THE TIGERS
SHARED MATE
A PARANORMAL MENAGE ROMANCE
BONNIE BURROWS
Copyright ©2016 by Bonnie Burrows
All rights reserved.
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About This Book
After witnessing a murder, Lydia was terrified and the men who had just caused the carnage were now coming after her.
These men were Jareth and Carter, shapeshifting tigers who were out on a revenge mission.
Having got what they came for they were ready to call it a night but now they had one more loose end to tie up.
Her.
However, instead of executing her on the spot they took her home with them and it soon became extremely apparent that the tigers might have other more interesting plans for curvy Lydia...
Note: This is a Paranormal “Menage” Romance which includes a three-way sexual relationship. Please only read if you enjoy these themes. 18+
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER ONE
Jareth looked across the field to Carter, who was checking the last of the fallen men for a pulse. Jareth stood in tiger form, early morning sun streaming across his shoulders, ready to pounce should any of their attackers prove to be faking death. But a nod from Carter signaled that the last man standing was dead.
Jareth rocked back on his heels, shifting back to human form. His muscles contracted, thick tiger hair receding into his skin, claws retracting and giving way to long human fingers. Carter jogged over to Jareth, tossing a pair of pants and shirt from his pack.
“Put some clothes on and help me lock down the perimeter.”
“Did you find the man who led the attack on Timor’s place?”
“I found him and the four men that were with him that night.”
“Good. At least we won’t have to worry about people sneaking into our homes and murdering our families in their sleep.”
Carter looked off into the distance. His gentle heart couldn’t stand all the carnage, but it had been unavoidable. It was one thing to protest tiger-shifters being allowed to live and work among the “normal” humans, but it was quite another to resort to murder to prove their point. Carter was all for peaceful resolutions, but time and time again, the anti-shifter movement had proven that they were dangerous, lawless men who would stop at nothing to keep their human blood pure.
The anti-shifters claimed that their only mission was to prevent interspecies families, trying to capitalize on the fear that many shifters also shared. Yet the family they’d killed in their sleep had been a young family of tiger-shifters, without a mixed one in the lot. Their mission was wrong, no matter who they targeted among the shifters, but Carter couldn’t wrap his head around the attack two nights before.
“Stop trying to figure it out,” Jareth broke in, pulling the shirt over his head. “They say one thing and do another. No one is safe from them, even their own kind.”
“Isn’t that the truth? I just don’t understand what they had against Timor and his family. He and Mara are good people.” He looked down at his feet. “I mean they were good people.”
“Yes, but they were very vocal about interspecies equality. They were making headway, and that scared a lot of people. On both sides.”
“You’re right. Shall we check the houses before I call in the all clear to Gavin?”
Jareth rolled his eyes. Gavin was their local elder and a long-standing member of the tiger shifter community that had thrived in Georgia for decades. He was old-fashioned and very vocal. Jareth gave him the respect due an elder, but he didn’t like the man.
“Let’s check the cabins and you can call the old codger when you feel like it. Better that than him paying us a visit.”
“Can’t hide your facial expressions in person?”
“I’m not responsible for what my face does when that man talks. He’s a total sleaze ball and a hypocrite. Mark my words, nothing that man says is actually what he’s thinking.”
“Jareth, he’s a career politician. I think that’s par for the course with those guys.”
“Call it what you will, but something isn’t right with that man.”
The two moved towards the small grouping of run-down shacks that made up the anti-shifter compound. The group had made their home in this remote area of Mill Creek in Northern Georgia, not far from the Tennessee border.
“Let’s split up,” Jareth said. “I want to get done quickly so we can go back to our lives.”
“Fine. I’ll start on this side, you take the back row. We’ll meet in the middle.”
Jareth jogged to the other end of the small clearing, starting in the furthest of the ten or so rundown shacks.
“How could these people live like this?” he muttered under his breath.
Without electricity and with questionable running water, he couldn’t imagine why anyone would choose to live out here. He got it, they hated shifters. But Jareth couldn’t think of a single thing he hated enough to live in squalor for the rest of his life.
He cleared the first two cabins quickly, noting that there was hardly enough food to sustain a single person, let alone the six men lying dead in the clearing beyond.
He heard Carter whistle from another cabin. He headed that way, mentally marking off his place. He only had one more cabin to look over, so he ran through that one on his way.
“What’s up, brother?”
“There’s a trapdoor in this one. I can’t seem to get the door up.”
“I wonder what they have in there.”
“Only one way to find out.”
The pair grabbed onto the rope attached to the door, pulling with their combined strength several times when they finally heard the wood splinter around the deadbolt.
“Is that bolt on the inside?” Carter asked.
“Looks that way.”
They yanked again, and the sound of the wood splitting groaned throughout the house an instant before the bolt gave way. They fell to the floor, both breathing hard from the effort and laughing.
“It better be something good,” Jareth said, scrambling to his feet to look over the edge.
He wasn’t prepared for what he saw. He stared into bright blue eyes, filled with terror.
“Please don’t hurt me.” Her voice was hoarse, and she trembled in the tiny space.
Carter popped his head over the edge.
“Well, I’ll be. They were hiding a woman. Who knew?” Jareth said.
“I’m not one of them, please don’t kill me.”
“Not one of who?”
“Those men. I don’t belong to them.”
“Then what are you doing
here?”
“I was passing through and they caught me trespassing.”
She shifted uncomfortably in the small space, and a sound drew their attention to her ankles.
“Do they have you shackled?” Carter was incredulous.
She nodded, but didn’t speak.
Jareth cursed under his breath and stood, pacing around the small room. Carter stood, cutting him off and stopping his angry plodding.
“What?”
“We’re supposed to kill them all. Those were our instructions.”
“We can’t kill her. She’s not one of them, you heard her.”
“How do we know she’s telling the truth?”
“Didn’t you see her shackles?”
“So? It’s just her ankles. She could very easily have done that to herself after she climbed in there. You know these anti-shifters; they’ll do anything to further their cause.”
“I believe her.”
“You can believe her all day, Carter. But that doesn’t mean Gavin is going to be happy about this if we let her live.”
Carter lowered his voice so the woman wouldn’t be able to hear him.
“Fine. Then you kill her.”
“No way.”
“Well, I’m not going to kill her, so our only choice is to rescue her. If we kill her, we’ll be no better than those men that killed Timor and Mara. Once you cross that line, you’re a murderer, not a fighter.”
Jareth took a deep breath, looking at the open trapdoor.
“So what do you propose we do?”
“You know Gavin, he’ll send someone behind us to clean up the mess. If his men find her, they’re going to kill her. We have to hide her. It’s the only way to spare her life. Once we get her home, we’ll figure it out from there.”
Jareth nodded. “You’re right. We’ll get her cleaned up and fed and send her on her way before Gavin finds out. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt us, right?”
“Right.”
They walked back to the opening, the woman still cowering with her back against the wall. Carter sat at the edge of the hole she was in, smiling in an attempt to make himself less frightening.
“I’m Carter, this is Jareth. I know you’re scared, but we’re going to get you out of here.”
“And then what?” Her voice was much steadier than before.
“You’re going to come to our home until it’s safe for you to leave.”
“What if I say no?”
Jareth stepped in, his voice pinched in frustration.
“Look, lady. There’s going to be a cleanup crew coming in as soon as we call this in. If those men find you, they won’t hesitate to kill you. Your best chance is with us.”
“I’ll run. I’ll be out of here before they come.”
“They’re probably already on their way,” Carter admitted. “Gavin isn’t patient. And they’ll come in tiger form. If they smell you, they’ll find you and take you down before you have a chance to get away. Trust us. You need to come with us.”
The woman looked back and forth between the men, her face set.
“Your life isn’t worth your pride,” Carter said gently, holding his hand out to her.
After considering her options for a moment, she finally reached out to him, placing one delicate hand into his.
Jareth grabbed her other hand and they pulled her out of the hidey hole.
She pointed to a key hanging high upon the wall.
“That’s the key. I’m not going anywhere until these things are off me.”
Jareth climbed up the gnarled wooden post that served as a support beam, retrieving the tree and kneeling in front of her to unlock the shackles.
“We’re parked just a bit away. I know this is going to suck, but Gavin’s men are probably on the way. You’re going to have to hide so they don’t see you.”
She nodded. “Hopefully it’s better than my current accommodations.”
“Much. And you’ll only be in there a few minutes while we pass them.”
She nodded, moving her ankle around as the cuffs fell away. Carter and Jareth helped her stand, wrapping an arm around her when she stumbled.
“I’ve been in there for a while. I don’t know how fast I’ll be.”
Jareth groaned and ran out the door, leaving Carter to hold onto the woman. A few moments later, they heard the gravel crunch under the tires of Jareth’s SUV.
Carter scooped her up, carrying her to the door and placing her on her feet beside the back door. It wasn’t until then that either of them realized that her feet were bare. Jareth turned away quickly, but Carter caught his angry expression in the review mirror. Somehow everything she must have endured seemed so heinous when they factored in her lack of shoes.
“There’s a storage compartment in the floor there. It runs the entire width of the floor between the front and back seats. It will be a tight squeeze, but you’ll be able to stretch out.”
Carter leaned forward and pulled on a tiny pulley, revealing an area that was just a little less than two feet wide and about that deep. She met his deep green eyes with hers, searching his gaze for a moment.
Could she trust this man? It didn’t matter if she thought she could. Someone was coming and she had a choice; risk her life trusting a man who’d saved her, or leave herself a sitting duck at the compound. She’d choose the former. It might not be ideal, but it was the lesser of the two evils. For now, that would have to be enough.
Resigning herself to her current circumstances, she crawled into the space, laying on her back and closing her eyes before Carter laid the carpeted door back down. He didn’t latch it, leaving it resting closed. The windows of the SUV were heavily tinted. Even if they peered into the vehicle, they would never notice the compartment in the floor.
Carter jumped into the passenger side and Jareth put the SUV in gear, heading down the gravel lane and towards the entrance. He pulled out his cellphone as they neared the gate, dialing Gavin’s number and putting the phone to his ear.
Gavin answered on the first ring.
“Is it done?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Six. And we swept the cabins. There were no men left on the property, as far as we could see.”
“I’ve sent a crew to deal with the bodies. They’ll be there shortly if they aren’t already.”
“I see their car up ahead.”
“Thank you both for your service. Timor and Mara will rest in peace knowing that the men who killed them and their family have paid for what they’ve done.”
Gavin hung up in his ear without another word. Carter and Jareth nodded at the men in the dark SUV as it passed them by. Jareth kept the vehicle at the same speed, resisting the urge to floor it until the interstate.
When a second SUV came around the corner of the long dirt road, Carter was happy his friend had chosen to continue on calmly. They nodded to the occupants of the second SUV and continued.
“We have no idea how many people Gavin sent,” Carter called over the seat. “It would be best if you stayed in there until we reached the interstate, alright?”
A delicate hand snaked out from the compartment, giving a thumbs-up before pulling back in and lowering the door.
Carter chuckled, watching out the window for more SUVs, but no more came. When they made it to the interstate, Carter let her know that it was safe to come out. He reached over the center console, holding the compartment door open for her to climb out.
She sat in the seat, buckling up before looking around.
“Where are we?”
“Just north of Dalton.”
“Tennessee?” Her voice held a hint of panic.
“No. Georgia.”
“Oh.”
“Where were you coming from?”
She hesitated.
“Look, I’m not planning on sticking around long.”
“OK,” Carter said. “What about your name? Care to share that with us?”
“Y
ou first.”
“Fair enough, although we did introduce ourselves back in the cabin. I’m Carter and he’s Jareth.”
“Oh, yeah. Are you brothers?”
Jareth snorted under his breath, “Are you kidding? I don’t look a thing like him?”
“No. We’re not brothers.”
“But you’re both tiger shifters?”
“Yes,” Carter said.
“So you’re related.”
“Are you related to every human?” Jareth countered.
“I guess not.” She was silent for a moment, watching the world pass by outside her window.
“Your name?” Jareth asked.
“Oh. I was hoping you hadn’t noticed.”
“Don’t let Jareth’s good looks fool you. He’s actually smarter than a rock.”
Jareth elbowed Carter in the ribs and the pair laughed.
“Lydia.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Lydia.” Carter smiled at her.
“Like I said, I’m not planning on sticking around long.”
“No worries. What about staying for dinner and a good night’s rest before you go?”
“That sounds good. But I’m starving now.”
“I’ll swing through a drive-thru, just name your poison.”
“I don’t really care. As long as it’s dead and I don’t have to kill it and skin it myself.”
Jareth smiled at Carter. “I know just the place.”
He took the next exit, pulling into a line of cars that was already wrapped around the building.
“This is insane,” Carter said. “It’s only eleven.”
“Yeah, but it’s the best.”
“What is this place?” Lydia asked.
“Uncle Joe’s.”
“Sounds classy.” Carter snorted, enjoying giving Jareth a hard time for once.
“It’s life-changing. You talk a big game, but you’ll never look at barbeque the same way again.”
Twenty minutes later, Lydia sat in the back of the SUV, her mouth watering as she took her first bite. She moaned and closed her eyes.
“Isn’t it just the best thing you’ve ever put in your mouth?”
The Tigers Shared Mate Page 1