Taming The Tigers (2 page)

Every cell in Malik’s body came to complete attention when he took a deep breath. “You’re right. It smells absolutely decadent.”

For the first time in a decade, his cock grew hard with no stimulation other than the sweet scent filling his lungs.

He stepped on the brake when the smell faded. He made a U-turn in the middle of the road and headed back the way they came.

“Turn left here!” Gable pointed down another back road as Malik followed his instruction and turned down the narrow tract.

“What do you suppose is down this way?” Malik hit the gas, needing to find the source of the smell that was driving him so close to the edge.

“We’ll find out soon enough. There’s a sign up ahead.” Gable pointed to several signs in the distance. Leaning forward, he squinted as he stared toward the side of the road. “Oak Lake, population five hundred.” Rolling the window down the rest of the way, he took a deep breath.

“There’s a woman standing on the shore.” He paused. “That’s strange. She’s just stepped into the water.”

“What’s so strange about that? It’s still warm enough for a swim.” Malik shook his head. “Just because
you
don’t like getting wet, doesn’t mean others don’t like to bathe.”

“Fuck off.” Gable flipped him off with his left hand while pointing toward the lake with the other. “She’s walking into the water, clothes and all. Stop the car, stop the car!”

Malik jammed on the brakes, the car sliding to a halt, in the loose gravel on the side of the road, behind an expensive-looking sedan with Pennsylvania plates.

“I think she’s trying to kill herself.” They both jumped from the car and ran to the lake, using their shifter’s speed to reach the girl before she succeeded in committing suicide.

Malik grabbed her just as she leaned forward when the water reached her hips.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The young woman glared up at him as she tried to pull from his grip. “Let me go, or the poor thing will drown.”

“Huh?” He wasn’t sure, but he thought every brain cell he had stopped firing when he took in a deep breath and drew in a scent so delicious, so tantalizing, that the woman before him could be no other than their mate.

His tiger growled and his tail twitched, making his leg itch where he’d stuffed the extra appendage down his pants. He wasn’t like Gable whose toes on his right foot were that of a tiger and easily covered by a pair of extra wide shoes. Malik’s deformity was having his tail permanently visible due to an injury to his tailbone.

Like most shifters from the cascade, he and Gable had wounds that hadn’t quite healed, and shifters like them were the lucky ones. Some of their kind would forever be stuck in tiger form, and likely never find mates.

“I said, Let. Me. Go.” She yanked on her arm again and stumbled into Gable who had gone around her and rescued the little kitten that had latched on to him and crawled onto the top of his head in a likely attempt to get as far away from the water as possible.

“Good, you’ve got it. Now,” she said as she smoothed down her suit jacket and began wading back to shore. “If you’ll excuse me, I have places to go and people to see.” Her voice caught on a sob and she brought her hand up to cover her mouth.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head. “Nothing’s wrong, and even if there were something, it would be none of
your
business.”

Malik felt helpless standing there watching his mate walk out of his life. That is, until she reached up and rubbed her stomach.

“You can’t get sick just wading in lake water, can you?” She shook her head. “Of course not. It’s probably that convenience store cheeseburger I ate last night. Or...” The color drained from her face as she reached the shoreline and glanced back. “Did you... did you guys
drug
me?”

When she reached the shore, she made her way over to the wrought iron bench where she’d dropped her things. Grabbing her purse and her car keys, she ran across the grassy bank toward her car, sobbing.

“Damn it! She’s running. We have to catch her, because if you think what you’ve been feeling since Philly was bad, wait until you feel what’s coming now that you’ve gotten close enough to touch her.”

You should have brought someone with you, you idiot,
Carmen berated herself as she ran toward her car. What had she been thinking? Her uncles were most likely crazy with worry and here she was, getting drugged by two shifters who were most likely a part of one of the still at large splinter cells run by the crazy council that used to be in charge in Paradise.

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.”

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.