Fast and the Furriest (2 page)

God may have given them something worth seeing, but didn’t they have any
pride
?

She was not going to giggle about using the word pride around, uh, a pride. She wasn’t.

A woman clicked and clacked in front of her car, tugging on her tiny skirt and half-missing shirt. The stranger stopped, hands propped on her hips, and glared at Zoe through the windshield. That gaze flicked over her and she had the strangest feeling she was being judged. When the chick returned to shuffling by, Zoe realized she’d been evaluated as a potential threat and then deemed harmless.

Hah! Zoe knew how to kickbox with the best of them, and thanks to her recent strip aerobics classes, she could also put that chick’s swinging hips to shame. She was
so
a threat, dammit.

Wait, a threat to what?

Oh, dear god. The article’s title, chosen by her editor, screamed in her mind.

Ladies, like a tiger's stripes? Tug his tail and keep him forever!

Shit, shit, shit.

They were tail tuggers. She hadn’t heard of any women actually having success at the practice, but she knew small groups of ladies—and some men—had formed their own TTC.

Tail Tugger Club.

Tigers hadn’t been out that long, and already they had their own club. And Zoe had sent them all to Wilden. Not on purpose, but she’d been the catalyst, her text messages the source.

A car’s horn honk cut through her musings, and she jolted, her foot sliding off the brake for a split second. Just long enough for the car to lurch and scare the hell out of the woman who’d brushed Zoe off. She scurried away, and part of Zoe was pleased with the woman’s fear. The part of her that tied to the itching and pain and other weirdness. The part of her that drove her back to Wilden. And eventually to Ares’s front door.

As long as the other tigers didn’t kill her first. And she knew there had to be others. Like all the “family members” she’d been introduced to at the “afternoon barbecue.” The one that’d ended with her watching him shift when she’d come back to grab her forgotten cell phone. A few blurry pictures later and the rest was history.

Damn her picture-taking fingers.

Ugh. No more memory lane, already. Definitely not when the line of cars went into motion, the long train slowly edging down Main Street. She wasn’t sure where they were headed, but the whole gang was going somewhere.

Actually, it didn’t take long to find that somewhere. At the edge of town, each car, SUV, or truck rolled to a stop beside a parked police cruiser, the vehicle’s blue and red lights flashing in warning. Once there, they’d pause to have a short conversation with the officer. When it was Zoe’s turn, she finally discovered what all the fuss was about.

The man glared at her, brown eyes narrowed, and she wondered at the flicker of yellow. So, he wasn’t just Ares’s good friend and the town sheriff. He was a tiger.

A tiger in human skin.

She gulped, swallowing hard and fighting her sudden bout of fear. Fight or flight collided inside her, and she battled back the terror that attempted to encroach. She recalled all of the articles about werewolves, bears, and lions, remembering that they could smell emotions and some of the weaker shifters actually found that terror enticing. Their animals
liked
to scare others, and they fed on the emotion.

Then there were the late night stories from her werewolf BFF about hunting and chasing, and she’d heard of a wolf pack that’d hunted a human until he keeled over and died.

They were five at the time, but the story still stuck with her.

She wasn’t sure if Ares’s pride was like that.

“Hi, Flynn.” She forced a smile to her lips. “How have you been?”

“What,” he growled, “are you doing here?”

Zoe swallowed hard. “I’m just visiting. It’s a free country.”

Okay, being defensive probably wasn’t the best tactic, but the itch beneath her skin was making her short tempered and all around bitchy.

“It’d be safer if you left.” There was no missing his threat, and the yellow blossomed into view, driving his normal brown away.

“Noted.” She wasn’t backing down. Getting to Ares was a biology-driven desire now. Every part of her pulsed with the feeling that seeing him was necessary. “But I need to talk to him.”

There was no wondering who she meant by
him
.

“No,” he snapped.

“Yes,” she shot right back. She was a reporter, she was used to facing the big and the bad who didn’t want to give her what she wanted. Zoe Reynolds was no shrinking violet. “I am going up to the cabin, Flynn, and nothing is gonna stop me.”

“I could arrest you.” He glared, those eyes continuing to shift.

That’s when she realized her fear had been fully replaced by anger. “For what?”

He changed tactics. “It would be best if you left. There are a lot of
people
,” he opened his eyes widely, a hint at what kind of
people
he referenced. People who weren’t really
people
. “Who don’t like you.”

“I’m sure there are.” Probably more than a lot. Probably all of them. She wasn’t sure how many tigers there were, but she had no doubt the entire pride hated her. “But I’m going up that mountain, and you’re going to let me.”

Flynn sucked in a harsh breath, mouth parting and eyes widening with… surprise? “What…” He shook his head as if trying to clear it, but his gaze never left hers. “How did you…”

“Let me go.”

He trembled, the small shakes enveloping his body, and she waited until he seemed to calm. She wasn’t sure what’d just happened, but she didn’t care. She merely wanted to get to Ares. The longer she was delayed, the stronger the need became.

“It would be best if you stayed in town. There are a few openings at the inn.”

She raised her eyebrows. “With all these other women hanging around?”

He shook his head, eyes blinking rapidly. “I… The inn will have a room for you.”

“So they can cut my throat in my sleep?” she asked, only half joking.

But Flynn’s gaze became serious, his eyes intent and filled with emotion she didn’t recognize. “They may want to hurt you, but they can’t.”

Not won’t, but can’t.

A horn honked, interrupting their conversation.

“I’m going to see him, Flynn.”

He swallowed hard, his throat working, and his attention dropped from her and to the ground, his head held at an odd angle. “I can’t stop you, but it would be best if you go to the inn for the night.” He hesitated, face turned toward the ground, but he looked at her through his lowered lashes. “There’s a full moon. The forest will be off limits to nonresidents.”

Another honk, this one blaring and long, and Flynn glared at the offending vehicle. The driver might not have heard his growl, but Zoe did. Instead of fear, she felt… the need to comfort and soothe him? Weird.

“All right. I’ll stay at the inn for tonight, but I’ll be there tomorrow. Your whole pride can stand in my way, but it won’t stop me.”

“They
can’t
stop you,” he grumbled and dug in his pocket, tugging his cell phone free. “I’ll call ahead.”

With a short nod, she turned the car’s wheel, pointing her vehicle left while all the visitors before her turned right.

She had a place to sleep, now all she needed was a plan. Something beyond praying anyway.

Ares reminded himself he couldn’t kill one of his tigers. At least, not at the moment. It’d lessen morale. After they got through the clusterfuck, he could take Flynn out back and…

“Say that again. Real slow for me.”

The tiger squirmed beneath Ares’s gaze. He felt bad for going all alpha on the tiger’s ass, but he was struggling with his two halves. A sense of calm wasn’t anywhere on his radar.

“Zoe is in Wilden. At the inn, specifically.”

He wasn’t going to kill this tiger, he wasn’t going to kill—

“And you felt that was acceptable? That it was a good idea to let her check in and then you got her settled—”

The male obviously had no sense of self-preservation. After all, he interrupted his alpha. “I didn’t get her settled. I didn’t go near her room.”

“Don’t. Lie,” he hissed at Flynn. “I smell her on you.”

And that enraged his cat. The beast continued its sounds inside Ares’s head. Snarling and growling and roaring.

Flynn lowered his head farther. The male was one of the strongest of all the prides in the US, but he was nothing beneath Ares’s glare. “They were giving her a hard time.”

They. Emma and Noah, owners of the Wilden inn. Two of his tigers. Young and full of life, expecting their first cub, and fiercely devoted to the pride. Especially Emma, since she was their omega. As the one who sensed the swirling emotions in the tigers, she always felt the need to comfort and soothe them when necessary. She hadn’t been able to do a damned thing for Ares.

As for Zoe… the woman definitely caused some tigers to need comfort, so of course Emma and Noah would give her a hard time. She’d threatened their peace.

“I can’t fault them for that.” And he’d never censure them for it, either. “So why did you intervene?”

“She…” Flynn sighed, and his posture changed from one of a tiger submitting to his alpha and to the alpha’s friend. It was a simple shift of bearing, but it was easy to see. “I had no choice.”

“Yes,” he nodded. “You did. You’re a tiger. Your loyalty is to me and the pride.”

“And her,” his friend added.

“No—”

“Yes. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but she told me I wasn’t stopping her. She told me what she wanted, and that she’d get her way, and my tiger,” he hesitated. “My tiger wanted to make her happy. It wanted to submit. It wanted to do any-damn-thing to make her smile. It didn’t like that she was afraid of us.”

Ares jerked back and froze, confusion uncurling inside him while his tiger merely chuffed its… happiness?

“I know, right?” Flynn’s eyes were wide with a surprise that matched Ares’s. “I couldn’t say no. I made a couple of suggestions she agreed to, but when she said she was staying, my cat forced me to make her comfortable. I sent her to Emma and Noah’s, but they were being difficult.”

“How could they deny her and you couldn’t?”

“She was asking, not telling. She didn’t make it an order.”

“You should have let her be, then.” And saved Ares the knowledge that Zoe was so close. The inn wasn’t deep within pride lands, but it was hidden from the road by heavy trees. It was normally used by visiting shifters, the clients limited to tigers and the occasional wolf or bear. Lions were just assholes who didn’t like to associate with others.

“You didn’t hear her. You don’t know what it feels like.” Flynn shook his head. “My tiger took her words as an order as if they came from you.”

“Not possible.”

“You sure?” Flynn raised his eyebrows in question.

No, he really wasn’t, but there had to be some sort of explanation. “I want her gone.” He let his worries for her—the cat’s worries—come forward. “I need her gone, Flynn. You didn’t hurt her, but…”

He wasn’t sure none of the others had the same restraint.

“They won’t. They can’t.”

“I’m pretty sure they could. I know if I let Claire loose on her—”

“Loose on who?” Claire breezed into the room, and he inwardly cursed.

“No one.” He glared at Flynn, willing the man to remain silent. When Flynn kept his mouth shut, he focused on his sister. “Can I help you with something?”

“Does a sister need a reason to visit her brother?” She fluttered her lashes, eyes open widely and flashing him a look of pure innocence.

Right.

“No, but you always do.”

Claire huffed. “Fine. I want permission to run with the Woodgate pride.”

“No.” He didn’t hesitate with that answer.

“That’s it? No.”

“Yes.” Ares didn’t like the Woodgate alpha, and he sure as hell didn’t like the males who made up that group of tigers. As the national alpha, he didn’t have to like everyone, he just had to fight to protect them. He would, however, keep Claire away from ’em. There were more opportunistic males in that pride than all of the US. They’d savor any chance to tug on Claire’s tail, tradition or not, willingness or not, Ares’s approval or not.

Nope, not happening.

“Ares, that’s not fair.” She even stomped her foot, and he wondered if he could get away with killing her when she should have been drowned when she was a cub.

“Life isn’t fair. Prides are restricted to their current territory. Period. We run as we always have.”

“Not as we always have because—”

“Claire,” he warned. His patience had been at its end before she’d shown up, and now it was even worse.

“C’mon, Claire,” Flynn murmured. “It’s time to go.”

Ares kept his narrow-eyed stare on his sister, not stopping until her gaze was firmly locked on the ground. He didn’t tear his attention from her until Flynn escorted her from the room. As they turned for the hallway, he yelled one last instruction. “Hunt up Braden and send him over.”

With Zoe popping up as if she hadn’t caused hellacious chaos, all their careful planning was shot to shit. His tiger paced and purred in the back of his mind, aching to be set free so he could chase her down.

When he didn’t immediately do as it demanded, the beast dug its claws into his head, the captive cat scraping against his flesh even though it was locked within human skin. He sucked in a harsh breath and leaned over his desk, catching his weight with his hands as his knees threatened to buckle. It wanted out. It wanted to be free. It wanted… her. Even as it was furious over the way her actions endangered the pride, it wanted her at its side.

“Dammit, cat,” he pushed the words past gritted teeth. “Back the fuck down.”

It told him to grow a set of balls and find Zoe already.

His gut clenched, the tiger trying to claw its way out of his body, to force the change on him. It didn’t understand the emotional pain of betrayal. It merely saw his relationship with Zoe and that it was broken. It couldn’t be put it back together without her at his side.

“Yo, Ares?” Braden knocked on the door, the rap breaking into his painful struggle.