a gurgling gasp, then it was done. Blood everywhere. In my mouth, on my fur, flowing over the marble… I took the head with the dark open eyes, stepped over the spasming body, and threw the trophy at Vera’s feet.
She screamed. But she didn’t cover her eyes. When she was done screaming, she looked up at me, and I sat on my hind legs and pushed my chest out proudly. She blinked, still in shock. But she didn’t cry, and she didn’t faint. She was a true mob princess.
It was over. Aryan and Dev had taken care of the other four guys. Aryan was licking his wounds, sinking his teeth into his shoulder trying to get a bullet out. It wasn’t going to happen. We’d have to shift back and call our doctor. But first… we needed to do something about the bodies and the pool of thick blood that was threatening to flood our living room.
I turned back to Vera. She swallowed heavily, then nodded. She knew what she had to do.
Vera
I felt sick to my stomach. On my knees, scrubbing, I held my breath as much as I could. I was drenched in red water. My dress was stained, and my skin had started to itch. I’d tried to use the mop at first, but it hadn’t done much, so I’d decided on a more traditional approach – a bucket of col
d water and a few rags. Aryan, Dev, and Navin had shifted back, and the first thing Aryan did was to call the doctor. Now they were all in the next room, and the doctor was pulling out the bullets and tending to their wounds. From what I understood, the doctor didn’t know they were shifters. He was equally concerned and fascinated by their ability to not only survive being shot, but also still be able to walk, talk, and think clearly. Normally, he would’ve expected them to lose consciousness from the blood loss, but apparently, tiger shifters healed faster than humans. If bullets hadn’t been involved, they wouldn’t have needed the doctor at all.
The door was closed. The doctor hadn’t seen the massacre, as the guys had brought him in through the back door, but I was sure he knew what had happened here. As I cleaned the floor as best as I could, I tried to stay focused on my hands and the red rag I constantly dipped in the water and ran over the expensive marble. I tried not to look at the five bodies Dev and Navin had piled in a corner, one of them missing the head. Petrov’s head had stayed where Navin had thrown it at my feet, and I had no intention of moving it. My job was to clean up the puddle of blood. They would have to deal with the rest.
I felt so, so sick to my stomach. I felt like vomiting, and I covered my mouth and my nose with my arm. Bad idea. I was deep into red water up to my elbows, and all I managed to do was to smear it all over my cheeks and my neck. I looked down at myself in disgust.
“You can do it,” I whispered to myself encouragingly. “You can do this, Vera.”
Aryan had called the maid the day before, and she was supposed to be here in a couple of hours. He didn’t want to cancel, so as not to raise suspicion, so we’d all have to make sure that the living room was presentable when she rang the doorbell. So, I swallowed heavily, dragged in a breath, held it, and scrubbed some more. I changed the water a couple of times, and finally, instead of deep red, now it only turned a light shade of pink. When the doctor left and Aryan, Dev, and Navin walked into the living room, fully dressed and clean, the puddle was gone. I hadn’t touched the bodies, and where they lay, more blood had gathered on the floor. It was thick and it was starting to dry. I was going to clean that up after they removed the bodies.