She ran as fast as she could, her shifter genes not helping much, since she hadn’t changed her shape in years. Somewhere along the way, she lost one of her shoes. Running with a limp slowed her down, but not nearly as much as stopping to take of the shoe that the muck on the bottom of the lake hadn’t sucked off her right foot would have.
Reaching her car, even a few steps ahead of the men, was an effort. That she reached it in barely enough time to get inside and lock the doors before the two goons reached it was a miracle.
The men ran a lot faster than she did. Though the one holding the kitten had moved slower. Most likely because the little furball had sank its claws into his scalp and wouldn’t let go. He ran with his hands over his head, trying to extricate the animal from his hair. She might have felt sorry for the guy, if he wasn’t a lowlife who got his rocks off forcing women to his will.
“It’s time to get out of here.” She reached for her keys, only to find they weren’t in her jacket pocket and they weren’t in her hands. She glanced around the interior of the car, hoping to find she’d dropped them on the seat in her hurry to close and lock the door.
However, the taller of the two, too-handsome males, outside her car drew her attention with a rap on her window, a smile, and a shake of her keys.
“Looking for these?”
“Damn.”
Tears filled her eyes as she realized that, like it or not, she was caught between that proverbial rock and the hard place. Still, Carmen knew she had no one to blame for her situation but herself. Had she told her uncles of her plan, she would have had protection. Instead, she’d been stupid about trying to declare her independence and hadn’t told them a thing.
Reaching for her cell phone, she pulled it from her pocket and almost burst into tears. It was soaked. She’d ruined it, going after the kitten that was now resting comfortably in the arms of the man who’d rescued it.
Rubbing her still burning belly, she glanced up at the man who still held her keys just outside her window.
“Open your door and take your keys. We won’t harm you. I promise.”
Right. What good were promises by men with no honor? Still, she didn’t have much of a choice, did she? She was stuck here, in the middle of nowhere until a car drove by and, even then, there was no guarantee that anyone would help her.
Could she still shift on the fly? She doubted it. It had been years since she used any of her shifter abilities. She hadn’t had to. Between living in the city and having her uncles see to her every whim, there was no reason to shift. Generally, her people only shifted during times of battle or duress. She hadn’t been under stress since she’d gone up for first chair after her best friend, Melody, had quit the orchestra and married Carmen’s two uncles.
Up until today, her life had been good—perfect, even. Then she came to California and everything turned to crap.
“I swear we won’t hurt you.” The man gestured to his companion who had started petting the kitten. “He’ll back away. It will just be you and me, and I’ll hand you the keys and you can drive away, if that’s what you wish.” He rested his hands on the edge of the roof. “Only I wish you would let me talk to you for a minute before you leave.”
Carmen knew she didn’t have a choice. She could sit in her car until dark when they could beat her windows in under the cover of darkness, or she could take the chance that he was telling her the truth and open her door.
What convinced her was seeing his pained expression, the perspiration on his brow and the fact that he held his left hand over his stomach as though it burned just as badly as hers did.
Slowly, she reached for the door handle, knowing the door would unlock automatically as soon as she pulled the handle. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and looked up at the man who still held her keys.
True to his word, he dropped her keys in her hand and stepped away from the car. “I would like to talk to you before you go.” His eyes took on a strange glint when he looked at her. It was similar to the way Mitch and Wyatt’s eyes had been when they watched Melody when they first realized she was their mate.
Heat coiled in her belly, curling insidiously through her insides as though someone had cut her open and took a blowtorch to her intestines. Wrapping her hands around her middle, she gasped and leaned forward.
“What—what’s happening to me?”
The man rushed back to the car, thrust her door wide and knelt beside her. “You’re a shifter. You should know what it is. It’s the mating heat.”
“The el calor?” Carmen shook her head. It doesn’t hurt like this. It shouldn’t hurt like this. Should it?” She groaned as she looked up at the man. Could he be her mate? She glanced at his companion, who still remained a distance from the car and groaned again when another wave of pain hit her hard.
“It can.” He nodded. “If your mates are old.” Once again, he glanced at his companion. “Gable and I are very old and our people nearly extinct.” Reaching up, he gently brushed her hair back from her sweat-soaked face. “We never dreamed we would find a mate, especially one as beautiful as you.”
“You’re not Leoparo.” Carmen shook her head. She would have been able to tell by their scent if they had been one of her kind.
“No,” he agreed. “We are from the cascade.”
“Cascade? I think I’ve heard of that.” She frowned. “Though, I’m not sure what that is.”
“The Caspian Cascade is our hiding place, for lack of a better way to put it.” He smiled, showing her an adorable dimple that she had the most incredible urge to lick. “It is a place that is not a place, a time that is not a time and it has kept us hidden for over one-hundred years.”
“You’re not over a hundred.” She shook her head with a laugh. “If you are, you’re seriously too old for me.” She paused. “You’re not really that old are you?” She couldn’t imagine having sex with two men old enough to be her grandfathers. She didn’t care how good they looked. Like most shifters, the two didn’t look a day over thirty-five. She bit her lip with a frown. Her uncles weren’t that much older than Melody, were they?
He just grinned at her, with those lovely blue eyes and the dimple that needed licked. “What do you think?”
“What I think,” she said with a sigh, “doesn’t matter if you two are my mates. Though, you’re really taking the saying about being cradle robbers to a whole new level.”
Chapter Four
Gable watched Malik as he spoke to the woman who must be their mate. His stomach cramped, and it burned almost as much as the scratches he’d gotten from the kitten he rescued from the lake.
The little shit had crawled up his torso and settled on the top of his head when he reached it. It was as though she wanted to get as far away from the water as she could, which wouldn’t have been a problem had he been in his tiger form with its thick coat of fur and skin.
Instead, he’d been in his vulnerable human form. While knife and bullet wounds healed rather quickly, feline scratches would take a while to heal. He’d never known why. It just seemed to be the way of things.
He moved toward the car when he saw Malik push the driver’s door wide and brush the hair from the woman’s face. Moving slowly, as to not scare her, he walked around the front end and stood next to Malik as he spoke softly to her.
She glanced up after a moment and gave him a hesitant smile. “I guess you must be Gable.”
“Yes,” he said with a nod. “I’m Gable Azarov, and knowing Malik, he hasn’t introduced either of us properly.” He grinned. “He’s Malik Zorin.”
“I’m Carmen Satriano and, apparently, I’m your mate.”
Just hearing her say those words sent his system into overdrive. His heart raced and his stomach burned with the need to claim her.
“I’m glad to hear you say that.” It would mean that they wouldn’t have to tread so lightly with her as they would have a human woman. Being a shifter, she knew about the mating heat
and the need to expedite their courtship.
“Well...” She paused and gave each of them a look that said she would brook no argument. “Mating heat, or not, I’m not jumping into bed with you two right away. I don’t know you, and I don’t sleep with men I don’t know.”
“I don’t recall saying anything about anyone getting to sleep.” Malik grinned at her and Gable could have punched the idiot for his smart-assed remark.
“Let me rephrase that, then.” She stuck the key in the ignition. “I have no intention of having sex with either of you today.” Turning her key, she started the car. “In fact, it most likely won’t happen tomorrow either.” She leaned forward and held her stomach with a groan. “I don’t give a damn how much this shit hurts, you two can damn well take me out on a few dates and get to know me before you take over my life. Otherwise, we can all go crazy and get put down because I would rather die than jump into bed with two men I don’t know.”
Reaching out, she closed her door, locked it and put her car in gear. She turned to give them a little wave as she pulled out onto the road, spraying gravel in her wake as she made a U-turn and headed back the way he and Malik had come.
“She’s beautiful.” Malik said as he trotted to their car.
“She’s gorgeous,” Gabe agreed.
“Put that down and get in,” Malik said nodding to the cat.
“That’s easier said than done.” Gable grimaced. “I tried to put the little pain in the ass down while you were talking to Carmen, but it keeps crawling up my arm, and it fucking hurts.”
“It’s a female, isn’t it?” Malik chuckled, the ass.
“Yes, it is.” Gabe curled his upper lip. “Don’t say a fucking thing.”
“What’s your problem? It’s not as though I tell every female cat I see to fall in lust with you.” He opened the door and slid behind the wheel. “Get in the car with or without your little pussy. We can’t afford to lose Carmen Satriano. That delicious-smelling little brunette holds our futures in her delicate little hands.”
Chapter Five
Carmen sped away from the two men with her thoughts racing and her body on fire. She knew what experiencing the mating heat meant. She also knew that the two men could only hold out for so long before the madness overcame them and they took her by force. She didn’t want that, especially after finally finding them and discovering just how deliciously handsome they both were.
Taking her by force would mean an end to their lives. At that point, they would be no better than rabid animals, and her people would put them down with extreme prejudice. No one harmed a woman in Paradise and Gods help anyone who did.
It was exactly why she wasn’t taking any chances. She needed to put as many miles as she could behind her as she headed toward Paradise.
The closer she got to her uncles’ home town, the safer she would be. The men in Paradise would see to it that the two men who were, no doubt, following her would give her the time she needed to get to know them before she agreed to spend the rest of her life as their woman.
It wasn’t that Carmen was afraid to mate with someone. She merely wanted to know that the men fate had designed as her mates, weren’t crazy criminals led by the old council, who would hold her prisoner for the rest of her life. Yes, they were shifters. She just didn’t know what kind of shifters and that bothered her.
She glanced at her ruined phone and wished that she’d thought to take the damned thing out of her pocket before she ran into the water to save a kitten that she’d never had to touch.
Carmen smiled when she thought of Gable’s expression when he held the poor frightened little kitten. She almost convinced herself that she should fear no man with so much patience that he wouldn’t harm a house cat, even when it was clawing him the way it had been.
The poor man had looked harried more than angry. It was as though he held a naughty child that he wasn’t sure how to handle. Now that she thought about it, wasn’t a kitten exactly like one of their own young? That the man hadn’t hurt the tiny animal was a sign, wasn’t it?
Biting her lip, Carmen slowed down a bit. She probably shouldn’t try so hard to lose her mates, seeing as they had no idea who she was or where she was going, but then she didn’t want them to think her easy, did she?
She turned down the air conditioning. The air was cold and making her shiver now that she was wet below the waist. It would take at least an hour before her clothes dried. With a sigh, she glanced down at the caramel-colored seats and wondered if the lake water would stain the buttery-soft leather. Getting back in the car wet hadn’t been a part of her plans. However, her plans had changed when two handsome shifters showed up.
If she had thought about it, she would have realized that they hadn’t poisoned or drugged her. They’d practically dove into the water thinking to save her from herself.
Apparently, they thought I planned to commit suicide. She snorted. As if she would do something as crazy as drown herself.
Slowing to a crawl, Carmen pulled onto the shoulder and turned on her GPS. After setting it to take her to Mason, one of a handful of neighboring towns, she pulled out onto the road and continued her drive.
Two and a half hours later, she had just entered her room at a seedy-looking motel when she saw a familiar sedan pull into the parking lot. She dropped the curtain in place with a grin and ran to the shower. The last thing she wanted was to smell like lake water when her mates followed her scent trail to the room.
When forty minutes passed and they still hadn’t come to her door, Carmen slipped on her shoes, ran a brush through her hair, and put on some lipstick. If her mates refused to come to her, she would simply go get something to eat and go to bed. The two men could kiss her ass.
Carmen glanced critically in the mirror. “You’re a modern woman. You don’t need men any more than you need a hole in your head.”
Plastering a fake smile on her face, she strode to her door and flung it open. “Oh!” She brought her hand to her chest at the sight of the two men sitting just outside her door. “What are you two doing here?”
Looking frustrated and upset was difficult when she couldn’t help but be happy to see them.
“We’re protecting our mate.” Gable glanced up at her, his brown eyes shooting golden sparks. You wouldn’t do such a foolish thing as running off alone if we were mated.”
“Then it’s a good thing we aren’t.” She scowled down at the man. Who the hell did he think he was? He hadn’t claimed her and even if he had, she hadn’t accepted their claim. “No man tells me what to do. Get used to it or we have no future.”
“You could be in danger.” Malik didn’t train his beautiful blue eyes on her. He merely stated his case while staring at his sleeve and picking at little balls of lint.
“Men are always saying that women are in danger. What you fail to realize is that it’s men who make it that way. Teach men to control their base urges and you wouldn’t have to try to control women under the guise of protecting them.”
Malik nodded, though he still didn’t meet her gaze. “That is true. However, it doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Besides,” he said as he stood with one smooth motion. “We have enemies that would do more than force themselves on you. They would kill you just for associating with us.” He took her arm and pulled her along beside him so fast that she had to trot to keep up.
“Close her door, Gabe, and let’s go get something to eat.”
“What kind of enemies do you have?” Carmen didn’t see how they could be much different than the men who plagued Paradise from time to time.
“Our enemies are hardened criminals. Most are the very dregs of society. They’re men who have threatened us and our families.” Malik shrugged. “It never made a difference before. What’s left of our families are sheltered within the cascade. Their threats never worried us... until today.”
“There was no reason their intimidation tactics should have worried us. As Caspian tiger shi
fters, we and anyone we cared about have lived hidden in a protected town, much like a few others our people have discovered over the last year, or so,” Gabe said from slightly behind her.
“Like your Paradise, the cascade is a safe haven, frozen in another dimension. No one who doesn’t belong can enter. The cascade occupies space where, in this dimension, would be somewhere over the Pacific off the coast of Oregon. The only way to reach it is through an area guarded by elder shamans who can open an invisible gate to a bridge across both time, and space.” Malik still dragged her along beside him, his expression fierce.
“I can see why such threats wouldn’t concern you.” They were shifters. They could take care of themselves and they would be difficult to kill. However, a mate would be a weakness their enemies could exploit. “My friend, Melody, told me a little about the Caspian Cascade.” Tilting her head back, she gave them a soft smile. “She didn’t tell me that they had such handsome tigers there, though.”
Their expressions were priceless. Normally, it would have taken every ounce of willpower she had not to laugh. However, she was sure that it was the el calor she’d felt at the lake.
Though she didn’t feel it at the moment, it had been there at first. It had settled deep in her belly and scorched her from the inside out. It was only a matter of time before she, or they, made the first move in a violent mating that might end all of their lives.
“And I am certain that you understand why such tactics would worry us now.”
Chapter Six
“Our enemies have spies. And a hit on us and anyone they even think we care about.” Malik stopped, his gaze searching hers. “No doubt one of them has already seen us together, deemed you a valuable target and set his sights on you.”
“I’m a shifter. I can take care of myself.” Carmen yanked her arm from his grip. “Just like you, I’m not as easy to kill as a human woman.”
Taming The Tigers Page 2