Anton leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his face suddenly full of something like excitement. “It’s really possible? We can have children with the right human. And they’d be shifters. You did it. There have to be more women out there… It’s really possible.”
“I thought you believed it was disgusting and abhorrent. You don’t even like human women.”
“Not true.” He leaned back and some of the excitement left his face. “Not entirely true. I want children. Thanks to father, no tigress will have me.”
“You might find one who hates hybrids, too.”
“That’s not what I mean. He killed humans. He died in disgrace and left us all…tainted. We’re no better than the Chernikov brothers now.”
“Nikolai just got a tiger mate. Mikhail is going to marry our sister. That taint isn’t as bad as you think.”
“It’s enough. We’ve little hope of a tigress.”
Vlad relaxed into his seat. “The odds were always against us, Anton. A matter of numbers.”
Anton waved that away, then ran a hand through his hair. “Doesn’t matter. There are other options now. You going to marry Rose?”
He nodded. “Big Catholic wedding. Should be…interesting.”
Anton smiled a little at that.
“Andrey will object to his twin looking for a human wife. You prepared to go against your twin, just for the possibility of having kids?”
Anton met his gaze squarely when he said, “Yes.”
“Fair enough.” He stood to leave.
Anton rose and raised a hand to stop him. “Before you go…” He looked around. There were cameras all over the holding area. This conversation was being recorded and watched, and they both knew it. Anton came close and pressed a hand to the plastic between the bars, then lowered his voice. “Vlad, be very careful around Kamal.”
Vlad frowned. Kamal Ghosh was the one elder besides Elizaveta who was openly pro-hybrid and currently supported all Elizaveta’s efforts to integrate them. He’d smiled when Rose was voted into the community. Kamal was the one elder besides Elizaveta Vlad didn’t think he had to worry about. “Why?”
“Can’t say.” He glanced up toward an obvious camera. “Just, be careful.”
Vlad nodded. “Thanks for the warning.”
As he stared at Anton, he realized he was saying goodbye to his old family. He had a new one, a healthy one to replace it, with two people he loved more than life itself. And he intended to do everything in his not inconsiderable power to ensure his new family remained safe. Part of that meant giving up any hope of a relationship with his brothers.
But he’d always known it would come to this.
He put his hand against the thick plastic opposite Anton’s. “Take care of yourself.”
“You, too. Good luck.”
Vlad left, knowing he wasn’t likely to see any of his brothers again. A very small part of him mourned the loss. The rest of him rejoiced in the freedom.
As he left the confinement cells, he turned his full attention to the woman and little girl waiting for him upstairs, and the plans for his upcoming wedding.
Thank you
Thank you very much for reading TO TEMPT A TIGER. I hope you enjoyed Rose, Vlad and Zoe’s story. I’m sorry I had to put a three-year-old in jeopardy. That part was really really hard to write!
The Tiger Shifters world is getting more complicated, and I hope you’re enjoying the journey. For more on the Tiger Shifters please visit my website:
http://www.katsimons.com
For an excerpt from DOWN WILL COME TIGER, Tiger Shifters 6, due out in late Fall 2015, please turn the page.
Excerpt
Down Will Come Tiger
Tiger Shifters 6
The ambulance drove away from the estate two hours earlier. Joseph Bennett had watched from his perch in a tree outside the massive security walls as the vehicle left silently. He hadn’t been close enough to catch a scent, so he wasn’t sure which of the estate’s occupants had been inside, if any. Given the size of the staff in the mansion, it could have been anyone.
Now, hours later, he continued to study the distant lights of the main house, wondering. Bradley Williams lived in that house. Bradley Williams had murdered Joseph’s sister more than ten years ago.
Joseph pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly, not sure whether to hope Bradley was still inside the mansion or not. Rather than decide, he watched the estate and waited for a sign of the human man he wanted to kill more than he wanted to take his next breath.
He had tonight, maybe tomorrow night, before Victor tracked him down and deterred him from trying to kill Bradley. Again. Two nights at most to catch the bastard out and tear him to pieces before being forced away.
Not for the first time, he was tempted to just kill Victor and get him out of the way. He wasn’t entirely sure why he never went through with it. Maybe because Alexis might get to him and kill him before he could get to Bradley.
It was as good an explanation as any.
As he contemplated a way to get through the various security alarms and close to the house, something moving over the huge expanse of lawn caught his attention. The Williams didn’t keep deer on their property and that figure was too large to be a dog. He scented the air. Then lifted his eyebrows.
Paige Williams. Oldest daughter of Carmen Williams. Stepdaughter to Brandon Williams, Sr. Half sister to Bradley Williams.
Years of stalking Bradley meant Joseph was well acquainted with who she was, at least in general. She was a weak human, always deferring to her father, avoiding eye contact in public, staying away from attention or notice. He’d seen the video of her attending her brother’s trial for attempted kidnapping ten years ago—Joseph had been in confinement at the time or he’d have gone to the courthouse to murder Bradley. Paige had looked…bland and timid.
Since then, he’d barely caught glimpses of her as when she did leave the estate it was usually in a limo with black tinted windows, going to her father’s Philadelphia office where she ran a charitable something-or-other. He’d never cared enough to find out the details. He knew, in all the times he’d sat in this very tree, watching this estate, he’d never seen Paige Williams take a walk through the grounds. Especially not at three in the morning.
Even at a distance he could see she had her arms wrapped tightly to her body, her head down. A dark hat covered her pale blond hair. Her clothes were loose and dark, too, not really hinting at a figure, and she wasn’t wearing a coat, though it was March and still too cold for a human to be out without one.
Interesting.
She was heading for the small pedestrian gate in the wall not far from his tree perch. He watched her approach, her scent carrying to him on the wind. His eyes narrowed.
Paige tightened her arms around her stomach, hugging herself against the cold she didn’t really notice. Her body felt numb even as her brain exploded with so much chaos she couldn’t think.
She reached the pedestrian gate without realizing she’d walked that far. Keying in the alarm code, she pushed open the steel door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, making sure the door closed behind her out of habit more than conscious thought. Once beyond the walls of her prison, she just stood there, staring into the dark.
What now? What did she think this would do for her?
Pulling in a deep gulp of cold air, she let the night scents and sounds wash through her as she closed her eyes and tried with everything she had not to think.
She frowned when a slight shiver moved down her spine, an awareness of…something. Not like the feeling she got when she knew her brother was watching her—smirking at her. Or when her stepfather was around. At those times, the hair on her nape rose and she felt the ever-looming sense of threat and judgement from the men in her life.
This was different. She didn’t actually have any emotional response to the sensation, just a vague sort of awareness of… She didn’t know how to explain it, though it wasn’t the first time she’d felt it. If not for having experienced the sensation before, she might have wondered if it was her mother’s ghost.
Did ghosts come back to haunt you only hours after dying?
She snorted at the idea. She couldn’t imagine her mother pulling together the psychic strength to haunt anyone anyway.
Glancing around the empty sidewalk, Paige wondered if maybe after all these years she really was going crazy. If the stress of her life, of hiding in plain sight from her family, had finally broken her. Shouldn’t she feel sad about the death of her mother? Shouldn’t she…hurt?
Should relief really be the only sensation coursing through her blood?
She growled at nothing and started to walk. After a few hundred yards, she turned back. She reached the pedestrian gate, put her hand to the alarm panel, cursed, and stalked away again.
She didn’t want to go back inside. She didn’t want to be in that house, that prison, where her mother had died and her stepfather greeted the news with a raised brow and a snort of disgust. Where her half brother barely paused to hear the news before shrugging and continuing on to his wing of the house.
Paige had spent years,
years
, inside that house, playing a part, keeping everything she felt, everything she
knew
buried deep in her heart where no one could see. For her mother’s sake.
Because despite everything, Carmen Williams had loved her children. Bradley didn’t deserve it, but then their mother didn’t really know the truth about the creature she’d given birth to, and given everything else Carmen had gone through in her sad life, Paige was grateful for that. She’d actively worked to keep her own knowledge of Bradley away from their mother.
It was one of the very few kindnesses she’d been able to give her mother.
Now her mother was dead.
Paige stopped at the corner of the estate wall and stared into the empty streets. Her mother was gone. There was no longer a reason to hide.
She’d squirrelled away resources and money, things neither her brother nor stepfather knew about. She could just…go. Now. Leave everything behind and go.
Her relief at that thought made her knees wobble. She actually had to lean against the stone wall to keep from falling. No more controlling stepfather, no more psychotic brother. No more pretending to be as weak and malleable as her mother.
Enough. Done.
Her heart pounded hard as the chaos churning through her mind started to quiet and the clarity of a possible future descended. A vision of hope she hadn’t dared consider—even if she’d planned for it.
She was so caught up in the thought of just…going, she didn’t recognize when that awareness of something she could never pinpoint got stronger. But her instincts had been honed on the granite wheel of years living as potential prey to the predatory men in her life. So by the time she heard the very slight sound of shoes on concrete, she was already turning, preparing to scream and fight and run.
The scream building in her throat caught at the sight of the stranger, choking her. His features were impossible to discern in the darkness, though she had excellent night vision, but his face seemed full of shadows and sharp edges. He was considerably taller and wider than her. His hand were at his sides, loose and weaponless. He wore a black hoodie and jeans, dark enough that he blended with the background, and somewhat to her surprise, she lost sight of him once or twice even though he didn’t move.
It was his stillness that really struck her. He didn’t even seem to be breathing.
She swallowed to wet a dry throat and considered questioning him, but she was afraid to break the standoff, afraid if she said anything at all it would break him out of his stillness. She was positive that once this man started to move, there would be no stopping him.
And because she’d lived in the same house with a killer for most of her life, she recognized another one when she saw him.
Finally, he broke the standoff. “It’s late. You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
His voice was husky and deep, rough like he didn’t use it much. And completely emotionless. He could have as easily asked what time it was or commented that the sidewalk was gray. She couldn’t tell if he’d intended his comment to be a warning or a threat. Or simply an observation like the sky being blue.
She pulled herself up to her full height—which wasn’t very impressive—and tried to put on the privileged, icy aura she adopted when all else failed. She infused prim frost into her tone, something her stepfather had forced her to learn, when she said, “And you would be?”
He tilted his head to one side as he considered her. “Roses,” he murmured.
He said it so quietly she suspected she wasn’t supposed to hear his comment. Or maybe he just didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud. “Are you going to answer my question or should I call the police?”
“You don’t have a phone with you.”
She blinked. He couldn’t possibly know that. She had left her cell behind. On purpose. But she was wearing loose clothing with pockets. She could easily have it.
To make her point, she reached into her pocket, pretending to grip a phone that wasn’t there. “I will call the cops, whoever you are. I suggest you leave.”
“Who was in the ambulance?”
Again, surprise made her blink. “You’ve been watching my home? Are you paparazzi? I assure you, there’s no story here.”
His shoulders moved, just a little, not a threat…a gesture she couldn’t interpret.
“Who was in the ambulance?” he asked again.
She pursed her lips. He didn’t have an obvious camera on him so he wasn’t likely someone out for gossip. He felt too dangerous, too intense, for a paparazzo anyway. And there was that stillness, that emotionlessness in his voice. For some reason, the mere fact that he didn’t seem to care about this conversation much one way or the other made her feel better.
She shrugged and answered honestly. “My mother.”
“She’s sick?”
“Dead.”
His head moved just slightly, maybe a nod of acknowledgement at the news. She waited for him to offer the expected condolences. But the silence stretched out. He didn’t say or do anything beyond that almost nod.