Masks of a Tiger

Evernight Publishing

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright© 2012 Doris O’Connor

 
ISBN:
978-1-77130-191-6

Cover
Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

Editor:
Karyn
White

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING:
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is
illegal.
 
No part of this book may be
used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This
is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any
resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

To all my readers who fell in
love with
Grisha
as much as I did.

MASKS
OF A TIGER

Club Ink, 3

Doris
O’Connor

Copyright
© 2012

Chapter One

"Will you accept
this permanent collar as a sign of our commitment?"

A hush fell over the
assembled crowd, and
Grisha
grimaced and loosened his
tie.
Damn monkey suit.
Who'd have thought Ink and Cherie would not only
tie the knot, but insist on this formal collaring ceremony? He didn't do
formal, suits, or families, yet here he was stuck at Ink's parents’ place,
forced to witness the collaring of yet another sub he'd played with. Or should
that be the leg shackling of the man he considered his best friend?

His skin itched, and his
already dark mood deepened as Ink fastened the permanent collar
around
Cherie's neck, after she whispered her consent. The
woman looked fucking gorgeous in her fifties inspired, elegant turquoise dress,
which showed off her abundant curves, yet screamed elegance. Gone were the days
of her hiding all that bounty.
Grisha
had been there
when Ink had chosen her dress, and the man sure knew how to dress a woman. Ink
and Cherie kissed amidst much cheering of the assembled small crowd of
well-wishers, and
Grisha
ground his teeth.

He needed to get away
from here. All this happily ever after stuff could give a man the hives. It
seemed he wasn't the only one to think so. The pretty little redhead, charged
with looking after Estelle's and Nathan's cub, shifted the sleeping little
bundle higher up her shoulder and coughed into her hand.

"Bullshit, this is.
A collar?
Is she a fucking dog?" The whispered
words carried across loud and clear, and his tiger's fur rose in response. The
woman fixed a smile on her face and rubbed her chin across the baby's head, as
though she'd never said a thing.

Ink tensed, Nathan
growled, and
Trikus
bore down on the unsuspecting
little human, who clearly hadn't counted on the assembled shifters’ sensitive
hearing.

Grisha
stalled the
head of security with a shake of his head. Cherie didn't need a scene, and the
redhead was here as Estelle's
guest
. One did not cross
Estelle, even if her friend showed enough disrespect to get her banned from any
future gathering.

Nathan, Ink's twin, and
co-owner off Club Ink indulged his wife's every whim, ever more so since the
arrival of Janus, and
Grisha
couldn't really blame
the man. If Estelle looked at him with half of the devotion she showed her
Master, he, too, would be putty in her hands.

Grisha
suppressed
an annoyed growl of his own, as the redhead mumbled something else.
 
She might not know she was in the company of
shifters, but she had to know those words, and her whole demeanor, would cause
offence.

"Someone needs a
good spanking."
Trikus
growled the words into
Grisha's
right ear, and
Grisha
smirked. The wolf had a way of cutting to the chase. One of the reasons he made
such excellent security detail.

"She needs
something all right, but now is hardly the time or the place. What do we know
about her?"

"Apart from the
fact that she's bratty and has a cute ass I want to paddle?"

It was
Trikus's
turn to smirk, and
Grisha's
dark mood lightened somewhat. Come to think of it, she did have a rather
delectable body. When she smiled —a genuine smile this time—as she passed the
baby back to Estelle and kissed Janus's head with a rather wistful expression,
she was truly beautiful.
Breathtakingly so, in fact.
Her thick red hair fell down to her chin, just long enough for a man to bury
his hands in it, whilst those ruby red lips wrapped themselves around his cock.

Whoa, where did that
thought come from?

The last thing
Grisha
needed was the complication of dealing with a bratty
sub, that's if she even was a sub. She clearly didn't think much of the
lifestyle, if the way her expressive eyes narrowed in distaste as she looked
around were anything to go by.

"Yes, apart from
that?" He wrenched his gaze away from the way her tits swung freely under
her top as she moved and ignored the answering tightening of his dick. No
bra—interesting.
Trikus
, too, followed the supple
movements of her lithe body, and both men grumbled under their breath when she
bent down to pick up the keys Estelle dropped. Her leggings-clad ass looked way
too inviting, and unless his senses were completely off, she wasn't wearing any
underwear at all.

She handed the keys to
Nathan, whose eyes narrowed in disapproval, even as he murmured his thanks. She
tensed, but she dropped her eyes to the floor immediately. Estelle whispered
something to Nathan, and his expression softened.

"Man if that's what
being married does to you, you can count me out. The boss is turning into a
fucking pussy."
Trikus
snarled the words under
his breath, and
Grisha
suppressed a grin. "And
now Ink, too. Who's next? And why the fuck would you want to, especially when
there's so much sweet pussy around?"

Grisha
shrugged his
shoulders, too absorbed in the poetry in motion that was the red head's ass.
Trikus
, too, followed her progress around the marquee. She
glared at Nathan's back when Estelle wasn't looking, and gave Ink and Cherie a
wide berth. She trailed one slender finger along the long trestle table laden
with food, and stopped in front of one of the many candles with a tight smile.
An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of
Grisha's
stomach, seeing her stare into the flickering, small flame.
Trikus
winced when she held her wrist over the flame long enough to risk getting
burned.

"What the fuck is
she doing?" he asked.

Just as
Grisha
thought he would have to intervene, she withdrew her
wrist and covered it with her other hand. She wrapped one of the paper napkins
around it, took a deep breath, and smiled. Some of the tension she'd been
carrying left her, and she sagged against the table, head bent,
her
hair hiding the expression on her face.

"Son of
a gun."
Trikus
shook his head. "
That sure as fuck didn't show up in her security check
."

"Then what
did?"
Grisha
threw a quick glance towards
Trikus
and then focused his attention back on the still
woman across the room. He willed her to look up so that he could judge her
current state of mind. If she
had
burned herself then that burn would
need tending.

"The name is
Neeve
Wilson. She and Estelle have been friends since
college.
Neeve
is a bit of a ball-buster. Runs her
own recruitment agency, travels a lot, string of ex-lovers … hah …"
Trikus
chuckled, and
Grisha
wondered what was so amusing, as the wolf scanned through the notes on his
mobile phone.
"Male and female lovers.
It seems
our redhead likes to experiment, but nothing that lasted for any length of
time. Has the reputation of being outrageous, a bit of a party girl. Has
visited a few of the public clubs, and she has an on-line profile with Club
Ink, but she hasn't taken it further. And, it seems, she has a thing for
fire."

Trikus
whistled
through his teeth, when
Neeve
chose that moment to
lift her head and look across at them. Her eyes narrowed, and she pursed her lips.
The insolent way in which she assessed his body made
Grisha's
cock harden instantly. He raised an eyebrow and smiled, letting his gaze wander
across her body with deliberate slowness. She fidgeted under his stare, and
Trikus
laughed when she flipped them the finger, and then
stalked out of the marquee.

"You're
gonna
let her get away with that,
Grisha
?"

"Not a chance, my
friend, not a chance." He flashed a grim smile at the other man, and
Trikus
nodded in agreement.

"Need a hand or
two?" He smirked at
Grisha's
tiger's annoyed
growl in response.
"Didn't think so.
Bratty is
right up your alley, but let me know if you change your mind."

"You just keep your
eyes on that lot over there."
Grisha
gestured to
some of the younger Fielding Cousins getting merry on the refreshments.
"Ink is getting twitchy, and they need to be reminded where they
are."

Trikus
rolled his
eyes and strolled off, not without
snarking
over his
shoulder. "Have fun with the redhead. Don't do anything I wouldn't
do."

Grisha
smiled to
himself as he set off in pursuit of
Neeve
. That left
him lots of scope then, not that he needed anyone's permission. He picked up
her scent easily enough once out of the marquee.
A hint of
sultry perfume
, a touch of smoke, and
fuck it,
the unmistakable
odor of pain.