Tiger by the Tail: A Midnight Liaisons Novella (5 page)

Fuuuuuck. A whimper escaped her throat.

“S’okay, Mandy. I got you,” Adrian comforted her. His hand smoothed her hair. “I’m here.”

And for some reason, that did make her feel better.

When they pulled back up to the Merino land, Adrian jumped out of the car and raced over to her side of the car. He tugged her door open, and she spilled out into his arms. Her legs weren’t working right at the moment, her calves cramping something fierce. But he seemed to guess that she was going to have trouble, because he immediately picked her up and began carrying her. “Just relax and try to breathe,” he murmured. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

“It’s not,” Mandy said, and she began to weep. “I don’t want to change.”

“I know,” he said as he carried her down the path toward his cabin. “But it’s coming on whether you want it to or not.”

“I don’t,” she sobbed, burying her face against his chest. “Everything hurts.”

“That’s because you’re fighting it. You’ve got to let go.” He pushed his front door open and strode down the hall, toward the bedroom.

“I can’t not fight it! I don’t know how to welcome it.” Nor did she particularly want to. But the pain tearing through her guts was destroying her will to fight rapidly.

“Which is why you have to relax,” he said patiently. He set her down on the edge of the bed and began to undress her, his movements calm and even, as if he dealt with panicky human-turned-tiger-shifter women all the time. “Breathe with me. Breathe.” He inhaled deeply and then exhaled noisily, even as he tugged her shirt over her head.

She nodded and tried to match her breathing to his. He pulled the rest of her clothing off, tossed it aside, and then pulled the blankets over her. His hand stroked her sweating brow. “You want a drink?”

“Cold water?” She asked hopefully. Maybe they could still turn this around.

He shook his head. “That’s a bad idea. It’ll just prolong things. Let me get you some hot tea. Or something.”

She settled back down in the blankets as he headed out to the kitchen and turned on the coffee pot. While she waited, she flexed her tingling fingers and glared at the claws slowly curling out of her fingernails. Her skin was starting to take on the tiger stripes, her arms and legs slowly furring over.

God, she hated this. Day three of their bet had barely begun and here she was, losing her shit and transforming and crying like a baby. Ugh. No wonder he’d taken the bet. He’d probably known all along that he was going to win, and that depressed her even more. Now he was stuck with her, just like she was stuck being a tiger.

When he entered the room with a cup, he set it next to the bed and then helped her sit up to drink, even as her body clenched and protested. “It’s coffee, but the heat will relax your muscles,” he told her. “Drink it and it’ll speed things along. I also turned the air conditioner off. Same reason.”

She nodded and sipped the drink. It made her clenching stomach protest and she flopped back onto the pillows, panting. Adrian started to get up and she clung to his hand, feeling needy. “Talk to me?”

“Of course.” He smiled down at her and stroked his fingers over her face, seemingly unbothered by the fact that she was sweating like a fevered woman or that she was randomly sprouting fur. “You’re doing great. This is, what, your third shift?”

“Fourth,” she told him. “How come you don’t have a mate?”

“It looks like I do,” he teased, and touched a finger to her nose. “She’s currently on her fourth change.”

“Not me,” she said, swiping at him with one hand that looked more and more like a paw as the seconds passed. “How come you never had a mate before me?”

He shrugged. “Never was interested before.”

That was surprising. He’d been all over her ever since he’d declared that he wanted her as his mate. Not in a bad way, just in a way that let her know exactly what his intentions were. Then, it dawned on her. “Oh. It’s because I’m a tiger, right?” The only other female tiger-shifter in the area was Estrella, Vic’s mate, and she was only half tiger. The rest of the Merino clan were men, and as a one, they seemed very, very single. That was the reason why Johnny had turned her, after all. He was lonely.

“Not the tiger thing,” Adrian said in a musing voice. “Though I admit, I find it attractive. But there are other big cat females in the territory. I could have pursued one of them, I suppose.” He shrugged and brushed another sweaty lock of hair off her face. “Like I said, just wasn’t interested before. They were missing…something.”

And because she was feeling a little pathetic, she asked, “Something that I have?”

His mouth curved into a smile. “Yeah. Which is why I wanted to murder Johnny when he got you exiled, and why I nearly murdered him again when he abandoned you. Because you’ve got that something that attracts me, and I was helpless to do anything about it, short of fighting my brother for you.”

“He didn’t abandon me, he dumped me. Though it was kind of mutual at that point.”

“He abandoned you,” Adrian said, his expression hard. “He turned you and then when he didn’t get his way, he left you to fend for yourself. That won’t happen with me.” He leaned in and caressed her mouth. “I would never leave you to fend for yourself. Ever.”

“I know,” she told him. It was true; she did believe him. Since they’d been forced to spend time together this week, he’d been nothing but attentive and caring. It was a shame they had to meet under these circumstances, really. If he hadn’t been a tiger, she’d have loved dating someone like him. But because he was…it felt like giving in to like him. Like she was just giving up on who Mandy Used to Be. And she couldn’t. She had opinions, dreams, plans. She mattered, damn it.

Adrian gave her an intense look. For a moment, Mandy wondered if he was going to say something to her. Something to make her feel better, less hopeless. But he only leaned in and very gently kissed her mouth.

And oh, that was so sweet that she couldn’t help but respond to it. Her lips parted under his, and she kissed him back. His hand caressed her cheek, and then he continued to kiss her, nibbling and sucking at her lips. She moaned against his mouth…

And then her transformation kicked into high gear, and Adrian pulled away with a look of regret as Mandy went tiger.

~~ * ~~

If she had to be a shifter, she supposed, being a tiger wasn’t so bad. She was strong, and powerful, and her sense of smell was great. She prowled through the woods, her tail swishing back and forth as she chased down rabbits and armadillos and whatever else caught her attention. Adrian was there, in his transformed tiger form, but he stayed out of her way and let her have the roam of things. If she got too far off track, he’d swing by with a nip to remind her to stay on the Merino land. Other than that, she was on her own, and it was gloriously freeing.

Well, she took that back. He’d nipped her when she’d been about to eat an armadillo. In retrospect, it was probably smart that he’d warned her off because they carried diseases. She’d bounded after a deer instead, and while she hadn’t caught it, she’d had an enormous amount of fun chasing it. For most of the day, she wandered the Merino land as a cat, and when day turned into night, she continued to frolic and play. Leaves were endlessly entertaining to chase, and so were the frightened squirrels she sometimes chased out of the trees. She napped in the moonlight, and rolled onto her back, exposing her belly to the skies and licked her chops contentedly.

And then she napped again.

When she woke up, the sun was rising in the sky and her body was slowly reverting back to human form, her fur receding. Her bones crackled and popped and her spine hunched, preparing her body for the inevitable change back. She was just bracing herself for the change when Adrian showed up next to her, changed into his human form as effortlessly as if changing clothing, and then began to stroke and pet her shoulders, encouraging her with murmured words and touches.

And his comforting presence helped. Soon enough, she was back to her human form, no worse for the wear except for the roadkill taste in her mouth and the scratches on her arms and legs. And she was tired. So very tired. Mandy yawned, and Adrian was there to put a supporting arm around her shoulders. She was barely awake as he helped her back to his tiny house, led her to the bathroom, put toothpaste on her toothbrush for her and waited as she brushed and then spit, and then tugged her back to bed.

“Rest,” he told her. “You’re tired. It’s always wearing when you have a long shift.”

She snuggled the pillow, noticing that it even smelled like him. “You win,” she murmured.

“Win?”

“I changed. I’m stuck now. I didn’t even make it three days.” Mandy yawned. She’d be depressed about it in the morning. “Now I’ll never be free.”

Her last thought before going to sleep was that Adrian had a rather unhappy look on his face.

~~ * ~~

She woke up again at night, rummaged through his fridge, ate all the leftovers she could find, and then padded back to bed, curling up against his warm body and going back to sleep. Turning tiger was a bit like having the flu, she decided. You lose the days you’re sick, and then spend the next two recovering. Mandy still felt wrung out, but it wasn’t a bad sort of wrung out, just a good, mellow tired.

But when she woke up again, it was to the sound of Adrian puttering in the kitchen. The bed was empty, and she knew she had to face him and figure out what came next.

Since she’d lost their ridiculous bet, she was now his mate, wasn’t she? Mentally, she tried to be upset about it. And she was, a little. Here everything was decided for her again, all without her say-so.

But part of her was kind of…excited? Titillated about being possessed by Adrian. And she remembered that sweet, gentle kiss he’d given her, and the feel of his body against hers. He’d been good to her in ways Johnny never had. He asked her opinion, and he hadn’t minded when she signed up for classes. If she had to be a tiger, she supposed Adrian was the least of the evils she was presented with. Buoyed by that, she dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and headed into the kitchen.

Adrian was pouring a cup of coffee when she entered. She gave him a hesitant smile, and he immediately pulled another cup out of the pantry and poured it full of coffee, then handed it to her. “Breakfast?”

Her stomach was a little iffy. She wasn’t sure if it was last night’s leftovers-binge or an after-effect of the shift. “Any suggestions on what?”

“Your call.”

She frowned. “What do you recommend for post-shift?”

“What shift?”

Mandy blinked. “Huh?”

“How about oatmeal? It’s easy on the stomach.” He turned and opened the pantry, scanning the contents.

“Um, sure?” She sat and waited as he pulled oatmeal packets out of a box. Then, she had to ask. “So…what do we do now?”

He looked up at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, now that…things happened?”

Adrian poured the oatmeal into a bowl and then ran the faucet over the flakes. As she watched, he put the entire thing into the microwave and turned it on. All very normal. All very avoiding her question.

“Adrian?”

He looked over at her. “Not sure what you’re referring to, Mandy.”

“I’m confused.” She was actually really, really confused. “Did I hit my head or something?”

Adrian’s gaze was totally calm. The microwave beeped and he reached into it and pulled out the cup of water, then poured it over the instant oatmeal. “I don’t think you hit your head, no.”

Was this some weird tiger shifter thing where you didn’t talk about shifting? She didn’t know the rules. “I changed yesterday. I lost our bet. I thought we needed to discuss what happens next.”

He stirred the oatmeal and then put the bowl in front of her. “Deal’s canceled. Eat up.”

Mandy blinked at him, not comprehending. “Um…what?”

“I didn’t see anything. You didn’t change.” He gave her a hard look. “Therefore, deal’s canceled. You’re free to go.”

Just…just like that? Instead of feeling elation, Mandy felt a bit…abandoned. Didn’t he care about her? What would happen to her? If she left, who was going to help her the next time she shifted? “Why did you change your mind?”

“You said yourself that there’s no benefit to being tiger. That you’re trapped and no one understands you. That no one gives you a choice.” He spread his hand. “So here I am, giving you a choice, Mandy. You’re free to go. Or you’re free to stay. But this time, it’s all on you.”

She stared. She might have even gaped a little. “You won’t tell anyone that I changed?”

“Nope.” He focused on his coffee cup, raised it to his lips.

“And what if Vic asks where I went? What then?”

“I’ll tell Vic it’s handled. Don’t you worry about him.”

Her hands twisted in her lap. This was what she wanted, right? Why did she feel so unhappy, then? Why was he being so cold to her after he’d kissed her last night and they’d cuddled? “But…I thought you wanted me as your mate.”

“I do.” His gaze flicked up to her, and there was no mistaking the hot, possessive look in his eyes.

Well, now she was even more confused. “But you’re just letting me go?”

“Mandy,” he murmured, voice husky. He set down his coffee mug and rubbed a hand over his unshaven chin. He should have looked messy and unkempt, but to her, he just looked sexy. “I want a mate that wants to be with me. Not someone that feels like a captive every day of her life. What I want between you and me doesn’t matter if it’s not what you want. Understand?”

She did. She licked her lips, staring down at her breakfast that she no longer wanted.

“It has to be your choice. And I won’t force you to choose me, no matter how much I might wish it otherwise. If I do, I’m no better than Johnny. So I’m letting you go.”

Just like that? Just now, when she was starting to feel comfortable with who she now was? After he’d kissed her and made her feel things? “So you’re just going to mess with my head for a few days and then release me back into the wild? How very noble of you.”

The look in his eyes grew tortured. “Mandy. I want to do what you want. What will make you happy.”