A Tiger's Bounty (9 page)

J
ust as Amber
heard the clicking of the zip tie and felt it tighten around her wrists, the room was interrupted by the sound of the front door being smashed open. Everyone turned, and Amber looked up to see Jace standing in the doorway, fists clenched. He was wearing his leather jacket, and his face instantly turned from cool appraisal to furious anger as he deduced what was going on.

At first, Amber’s heart leapt that he was here. Had he come for her? It was like a heroic rescue from a movie or something.

But upon a second look, it dawned on Amber that there was only one Jace, and there were at least six or more men here in the apartment with her. Sure, he’d been able to deal with a few drunk delinquents the other night, and somehow he’d taken care of Brenner. But this was different. Jace was outnumbered, and all the men in Egan’s posse looked large, tough, and more than willing to fight at the drop of a pin.

“Jace, you have to get out of here. Run!” Amber begged. The last thing she wanted was for the only man who had ever truly given her pleasure to get caught by the same people that had her now.

Jace didn’t back down, just stepped into the apartment, muscles tensed and brows lowered, like an apex predator surveying its choices for lunch.

“Jace, so that’s your name. What can I say? I really am the luckiest guy around. I get free merchandise that I can sell at top dollar,
and
I get to avenge my buddy Brenner all in the same day,” Billy said jovially, though Amber could hear the malice in his voice as he spoke. “Sorry, but the only way you’re getting out of here is in pieces,” he directed to Jace, then gave a nod to the men at his sides.

“Funny. I was just thinking the same thing about you,” Jace replied, the air almost crackling around him with rage as his amber eyes seemed to glow brighter.

Two men rushed at Jace, and instantly, he became a flurry of motion almost too fast to be seen. The first man, he threw an elbow into their jaw, then let out a long kick that sent him flying backward and rolling across the polished hardwood floor. The second threw a punch at Jace, which he sidestepped effortlessly while he grabbed the man’s wrist, twisted it behind his body, and wrenched with one quick flick of his hand.

A loud crack reverberated off the walls, and the man groaned for mercy, which Jace responded to by bringing an elbow down hard on the back of his head, knocking him out cold.

For a moment, the room was quiet as Jace pushed the motionless man away from him with his black boot, then stared down at Egan again, eyes even brighter than before.

“So who’s trying to run from who now?” Jace snarled.

From her spot on the couch, Amber could see the rage light in Egan’s eyes as he surveyed the situation and the tall, raging man before him. Some of the men murmured in shock, and Amber could hear things like, “How in the hell?” and, “This guy’s just a human, right? He doesn’t smell like anything.”

It was clear they were all discussing something they understood, but Amber had no clue what it meant.

“Freddie, give this little pipsqueak a taste of wolf,” Billy said to the scruffy man at his side.

“But, boss, the girl. She’s a human. She’ll see,” the man said indecisively.

“I don’t give a damn about what you think. Just tear that guy limb from limb,” Egan ordered.

Then, before her very own eyes, the man changed from a human being to a large, oversized wolf, right there in the middle of the room. Not changed, though, more like shifted, his upright human body melting away into a four-legged predator.

Amber’s mind was so blown she was left speechless, until the wolf snarled at Jace and she realized this wasn’t a fantasy.

It was all real, somehow.

Amber looked at Jace, who only smiled cockily at the wolf as it began to circle him. Completely calm, he pulled off his leather jacket and tossed it to the side, matching the wolf’s pace.

“Not so tough now, are you?” the wolf spoke to Jace in words that were clearly understandable.

They could talk too, it appeared.

What the hell was going on? Why wasn’t Jace flipping out? Was Amber just crazy and she didn’t know it?

To her utter surprise, the same thing happened to Jace next. His body shifted, extending outward and turning into a huge, striped tiger. It was far larger than any she’d ever seen in a zoo and a great deal superior to the wolf in front of him by comparison. Amber could see the wolf’s ears tuck back and his tail curl down between its legs as it backed down from the huge, ferocious cat.

If Josie’s apartment hadn’t been so incredibly opulent and grand in the first place, there wouldn’t have been space for the oversized animals now facing off in the middle of it. As it was, Jace (or the tiger formerly known as Jace) filled the entire entryway with its long, powerful-looking body.

She looked at its eyes and saw they were the same color as Jace’s.

Amber just had to deal with the fact that, somehow, beyond all reasonable logic, this man really was a tiger.

By now, all of the men, except for Egan, were starting to back away slowly from the growling creature.

“A fuckin’ tiger…” Egan murmured, his voice faltering for the first time.

“That’s right. So give my regards to your buddy Brenner
in hell
,” Jace said.

Apparently, being a tiger was a pretty big deal, based on the reactions from the remaining men around her. Amber would have to ask Jace about it afterward.

That was if she lived to tell the tale of all this craziness she was witnessing.

With a loud roar, the tiger pounced the almost pitifully smaller wolf. Two other men shifted instantaneously into wolves of different sizes and colors and charged into the fray, but Jace swatted them away like flies.

Suddenly aware of the fact that she was still tied and in the presence of giant, roaring, snarling animals, Amber stood and rolled behind the couch, hoping to gain some sort of cover from the ensuing fight. She peered over the top to see, but hoped she was for the most part out of sight.

She watched with mixed horror and excitement as the tiger ripped into the wolf beneath him, then turned around in a blur of black and orange and white to claw viciously at the other two wolves that had tried getting ahold of it earlier. They tried to dodge backward, light on their feet, but the tiger was faster as it rushed forward, swiping and biting and sending the clearly outmaneuvered wolves flying into kitchen tables or walls where they crashed.

To the side, Amber saw Egan backing off, looking livid and uncertain of what to do as he barked orders at his remaining men. One man pulled out a pistol and fired several shots at the tiger, but it seemed to have no effect on the raging beast as it finished dispatching the two wolves quickly, then made a wide arc with its razor-sharp claws and slashed at him. The man flew backward into the wall near Amber, overturning the formerly prim end table and sending glassware every which way.

Amber wasn’t sure if it was a good thing this building was probably pretty empty during the day, since only people with high-paying day jobs (or backstabbing criminals, in Josie’s case) could afford to live here. But surely someone must have heard something by now.

Regardless, it was clear from the perspiration on Egan’s bald head that he was nervous and desperate. It was down to just himself and one last crony at his side, one that looked like he was ready to run at the drop of a pin.

The huge tiger faced them down, growling almost hungrily, and the man next to Billy bolted for the door at full speed. The tiger just reached an arm out to block the door and batted the man away like a house cat would a rubber ball or toy mouse. The man ricocheted into a table to Amber’s right, crashing through it, then lay there motionless.

“A fuckin’ tiger,” Egan muttered to himself again as he backed away from the cat as it dispatched his last man. He turned toward Amber and saw her hiding behind the couch.

Amber saw the plan in Egan’s eyes when he peered down at her, and she got up to try and make a run for the hallway leading into the back of the apartment. But with surprising speed, he vaulted over sofa and grabbed her at her tied wrists, pulling her toward him as he brandished a pistol and pointed it at her.

The second Egan moved, Jace rushed toward him. But Egan was surprisingly fast, faster than Amber had ever seen any regular human move, and before she could even think, she was trapped.

“Don’t make a move, tiger. You know I won’t hesitate to kill her,” Egan said, on edge. His grip was like a vise, cold and unflinching.

“Take your fucking hands off my mate, and maybe I
won’t
tear your head off slowly,” Jace growled angrily.

Mate? What was that all about? Amber was certainly grateful that Jace had come for her, but everything that had happened so far was so crazy and out of this world that she hadn’t had time to process it all.

Did Jace really want her after all?

“So the dragons have it in for me now, huh? Is that what this is all about?” Billy replied as he backed away slowly, the gun beginning to shake in his hand.

Now there were dragons. Great, things just kept getting crazier and crazier.

“No. This one’s personal. You made the mistake of messing with the only woman this tiger has ever loved. So when I’m done with you, you’re going to wish it had been dragons instead,” he threatened.

“Don’t get any funny ideas,” Billy warned.

Maybe Amber was bonkers, and at this point, there was more than a little explaining that needed to be done, but hearing Jace’s voice say those words was like fire burning in her heart.

Amber felt alive again, like there really was something out there that had brought them together for a reason and there was a connection between the two of them that she hadn’t just made up all along.

First, though, she needed to get out of this situation.

The closer Jace came, the tighter Billy’s grip got. But it was clear Billy was losing it, as she could feel the sweat on his hands and his body starting to shake as he tried to face down the huge, furious animal that was clearly out for vengeance. Any moment, he could mess up and kill her, and Jace would be able to do nothing.

Jace took a step forward, intense.

“I told you, no closer,” Billy said.

Jace stopped, eyes narrowed on his prey.

Billy laughed nervously. “It’ll never be over between us. Never, you hear me?” His hand trembled at Amber’s temple. “You took my friend, and as long as I’m alive, I’ll be coming for you, and—”

Before he could finish speaking, Amber picked up her foot and slammed her heel into the toe of his Italian leather shoe. Egan yelped, and for a split second, his grip slackened. She slid under his arm and rolled to the side as quick as she could, just as Jace leapt forward and bit down on the man’s arm.

Billy yelled out in pain, and Amber heard the gun clink to the ground. Then Jace whipped his head to the side, sending the criminal sailing to the side and out the window with a loud crash. There was the sound of air whooshing from the outside as the window broke, then nothing.

Jace went up to the window and looked out, but given this was the fifteenth floor of the apartment building, she didn’t want to think further about Egan’s fate.

It was over. Finally.

Amber looked around at the carnage in the apartment. It was wrecked almost as badly as her own had been, minus the people around her. Josie was still out cold, and all over the apartment, the men that Jace had been fighting were scattered like rag dolls.

The tiger came back to her, and halfway between the window and her, it shifted back into the much more familiar Jace.

A
naked
Jace
.

Hot.

And still confusing as hell.

“Are you okay?” he asked tenderly, holding Amber’s sides.

Amber just nodded, at a loss for words as the adrenaline from the last few minutes wore off and mixed with her bewilderment and the rising heat in her body at the sight of every inch of Jace’s ripped, muscled body.

“Here, have a seat,” he said, directing her to sit on a nearby chair that had somehow been spared from the widespread destruction of hurricane Jace. “I’m going to call the cops. In the meantime, let me take care of this,” he added, looking at the zip tie around her wrists. He brought a finger forward, and his nail extended into a sharp claw, which he used to slice the plastic tie without even brushing her skin. Then he stood back up.

Amber waited as she watched him move toward his jacket, pull out a phone, and then tie the jacket around his waist, just barely covering his manhood. But there was still plenty to enjoy with his bulging pecs and toned arms and broad shoulders.

“Hey, Carter?” he said into the phone while he watched Amber with those piercing tiger eyes. “Yeah, it’s me. I need you to come to the address I’m sending you now. And bring clothes.”

T
hankfully
, Carter made good on his promise to be there, and he arrived with a pair of pants and a shirt just as Jace heard the sirens approaching from the street. As they waited for the police to get up to their floor, Jace and Carter both explained the shifter world to Amber, who simply listened and nodded, dazed but at least understanding the premise and why secrecy was so critical.

If Jace had been only human, he was sure all of this talk of shifters and wolves and clans and dragons would be one hell of an earful too.

A minute later, the apartment was full of cops, making arrests and taking evidence from the scene. Jace made sure the police recovered Egan’s body, not correcting them when they assumed he’d gotten knocked out of the window in the scuffle.

Jace only regretted he hadn’t made his death long and more painful. But as he held Amber as the police took her statement and she nestled into his side, he realized he had everything he really wanted anyway.

He had something more important than taking out the trash of the shifter world to take care of now.

His mate.

Amber gave her statement as Carter had instructed, telling everything but leaving out the part about giant wolves and a giant tiger. As Jace had explained earlier, this was definitely not Carter’s first time dealing with a crime involving shifters, so he had everything worked out so they could edit out anything that might reveal their secret world.

And thankfully, with Billy dead and all the others going to prison for varying amounts of time, Jace knew they wouldn’t have to worry about any trouble involving the Egan crime ring for a good while. And since Jace had killed him while saving Amber, he wouldn’t be in any trouble either.

It was good to have a brother working on the right side of the law.

And then the cops were done, and Carter said he could handle the rest. It was just Jace and Amber, who could now go and be alone for the first time since their fight that morning.

Jace looked down at the woman in his arms. She meant so much to him, and it had happened so quickly. For the first time, he wished to be part of a different species of shifter, one that had always been prepared for fated mates.

For him, it had been a complete shock, and though he knew it was right, everything would change.

But first, he needed to take Amber back to his place and tell her everything. He supported her weight with an arm around her waist as they walked out to where he was parked in front of her ex-friend’s building.

She was quiet but was at least not screaming in shock at everything she’d just found out.

He had no idea how she’d react once they were alone, though.

He opened the door to his car, helped her in gently, and then closed the door and went around to his side. He started up the car and then looked over at her hesitantly.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said.

“My place all right?”

“Sure,” she said softly.

He sighed and pulled away from the curb, accelerating as they moved onto the main road and back in the direction of his home.

Adrenaline was still fading from the shock of walking into Josie’s apartment and hearing Amber’s screams. Seeing her in trouble. It had torn him up inside for the few moments before his animal had taken over. And then it had all been calm, cool rage.

He’d been proud of her too, for putting up a fight and giving him the opening he needed. Not that he would have let anything happen to her, but maybe his mate was feistier than he’d thought.

“Jace, what did you mean when you said mate back there?” she finally asked. “And you said you loved me.” She put a hand over her chest, like her heart was racing. “Yet this morning, you left me behind. You said we weren’t a good match. I have to admit I’m really confused.”

“I know,” he said. “I haven’t been the easiest person to understand. You have to know I always thought I’d be alone. Now that you know more about my world, I can tell you more about me. I’m a bounty hunter. I hunt down the worst of our kind and bring them to justice. Alone. It’s not safe, and I have a lot of enemies. Shifters often run in packs, and they don’t appreciate what I do to their kin, regardless of how much they deserve it.”

She nodded and listened quietly as he focused on the road and continued to speak.

“I never thought I’d meet someone like you. From the moment I saw you in that apartment, passed out, things were different. You made me stop and hesitate. You took my mind off the job, and
nothing
takes my mind off the job.”

She giggled. “I can see that.”

“But today, my mind wasn’t there at all. In fact, I didn’t know you were in danger. I just knew I couldn’t stand to be away from you. It was my brothers who talked sense into me. They told me I needed to go for it. That I could just be more careful and if my tiger truly said you were my mate, then things would work out. So I was running back to apologize. I never wanted to hurt your feelings.”

She blinked. “I… It’s a lot to take in.”

“I understand if it’s too fast for you,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “I know you aren’t a shifter, and our rules—”

“Shut up,” she said. “I fell for you from the beginning. It was just hard to believe you wanted me, so when you gave a lame excuse, I was far too eager to take it. It hurt, but I thought it would hurt less than finding out later that it was all too good to be true.”

“I remember you saying that now,” he said. “But I didn’t mean it how you thought. I meant it was too good for me to be true. Too good for a grunt like me to come across an angel like you in the unlikeliest of situations and somehow get her to care for me as well.” He shrugged. “It was so easy for me to care for you, Amber. And that’s not usual for me. You’re something special. My mate.”

“Right, there’s that word again.”

“That’s what a mate is,” he said. “It’s someone who means more than anything else to a shifter. A lifelong companion. And I sort of have some bad news regarding that.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“You aren’t supposed to know anything about this unless you’re the mate of a shifter. So if you don’t want me, then you’ll have to go back to not knowing any of this. I never meant for you to be in that situation, but it is what it is.” They pulled up in front of his place. The alley was empty, as usual, and he helped her out of the car and put her arm over his to lead her inside.

They took the long staircase down to his place, and he saw her chuckling as he went to unlock his door.

“So I guess I get to live in a bomb shelter for the rest of my life, right?” she asked.

“I was thinking maybe I’d get the dragons to spring for a mansion in the woods,” he said. “Fully secured, at their expense.”

Her eyes widened as she followed him into the house. “Is that possible?”

“Trust me,” he said. “They don’t want to lose me. There are other tigers around, but none as good as me at what I do.”

“I see,” she said.

“That would enable you to be a teacher,” he said. “I don’t want you to give up any of your dreams.”

“It’s nice that I don’t have to,” she said. “But you would be worth it.”

“I’ll take different jobs,” he said. “And I’ll be careful about it now that I have someone to care for.”

“I don’t want your career to suffer either,” she said as he backed her into his place, toward the hall that led into the bedroom. Anticipation crept through her as they walked. What would they do when they got inside? Amber knew what she wanted, what she always wanted where he was concerned.

But what was he thinking?

“Suppose I do want to be your mate,” she said. “What happens then?”

“Sex,” he said. “The hottest of your life, obviously. Then a lifetime of me pleasing you, any way I can. You’ll always come first, and I’ll never look at another woman. We shifters have odd quirks, but this is one of the good ones. When we find a mate, that’s it for life.”

That was a tantalizing option. Locking this man down for life.

“But how are mates chosen?” she asked, running a hand through her ponytail. “I mean, are you just stuck with me?”

“Honey, I’m the luckiest tiger alive if you’ll have me,” he said. “And no one really knows how it works. Just that however it works, they picked someone for me that I couldn’t have imagined to be any better. You’re perfect for me.” He pressed her against the door to the bedroom, making it hard to think. He ran his hands down her sides. “Your curves, your skin, your hair, your voice.” He scented her and exhaled. “Your scent.”

She grinned. “That’s so weird you can smell me.”

“Tiger,” he said, returning her grin. His orange eyes flashed and she could sense the animal just underneath his skin.

“Right,” she said.

“But it’s more than that. I love that you want to work with children. I want to give you some of our own. I want to grow old with you. Get to know you more and more and just be proven right that you’re absolutely perfect for me. Amber, will you grow old with me?”

“So if we have kids, they’ll be… cubs?” she asked, nervously grasping his arms as her body felt weak just from being against him.

“Probably,” he said, nipping her ear. “I can’t say for sure.”

“There are a lot of things up in the air,” she said, sighing as he licked the inner shell of her ear.

“Yes,” he said. “But the only thing not up in the air is that I love you. With every breath. Mate with me, Amber. Marry me.”

She sighed. It had seemed too good to be true, but that was before she’d seen his tiger. Magnificent, fiery, ready to fight to the death for her.

She’d looked in that animal’s eyes and seen everything she needed to see. Just like from the moment she’d met Jace, everything had felt so right.

The only thing that had felt wrong was when they’d separated, and she didn’t intend to let that happen again.

She wanted him. She’d take him. And they’d work out the details later.

Sometimes you didn’t do the typical thing of dating a bunch of men or dating one for ten years only for him not to commit. What happened between her and Jace was nothing like she’d planned.

But she couldn’t have imagined anything better. She put a hand up to his face, brushing his hair back, and looked into his gorgeous orange eyes.

“Of course I’ll mate you, you silly tiger,” she said.

So Jace grinned, swung open the door to the bedroom, threw her back on the bed, and pounced.