Her Tiger To Take (7 page)

“Fine. Still, I’m sure there’s nothing to
worry about, but you’re going to burn the diner down fretting about
her. So go. Get out of here. We can finish the lunch service.”

Nick couldn’t even find an argument in
him.

He went back to his house first to get his
truck, intent on driving to the motel first to get her scent, then
following that as best he could. He wasn’t a Tracker, but one of
the greatest tiger Trackers in recent memory was the closest thing
he had to a big sister, and he’d learned a few things from
Alexis.

He was so focused on forming a search plan,
he almost missed the note under his windshield wiper. Frowning, he
snatched it up and opened the lined notebook sheet. The message
made his blood run cold.

We have your woman. You want to see her
alive again, meet us in the woods. You know the place. Come in
human form or she’ll suffer. ~Corwin

The werewolves had Tiana.

Nick could barely control his tiger by the
time he reached the meeting place in the middle of pack territory,
deep in the woods where no human would disturb them, in a clearing
where the snow was light and the frozen ground peeked through the
white.

He arrived in human form as the message
demanded, but his skin itched with the need to shift and rend the
threat to Tiana into bits. The darkness he’d always known he
possessed rose up to edge his vision.

He held his control for her sake. He had to
get her out of the wolves’ territory unharmed. Nothing else
mattered.

As soon as he entered the clearing, members
of the local pack surrounded him. There were about twenty
werewolves in all, most in human form. Two or three were already in
wolf form. He ignored them all. He could feel Tiana. Her scent
mixed with the musky smell of two wolves. She was being held in the
woods, out of sight, but nearby.

He studied the currents and textures of her
essence, so familiar now, searching out her mood. He’d expected to
pick up the sharp acrid stench of fear or anxiety in her scent.
Instead, all he caught was a strong punch of anger, like the smell
of a raging forest fire.

He smiled, and his tiger stopped pushing him
so hard to rip the pack to pieces.

His expression made the surrounding wolves
bristle and a few growls filled the clearing. His smile grew.

Finally, their alpha made a dramatic
entrance, appearing in the clearing with a burst of speed that
might have intimidated a non-shifter. Nick remained impassive.

“Chernikov,” the man greeted.

Chris Corwin was tall, lean, and had a hungry
look to his sharp, angular features. Nick had never trusted the
alpha, but they’d managed to hold the peace for years. In that
time, Corwin had grown more desperate looking, the gleam in his
eyes brighter. He wasn’t crazy—there was nothing like that in his
scent—but he wasn’t a good man. He had a mean streak, a bully’s
personality that had rubbed Nick the wrong way in their one and
only confrontation.

“You have something that doesn’t belong to
you,” Nick said, not bothering with pleasantries.

“But she’s so pretty. I like pretty
things.”

Nick heard Tiana growl and almost smiled
again. Her anger did more to calm his rage than anything else. If
she wasn’t worried about her own safety, he could maintain his
control and get them out of here without anyone getting hurt.

“We’ve got no problem with you, Corwin,” Nick
said. “I thought we had an understanding.”

“We did. She invaded our territory. She’s
tiger. Therefore, she’s broken the rules of our
understanding
.”

Nick kept his expression neutral, but cursed
inwardly. Sonofabitch. He should have warned her. He hadn’t
thought, hadn’t been able to think since she’d arrived in town.
He’d been assuming the werewolves had come into his territory or
gone into neutral territory to get her. Corwin was a greedy
bastard. When Nick got their note, he’d thought the wolves were
using Tiana to shake him down.

He’d completely forgotten that she might want
to run and that her run might take her into dangerous places. He’d
been avoiding telling her about his dealings with the werewolves.
The story left him…edgy and a little embarrassed, because of the
way the people of Eirene had acted after.

Stupid mistake, not telling her. A mistake
he’d be kicking himself for for years.

“My fault,” he said to the alpha. “I forgot
to tell her about the territory boundaries. Won’t happen again. Let
her go, and we’ll get out of your hair.”

“No, no, no. Not that easy.” Corwin’s voice
carried through the trees.

Nick snarled. He really hated Corwin. He was
mean and petty. According to all the rumors, the pack was in bad
shape under his leadership. They’d been so desperate for money five
years ago, they’d gone along with his plans to harass and threaten
the people of Eirene. Most werewolves were like Nick’s own
people—they kept to themselves and avoided confrontations with
humans. Going after a town the way this pack had was a sign of
dysfunction and risked a backlash that could have gotten them wiped
out.

Nick had come to town, discovered the
problem, and solved it with a payoff. He had plenty of money—his
father had signed everything over to him and his brothers when he’d
left for South America. The wolves were in such bad straits, and
Nick had been able to make a deal with Corwin that avoided a
fight.

The town and its immediate surroundings were
Nick’s territory. Some of the woods opposite the pack’s lands were
also part of Nick’s territory—so he had room to run. The pack kept
everything else, and Nick promised never to enter their lands. In
the fine print, he’d agreed to keep other tigers out, too, but he
hadn’t expected anyone other than his brothers to ever come to this
area. It was traditionally wolf land and the tigers kept to
themselves, avoiding dealing with other shifters as much as
possible.

Unfortunately, Tiana had had Nick so wound up
since her arrival, he hadn’t considered the wolves as a possible
threat.

He’d pay for that mistake now.

“Okay, Corwin, how much will it cost me this
time?”

Nick had never been sure if the alpha had
told his pack the details of the deal he’d made with Nick—or that
the deal involved money rather than a challenge fight. But he
didn’t have time to worry about the alpha’s machinations. Tiana was
in those trees and she needed him.

Corwin’s smile didn’t drop but his eyes
narrowed. “No money will pay for this breach, Chernikov.”

“What do you want, then?” Nick worked hard to
control his rising temper. “You wouldn’t have left a note for me if
you didn’t want something.”

The alpha flicked his wrist and two wolves
stomped into the clearing with a glaring Tiana between them. She
moved without having to be dragged, but her gaze was dangerously
narrowed and her nostrils flared. Nick could practically see her
tiger in the faint yellow glow of her eyes.

To his dismay, she was naked. She’d obviously
been out running in tiger form when the wolves caught her. With any
other tiger, he’d have barely noticed her nudity. But with Tiana,
the sight of her beautiful, lush body made his head spin. She was
the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen.

His tiger rose again, ready to rip the wolves
holding her apart just to get to her. A whisper rose in the back of
his mind.
Mate. Mine.

He ignored that worrying instinct, even as
the dark rage edged his vision again.

“You okay?” he asked when she stopped glaring
at the wolves to look him.

“I’m fine. You?”

“Be better when you’re out of here.”

She snorted. “Don’t worry about me. I’m not.”
She growled at the wolf to her right, and the man actually took a
step back before he crowded close to her again, gripping her arm
tighter.

One of the women in the pack laughed at the
man, which made his expression darken. That wasn’t good. If the
wolf thought his status in the pack had just taken a hit, he might
take out his embarrassment on Tiana.

Tiana stared at the laughing woman. When she
met Tiana’s gaze, she stopped laughing but she smirked.

“Come on, pretty,” the wolf said. “I’ll take
you on.”

Tiana looked the woman over and snorted,
turning away with a dismissive head shake. The wolf growled but
Tiana ignored her.

Damn, but Tiana was courting danger. In a
fight, one tiger against one wolf, the tiger was likely to win. But
they were two tigers surrounded by an entire werewolf pack. That
didn’t put the odds in their favor.

“Well, this is fun,” the alpha said. “I’m
tempted to let Rina have at your pretty tiger. But I think my boys
would like her first.”

“Not gonna happen,” he and Tiana said at the
same time.

He glanced at her and raised his brows. She
grinned. The look shot right to his gut, skimming dangerously close
to his heart on the way past.

“We’ll pay a fine for the territory breach,”
Nick said. “But that’s it. Then we’re gone.”

“I already said money wouldn’t do it this
time, Chernikov,” the alpha growled. “We wolves fight over
territory.”

Nick sighed. Damn it. He’d been able to steer
clear of fights since moving to Colorado. Now, because he’d been
too distracted to warn Tiana about the wolves, he’d walked into the
very thing he’d been avoiding.

He put his hands on his hips and hung his
head, disgusted with his own stupidity. When he looked up, the
alpha was smirking.

“Animal or human shape?” Nick asked without
preamble.

“Me animal. You human.”

“That’s not a fair fight,” Tiana snarled.
“Coward.”

The alpha glared at her. “Careful, pretty, or
I’ll turn my wolves loose on you while I’m eating your boyfriend’s
entrails.”

Tiana’s growl filled the clearing, a sound no
human throat could produce. Nick’s heart thumped hard, a
combination of fear for her and pride in her strength. He should
have known his Tiana wouldn’t be cowed by threats.

Nick raised his brows at the alpha. “Well…are
you going to shift, or keep posturing?”

The alpha glowered as he stripped off his
shirt. He started his shift, his body convulsing and stretching.
The sounds of bones cracking and rearranging, tendons popping and
skin splitting filled the clearing. Hair ran along the man’s arms,
chest and legs. He hadn’t bothered removing his pants, which meant
the material got shredded.

Nick shook his head at the waste. This alpha
had always struck Nick as rash. He’d never been sure why the pack
kept him. From what he could smell, Nick was pretty sure at least
two or three of the other wolves at the edge of the clearing were
stronger than Corwin—there was a scent to power in shifters, a
flavor Nick had trouble describing with words. But in the really
powerful shifters, no matter the species, that scent had always
reminded Nick of something dangerously hot, like ghost chilies.
Corwin didn’t have that in his scent, while some others in his pack
did. Why didn’t someone else take over?

Nick let the issue go. He didn’t give a fuck
about wolf politics. All he cared about was getting Tiana out of
these woods safely.

While Nick waited on the alpha’s shift—which
wasn’t very fast for a pack leader—he stripped off his own coat and
shirt. The less he had in the way, the better. The frozen air bit
into his skin, despite his naturally high body heat. He glanced at
Tiana’s naked body again.

She had on oversized boots to keep her feet
from the frozen ground—not absolutely necessary for a tiger
shifter, but he was glad to see it as the cold would still seep in
through the strong, thick soles of her feet if she had to stand
still too long. Other than that concession, she had no other
protection from the winter weather. Her high metabolism would keep
her from freezing while in human form, but she’d still catch a
chill if she wasn’t allowed to move. He gently tossed her his
jacket.

She snatched it out of the air, a move that
forced one of the wolves to scramble to regain a hold on her arm.
She gave both men a look, and they let her go long enough for her
to slip into the fleece lined coat. She wrapped it close and
breathed in deeply. Nick knew she was taking in his scent. He got
entirely too much satisfaction from her reflex.

When she smiled at him, his muscles tensed.
Before he could react, the wolves grabbed her arms again and pulled
her back toward the trees.

Nick glanced around and realized the clearing
had opened up. All the wolves had moved back to just inside the
tree line. He faced the alpha, taking the man’s measure now that he
was in wolf form. He was huge—no one could ever confuse a werewolf
for a real wolf. Tiger shifters had the advantage there as they
blended in well with their non-shifter animal counterparts. Even a
large werewolf was smaller than most tigers, but Nick had learned
that size wasn’t the mark of a dangerous predator.

The wolf paced in a tight back-and-forth
line, sizing up Nick. Nick waited, watching, in no hurry to give
away his own tactics. Fighting an animal while still in human form
was tricky—and rarely done in the shifter world. Fighting an alpha
wolf with something to prove was downright dangerous. Nick studied
the wolf’s movements, assessing his strength and muscle density,
looking for vulnerabilities.

There weren’t any obvious ones.

The wolf howled, setting the entire pack to
howling. Nick winced. His sensitive ears ached from the assault of
the discordant notes filtering through the pack’s combined song.
They weren’t in sync. Another sign the alpha wasn’t a good
leader.

Since that was wolf business and nothing to
do with him, he pushed it to the back of his mind and focused on
Corwin, who’d resumed pacing.