When the hair-raising growls started, she figured better to break her neck than to be eaten by a pack of wild dogs. She twirled around, picked up the pace, and transitioned into a full blown run, until something tangled her up and she took a tumble, landing roughly on her hands and knees.
The terrified part of her wanted to curl up into a ball, close her eyes, and disappear. The stubborn side of her wouldn’t let her. “Get up,” she mumbled under her breath.
As she rose to her feet, Tatum had the distinct feeling she was surrounded. Her belief was enforced when deep guttural snarls rumbled too close around her. She started backing up when blood-curdling screeches echoed from above, and when she heard eerie human laughter wafting through the chilled breeze, she was stunned, forced to consider the impossible.
Wandering through the murky middle ground of not quite evening and not quite darkness, surrounded by trees, listening to the twigs snap beneath her feet, Tatum imagined she should have given many things further thought. Especially when she figured out she couldn’t back up any further.
With her shoulder blades hard-pressed up against the trunk of an old tree, she came to the conclusion she had been herded like a lamb to the slaughter. Squinting, she tried to see what she sensed. Her gaze darted from tree to tree to tree. The fine hair on the back of Tatum’s neck stood on end as a beast broke through the brush, stalking toward her. Those things that go bump in the night were true.
The creature, which walked upright, stopped. It dropped to four legs where it stood within the shadow-dappled light, only a few feet away, and stared at her with eyes reflecting the fathomless black of midnight. By the stance alone, she knew an attack was imminent. With no weapon, fear gripping her, and nothing left to do, Tatum wrapped her arms around her stomach. Immediately her thoughts drifted to her mother. She’ll never know what happened to me. Tatum concluded she would become one of the many missing faces amongst the sea of missing people that she herself had read about on all those store flyers which littered the walls in town.
Unable to stop the reaction, Tatum jerked and screamed as a massive tree crashed down in front of her. It shook the ground in a shockwave and created a partial barrier between her and the beast. Barely holding on to her sanity, Tatum realized a tall, pale silhouette of something not quite human stood on the knotted bark of the fallen tree. When it crouched, dark tangles of hair swished around its features, obscuring the face. One large clawed hand rested upon the ground. However improbable, the scene played out, reminiscent of a twisted horror movie, and when another dark beast formed from out of the shadows to the right of her, she knew her end was near.
Tatum wondered if she had snapped. Her life didn’t flash before her eyes. She didn’t think about all the things she should have done and didn’t get the chance to do. She didn’t even mourn the life she would be leaving behind. What did flash happened to be a snapshot of her mother with a distraught expression wrinkling up Violet Neill’s usually peaceable brow. She clearly pictured her mother as she frantically handed out leaflets to strangers with Tatum’s picture on them. Tatum even imagined the missing person flyer.
“The woman is mine.” The voice she heard snapped her attention to the fore. It came from the humanoid being in front of her on the fallen tree trunk. “And unless you wish to die on this day, Brimstone, I suggest you and Santos leave.”
“Jericho?” she asked and heard the quaver in her own voice. She recognized his voice, yet she had a hard time putting the man she knew and this being in front of her together as the same person.
“Stay behind me, Tatum. No matter what you hear or see, do not move a muscle.”
Jesus. Cold traversed her spine. “Jericho, what in the hell is going on?”
The beast in front of Jericho rushed him. Tatum watched as Jericho disappeared into nothing. He was in front of her one moment, crouching. The next, he was gone. She heard horrible snarls then saw the wolf-beast go to the ground, obviously fighting something that she herself could not see. Blood flew from the body of the beast, arced and splattered across a tree as his throat was ripped open. His body stilled. Lifeless.
To her right, Tatum knew that beast turned tail and ran, only to be tripped up. He tumbled nose over legs, growling. No. Not growling, she realized. Yelping. She lost sight of him when he rolled into the underbrush. She heard a roar, then nothing more.
Shaking like a leaf, Tatum slumped to the ground, pulled her legs up to her chest and stared at a huge white tiger coming toward her. As he came closer she could see his white face and wide chest were stained in blood. When it was a few feet away, it stopped, sat on its haunches, then slowly walked its front paws forward, placing its underbelly on the ground. Little by little, it crawled up to Tatum until the pink nose touched the tips of her suede boots. Tatum sucked in her breath when the icy-white eyes of the huge tiger looked up at her. She knew those snowy colored eyes ringed in black.
“Jericho?” The big cat bumped her foot with its nose. “Am I dreaming?” He rubbed one ear on her leg then met her shocked gaze once more.
Tatum un-balled her fist from her side and gradually extended out a trembling hand. Jericho’s wet nose touched it. She yanked it back. He stared at her. She reached out again, placing her hand to the top of his large head, feeling the softness of his fur, and tracing a black line of hair before scratching behind his ear. The big cat rumbled low, purring, she supposed. She carefully touched his long white whiskers, watching them twitch before placing both hands into his fur. He turned over, giving her his belly, almost lying like a fluffy lap cat, only much, much bigger.
“Can you talk to me?” Tatum asked as she touched the fur of his arm, then put her hand to the big pad of his foot. When he growled, amazement, not fear filled her. “So I’m taking the growl means no words.” He turned over, coming to his feet, and lay down beside her. He licked the top of her hand, nudged her hand until she turned it over, and licked the blood from the cuts that she had sustained from her earlier fall. As soon as he was done she observed with wide eyed wonder the cuts disappear from her flesh, as if the marks on her palms never even existed. “You have to change back and tell me everything. I need to know how this,” she said as she swiped her hand down his head, “is possible.” He nudged her cheek with his nose. She giggled. It was wet and cold. “Wait. I heard a child crying. That’s why I came into the woods. We need to find it, Jericho.”
Jericho shifted into his human form. Tatum took in all his naked flesh and rippling muscles. Without touching his skin, he swiped his hand over his face and chest. All traces of blood were gone when he was done. “There’s no baby. It’s just a trick of the werewolves,” he said.
Puzzlement, relief, then something else much more primal rolled through her when he stood up to his full height with something not tiger, but massively man pointing toward her. He closed his eyes. The expression on his face looked as though he were concentrating. When he opened them, he was fully dressed in black clothing.
“How did you do that?”
Jericho smiled. “You humans call it magic.”
Chapter Five
Jericho ran through the forest, holding Tatum cradled in his arms. The werewolf leader would answer to Jericho for Tatum’s attack, but for the moment he was just thankful she hadn’t been harmed more than the few cuts on her hands that his saliva healed. There was no getting past the fact the cat had been let out of the bag. Tatum didn’t know all of the details yet, but she knew he was both man and tiger. He had reveled in her touch as she gently explored him in his tiger state, loving the warmth of her, and had been overtaken by happiness that she hadn’t run away from him screaming. He still had a lot of things to explain, but after the ordeal in the woods earlier, he thought she was more than strong enough to accept what he had to say. He just hoped she fully accepted him.
Not putting her down until they were inside his home, Jericho inhaled her scent before he placed her on her feet.
“We should talk,” he said. Tatum nodded. “Her
e.” He grabbed a pillow from his couch and smacked it about. His version of fluffing it. “Sit down.”
Tatum took a seat. Jericho sat across from her. “Those things. They were werewolves, like straight out of a horror flick, weren’t they?”
“They are werewolves, only they aren’t men bitten by a wolf and transformed. They were born a were.”
“Are there other types of weres?”
“Yes. Many different species of weres exists.”
“And you are a were?”
Jericho shook his head. “No. I’m a shape-shifter. I was born as you were born. But my DNA sequence is slightly different from that of a human man. It contains strands from the white tiger species as well, allowing me to shift into the form of a white tiger.”
“How is that possible?” Tatum asked.
“As to how, I’m unsure myself. Elders within the shifter community believe we are a genetic mutation. Some think it is the natural selection of evolution. Some believe we are mutants. Tiger shifters seem to be almost a breed of their own, with a white tiger shifter being rare. I’ve heard we were given are gifts from the gods, and that we have ties to demons, but I don’t believe either of those things are true. I tend to believe we are what we were intended to be, with perhaps a few extra gifts of nature thrown in.”
“But you can disappear, make my cuts go away, and conjure clothing from thin air.”
“I can will my tiger form to vanish from sight, and there are healing properties within my saliva that are too technical to even try to explain. I am able to picture organic things such as cotton, hemp, leather, and so on, then create clothing out of them. Why or how, I can only speculate about. I can also hear the thought of man, animals, weres and shifters.”
Tatum turned beet red. “You can hear my thoughts?”
“You are the exception, my lady.”
“Why?”
“We are unable to hear our life mate.”
“Life mate?”
“Yes.”
“Is that like a soul mate?”
Jericho chuckled. “In a way, only much more.”
“Much more how?”
“As an alpha, I have the ability to turn a life mate.”
“Turn? You mean, you can turn me into a tiger?”
“You wouldn’t turn into a tiger, but you would have a considerably longer life, like me.”
“How old are you?”
“Two hundred and sixty-six.”
Tatum’s jaw dropped. “Get out. You can’t be serious.”
“I am. We do age, but very slowly. Some of the elder tigers are over nine hundred years old.”
“So I would be like that?”
“Yes. And you would never again be subject to human illnesses. Your sense of sight, hearing, and smell would increase exponentially, and you would be much stronger, less fragile.” Jericho stood up from the footrest he was seated on and went to sit beside Tatum. With a whisper soft touch he brushed the tips of his fingers down her cheek. “I know this is all a lot to take in, but—”
“Those werewolves were going to kill me, right?”
“They wanted to take you into their pack, and offer you to their alpha as his woman.”
“But I thought I’m your life mate?”
Jericho smiled. “We haven’t consummated our ties, which makes you irresistible to other alphas.”
“And if we consummate our ties, they won’t be interested in me?”
“No.”
Tatum grabbed Jericho by the neck, tugged him forward, and planted her lips on his. Every particle in his body ignited when he tasted her. “I want you, Tatum. But choose to be mine not out of an obligation or fear. I will always protect you from the others, no matter what you decide.”
“I’ve decided,” she said, plunging her tongue into his mouth.
****
Tatum’s blood raced through her veins. Kissing Jericho, her white tiger, set her aflame with a need that gripped her and held her in the throes of a passion she’d dreamed about and was experiencing first hand. When his arms came around her to pick her up, she delighted in his strength. Everything in her world had been turned upside down, but Jericho made her feel protected. Beautiful. Wanted. She’d felt his pull the first moment she’d met him, and now, as he stripped her bare, she was unable to stop what was happening between them. More importantly, she didn’t want to stop.
“Jericho,” she moaned, as he nibbled his way down her neck, licking and mouthing the cord of her wanting, sending a potent combination of heated electrical currents and cold chills over the canvas of her flesh. When he took one hard nipple between his teeth and gently tugged, she shook, uncontrollably. “Oh, God…” He sucked and licked, hands outlining every curve as he made his way to the blonde tuft of curls between her legs.
Tatum gasped when he parted her with his tongue. “Mine,” he growled. He swirled his tongue around her clit until her knees gave. He caught her, carried her to his bed, and laid her down on her back. He crawled to her, wearing nothing but a smile, went to his stomach, inched up between her thighs and spread her legs. “Beautiful.”
She only heard the one word before she felt him take her with his mouth. The tip of his tongue tickled her anus, followed by the flat of it swiping upward, then teeth teased her pert tip. Tatum knew she was making noises that she couldn’t believe came from her. They ranged from whimpers to cries to mews of pleasure. Jericho’s mouth brought her to the peak of climax, and with the last brush of his tongue Tatum writhed in pleasure.
“Aaahh….” She shook. Lightning skipped through the entirety of her body. She’d come on his tongue.
Jericho slid up her body. His mouth met hers. She tasted him, herself, the wildness of him and melted when his hard cock pressed between her lower lips. Jericho centered himself between her parted legs. She looked up into his beautiful white eyes and saw herself reflected within them.
“Are you sure you want this? Me?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Jericho hitched her right leg up as he slid himself into his mate. Tatum’s hands found purchase against his strong shoulders. “Are you okay?”
Tatum was filled up, entirely. “Yes.”
Jericho pulled out of her hot, snug body then pushed back inside with slow deliberate movements. She felt him deeper, bumping a spot that was driving her over the edge.
They found their rhythm and moved their bodies together. Tatum quaked in her tigers arms.
“Are you going to come?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I can feel you,” Jericho said.
Jericho thrust his hips, swayed his pelvis, pulled out, and then did the whole maneuver again. Tatum almost squealed, coming to the top. She ran her hands down his back, feeling the strength of him beneath them. With his next thrust, sway movement she came in an explosion. Her loins burned.
****
Jericho’s fangs descended when he felt Tatum constrict around his hard cock. He pumped himself past the grip of her climax, bit into the soft supple flesh of her neck and tasted her essence, marking her as his life mate.
“I’m coming again,” she screamed when his teeth left her neck.
“You are my life mate,” he growled as his seed spilled out, inside of her.
“Yes,” she said, right before she passed out from the pleasure.
Epilogue
Tatum woke, curled into the warmth of Jericho. She stared at him. “Did I faint?”
He nodded. “How are you feeling now?”
“Terrific.” She stretched then kissed Jericho’s lips. Tatum pulled back and touched the side of her neck. “You bit me?”
“Yes, and the next time we make love, you will have the ability to bite me.”
“I’ll have fangs?”
“You will,” he said. “You will claim me, as I claimed you.”
Tatum rubbed the tip of her nose against his. “Do you love me, Jericho?”
“Tatum, I love you more than mere words can express.”
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“I love you, too. It’s like I’ve loved you my whole life. It’s hard to explain.”
Jericho’s big hands roamed down Tatum’s back, stopping on her ass. He cupped the pretty globes and pulled her to him. Tatum moaned when her nipples rubbed against his skin. Jericho smiled. “No need for explanations. That’s what it’s like for life mates.”
The End
www.londonsaintjames.com
BUT FEAR ITSELF
Giselle Renarde
Copyright© 2014
Jamming her trowel into the soil, Racine stared up at the sky. Beautiful day, just beautiful. So why couldn’t she enjoy it? Why was it so hard to find happiness after some lousy, stinkin’ man made you miserable?
Happiness is everywhere when you’re in love. Racine remembered the joys of the everyday, back when she and Lowell were first together. He’d bring her flowers, and she’d sigh. He’d write her poetry, and her knees would turn to jelly. When he came back from business trips, he always brought her little soaps and shampoo bottles from the hotels he’d stayed at.
The little things. She’d enjoyed him so much.
Tears welled in her eyes as she thought about how blissful she’d been, and how stupid. How naïve. How trusting.
She should never have trusted him, but he had those eyes, that soft gaze that said, “I’m yours.” She’d believed it all along.
Stupid.
Just when Racine let her tears fall, a slight form slithered across her peripheral vision. She turned fast enough to catch sight of something black, something slinky, something with yellow stripes painted down its back.
Jumping to her feet, Racine watched the snake disappear into the raspberry bushes. She gripped her trowel like a weapon, though she knew she’d never use it that way. No matter how she felt about snakes, she could never kill one. She couldn’t even kill a spider. When they got in the house, she trapped them between a water glass and a sheet of paper, then put them outside.
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