Once Upon a Tiger (7 page)

“Fuck ‘em,” she said.

Victor straightened and his eyes widened.

She flailed out a hand in a vague gesture. “I don’t know what the elders meant by sending the others here. I don’t care. I’ve been a loyal Tracker for twelve years. The only thing I’ve ever asked was to be released from the Mate Run. They broke their word. If they can’t keep their promise with me, I no longer need to be faithful to them.”

Victor’s brows rose higher and he made a, “Continue!” gesture with a wave of his hand.

“I’m picking my own damned mate outside the Mate Run. They can bite me if they don’t like it.”

One side of his mouth quirked but he continued staring at her.

She rolled her eyes and looked out into the woods again. “Yes, you’re the mate I’m picking. In case you were wondering.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw his slight smile and then he faced the trees again, too.

“Don’t get smug.”

He raised his hands, palms up in surrender.

“And don’t pretend you weren’t feeling smug.” She gave him a narrow-eyed look.

He continued staring into the trees, the very slight upward tilt of his mouth giving him a very satisfied look. She had more to tell him, to admit, and she wanted to try signing it. A tremor of anxiety clenched her stomach. Taking this step felt like laying her soul open for him to see, though she wasn’t sure why she was so insecure about it. She’d just told him she intended to keep him. Admitting she’d learned sign language for him shouldn’t be any scarier.

She sucked in a breath. She was no coward. He was her mate now. She could do this.

She nudged his arm, and when he faced her fully, she started signing, very slowly. “
The thing is…I’ve had a thing for you since I was sixteen.”

He tilted his head to one side and frowned, blinking repeatedly as if he wasn’t sure he believed what he was seeing.

“Did I sign wrong and say something ridiculous?” she asked aloud. She was pretty sure she hadn’t but signing at herself in the mirror was very different from signing to Victor.

He shook his head but didn’t otherwise react.

She nodded and went back to signing.
“It was a girlhood crush at sixteen. When I turned twenty, I knew you were the only one I could ever mate with.”
She paused and picked at a loose splinter on her armrest, then looked up and finished.
“You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted, Victor. I never allowed myself to hope for this, but now that they’ve pushed me, I intend to keep you.”

She flexed her fingers, the signing making them ache a little because she really didn’t do this enough. Then aloud, because she didn’t know all the right signs, she said, “There’s not a damned thing the bastards can do about it either.”

A few silent minutes passed as he stared, his notebook flittering in the soft breeze. She held his gaze, though it took an act of will to keep from looking away.

Finally, he set the notebook aside and started signing. Alexis tried following but it was clear after a few gestures, real life signing wasn’t the same as watching a teaching video. She raised a hand to stop him.

“Sorry,” she said, “you’re going too fast for me. I’ve never signed with anyone else before. I can’t keep up.”

“
You can
use
sign language?”

Her cheeks heated, but she signed,
“I started learning a few years ago.”

“Why?”

“For you.”

His mouth actually dropped open slightly, a sign she wasn’t sure how to interpret. She couldn’t read anything in his expression except the surprise.

“Should I have asked before using sign language with you? Have I offended you or…anything?”

He shook his head, then he met and held her gaze and signed, slowly,
“I noticed you when you were seventeen. The day after you turned eighteen I allowed myself to admit I wanted you. One minute after that, I resigned myself to never being able to have you.”

He paused and his gaze narrowed, but his lips lifted in a bewildered smile.

“You’ve learned sign language for me.”
His gesture at himself was brusque.

The astonishment in his expression vanished then, replaced by an unsmiling intensity that made her swallow hard. Heat and passion rose, a sharp, heady mixture of scent and sensation that flowed over her, brushing her skin, filling her nose. She sucked in a deep breath to savor all the things they were saying to each other without words.

He leaned closer.
“If you’re willing to stand up to the elders, I will be at your side. Always.”

Her exhale wobbled, but she didn’t hesitate when she said, “I am.”

He cupped her cheek, stretched across the two armrests, and kissed her. The gentle contact, so at odds with the passion scenting the air and yet so perfectly right, filled her soul. She wanted to burst with the joy of knowing he would stand with her. Every part of her felt alive, sparking with energy and hope.

She gripped his wrist and eased back to smile. “You’re mine now, you know.”

He nodded, his gaze direct and serious. He touched her chest, right between her breasts, then tapped his own chest. She smiled.

Raising her head, she opened her senses, pinpointing the other males. They’d edged further away from the cabin, still just inside her territory, but some distance from them.

She stood, pulled her shirt over her head and shimmied out of her sweats. “Run with me.”

His gaze traveled over her, and her body tightened and tingled in reaction. Then he frowned and nodded in the direction of the other males, even as he stood and stripped off his jeans.

“We’ll run the opposite way,”
she signed, because it was clear to her now she needed the practice. When she made the clearing, Victor following step for step, she looked around and grinned. “Chase me.”

Still in human form, she took off into the trees.

She didn’t hear him follow her for almost a full minute, and she knew it wasn’t because he was giving her a head start. She laughed, knowing he’d hear, and made her way over the uneven ground. Even on two feet, she was faster than a human woman would have been. Her soles were thicker than a human’s, so she could run on the rough soil barefoot and as surefooted as a tiger. This was her territory. She knew every inch of it. So she was a respectable distance ahead when Victor came after her.

She paused long enough to pick up his path, then veered in a new direction. A thrill of excitement with just the barest edge of anxiety bubbled through her blood. She raced between the trees, leading him up a steep hill, then down toward a slow moving river. She didn’t even pause at the water but plunged across to the opposite bank.

As she ran, she listened for his pursuit, calculating his distance when he hit the water. Damn, he was fast. He was catching up a lot quicker than she’d have expected.

She loved that.

With adrenaline pumping through her, she finally understood the lure of the Mate Run, why so many females embraced it. It was exciting and sexy making the man you wanted try to catch you. Especially knowing what fun you’d have when he did.

She didn’t make it easy on him. So she was surprised when he caught her before she’d planned. She squealed in enthusiastic horror as he grabbed her up and swung her around to face him. She was giggling and panting and more than ready to fuck him when he kissed her.

Wrapping her legs around his waist, she dove into the kiss, feeling free and happy. And so, so right.

She kissed her way down his neck, sucking and biting until he shivered. He cupped her butt and squeezed, his muscles tense and hard everywhere she pressed. He felt so hot, tasted so delicious, she had to have him inside her. Wiggling to get his cock into position, she eased down onto him, taking him in with an easy slide of perfect pressure. He supported her as she moved, harder, faster, the excitement of the chase leaving her so ready she came within minutes.

A moment after her orgasm settled, Victor spun to brace one hand on a tree while still supporting her with the other. He thrust up twice and then dropped his head back and came, his jaw clenched tight. She savored the sight of him, his eyes closed, sweat dripping down the sides of his face, his dark hair damp and begging for her touch, his muscles straining.

When he leaned his head forward again and opened his eyes, he looked directly at her. He didn’t have to speak. She saw the intensity of his feelings. A kind of desperate possessiveness filled her, making her cling all the more tightly to him.

“You’re mine,” she said again.

He nodded.

“I’m yours.”

Another nod.

“From now on. I’ve got your back.”

His mouth tilted in a slow, sexy smile, and his eyes grew heavy-lidded. He caressed her back and kissed her in wordless agreement.

She hugged him, settling her face against his neck so she could absorb his essence, now a permanent part of her own. She was so content, so perfectly happy, she took several moments to realize the other males had moved further into her land.

Her head snapped up. The bastards were past her cabin and on their way toward her and Victor’s location.

“Son of a bitch.” She relaxed her legs and slid to her feet.

Victor kept his arms around her, though, and raised his head. Then nodded and stepped away so she had room to move. She considered their options.

“Shift. We’ll face them tiger to tiger. It is time they left my territory.” The last came out in a low growl as she started changing.

Chapter Nine

As tigers, Alexis and Victor ran toward the approaching males, who changed direction to come straight at them. They met in an area of tightly clumped trees and little undergrowth. The smells of dark earth, pine, maple, dried leaves and tiger washed over Alexis, and she let loose a territorial roar. The five intruding males spaced out in a half-circle, each pacing a small back-and-forth pattern as they sized up her and Victor.

In this shape, her senses were heightened, and she pinpointed Nick immediately. He stalked forward and back, not an open attack but tempting her to jump him. She quickly assessed the other four. Dev was growling and chuffing, his movements more jerky than the others, his tail flicking in short, hard swipes. The one Siberian she thought she might know but couldn’t quite place was hanging back just a bit. Not obvious, but he wasn’t pushing forward the way the others were. The two strangers both stalked with tense grace, issuing occasional growls as they watched her.

She crouched, ready to leap if one came at her, and stared at them all, each in turn. Soft sounds of threat and challenge filled the space between the trees. Only Victor was silent, and his silence was a heavy, dangerous presence beside her.

After several moments of display, Nick finally lunged. She was on him immediately, landing on his back, her teeth in his nape before he could get a swipe at her. She drew blood then jumped away. As he turned to face her, she dove in again, plowing through him so he was flipped off balance and thrown into a tree.

While he was down, she bit his neck again, not enough to kill but once again drawing blood, making the threat clear. Nick roared and swiped out, his sharp claws slicing over her side. She growled in irritation more than pain and danced away from him. Nick was a trained Tracker, no easy mark, but she was still annoyed he’d been able to injure her.

She spun around to lunge back at Nick, but Victor leapt first. He caught Nick and rolled him over and over until they both crashed into another tree. Nick ended up on his back with Victor on top, Victor dragging one clawed forepaw over Nick’s muzzle. Nick roared again and lashed out, but Victor had him pinned.

Alexis had no time to enjoy watching Victor fight. She whirled to face three of the other four tigers as they came at her. She flipped, turned and swiped at them, holding them at a distance as she regained her balance. The vaguely familiar Siberian remained out of the fight, waiting. But she couldn’t worry about him while she was busy handing out a lesson to the three coming at her.

In tiger form, she fought mostly as a normal tiger would, but she had the logic and planning skills of her Tracker training, and she used unexpected moves to toss the three males around. Unlike Nick, none of these were combat trained, and they had no idea how to fight together. She threw one into a tree where he dropped and lay motionless, the wind knocked out of him. Another she managed to hamstring so he went limping out of the fight.

Dev was more aggressive, more desperate than the others. He just kept coming, no matter how many times she tossed him around or made him bleed. He obviously hadn’t learned anything when she’d dislocated his shoulder. She’d underestimated his determination.

He caught her, a second gash along her side and a deep one on her hip. She found herself giving ground under his desperate attack. She didn’t want to kill him. She might not want him, and she was very annoyed by his inability to take a hint, but he wasn’t a bad man. Killing him would be a waste. His instincts were driving him to more violence than the others, though. If he kept pushing, he’d leave her no choice but to take his life.

She glanced around, trying to find a way of ending this without killing. Victor and Nick were still locked in their fight. From her quick glances, she couldn’t pinpoint who was winning. The one tiger who’d remained out of the fight was nowhere to be seen. Damn, one more to worry about. She rolled Dev over her back and into a tree, then swung around to face his next attack—which came faster than she’d hoped.

She looked for the missing tiger again, her attention off of Dev for a split second too long. Her distraction made him bold. He barreled headlong into her, wrapping her up in his forelegs so she couldn’t catch him with her claws. She roared and chuffed, wriggling and thrashing to throw him off. The bastard was strong and held on, forcing her onto her back. When he got his teeth on her neck, she mentally hissed every curse she knew.

She relaxed just a little so instinct didn’t encourage him to actual rip her throat out, then quickly sifted through her options. She didn’t have many, not with his teeth pressing through her thick neck fur, tipping against her skin. If she reacted too aggressively, he could seriously hurt her, even kill her. Damn it. Damn it. How the hell did she end up in this position? Trying not to kill the idiot, she’d opened herself up to getting killed. A mistake she’d never make again.