by Jade White
Sable stood calmly as Egan advanced, knocking him down once more with a well-timed blow when Egan got close enough. Without missing a beat, Egan got up again, though his ascent up the embankment was slower as he lunged at his brother once more.
When he was within striking distance, Sable let out a roar that echoed throughout the forest. Egan’s resolve faltered, and then he crumpled to the ground, rolling onto his back in a show of submission. Sable glared at him for a moment before turning and walking towards their home. Egan stood and leapt in the air, intent on taking his brother down while his back was turned. Sable rolled onto his back and caught Egan on his feet, pushing with all his might and using Egan’s own momentum to throw him off and against a large oak tree.
Egan lay panting at the base of the tree, his anger deflating as the pain overtook him. Sable walked over to him and nuzzled his shoulder, encouraging him to get up so they could make the long trek back home.
The first colorful rays of morning were teasing the horizon when the dark figures came slinking into the yard. Orange coat covered in mud and leaves, Egan stepped with a slight limp on his front paw. Sable walked the contrite teen at the back door where he kept their robes. Sable shifted easily and shrugged on his robe, grabbing the second robe to hand to his brother. Egan stopped on the porch and shifted slowly, his body exhausted from the exertion of the past few hours. Sable handed him a robe and followed him inside, noting that the large cut on his hand had already stopped bleeding.
Egan headed into the bathroom to take a shower, nodding his head silently when Sable told him he would be waiting in the kitchen. Egan hung his head in shame as the water sluiced over his skin, his actions weighing heavily on his heart. He toweled off and dressed quickly, wanting to get this encounter over and find something to eat; he was famished.
Sable stood at the counter making himself a large sandwich, his back to Egan as the boy entered the kitchen.
Before Sable could speak, Egan blurted out, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. And I shouldn’t be mad that Olivia loves you and not me.”
Sable was about to correct his brother when he thought better of it. Olivia and Sable weren’t in love, they were just friends. But pointing that out would only prolong this for Egan, and Sable didn’t want that. Egan was a handsome, well-liked young man. The most popular boy on the varsity lacrosse team, girls fawned over him constantly. He needed to find someone his age to fall in love with, even if it didn’t last this time.
So Sable nodded his understanding and set his sandwich down on the counter. He pulled his little brother in for a hug and held him for a moment. Twelve years his senior, Sable had been a young man himself when his parents had died in a violent car accident, leaving him to raise a twelve-year-old boy whose only wish was to be a man. Egan had always struggled to accept the limitations of his age, and this latest incident with Olivia proved that he hadn’t outgrown that tendency. Hopefully, his apology was heart-felt and not just a bid to get Sable off his back.
Sable made a second sandwich and slid the plate to Egan. They ate in silence, Egan shifting uncomfortably as muscles began to stiffen after their scuffle in the woods. Egan finished his food and cleared his plate, giving his brother one last hug before he limped up the stairs to bed. Sable knew that there was more to discuss, but for now, he felt like he’d finally gotten through to Egan.
**
Sable stood in the clearing beneath the moonlight, watching Egan advance on him as he had so many times that night. Each time, Sable thwarted his attempts to take his older brother down, but Sable’s strength was fading, and Egan showed no signs of stopping. With one final roar, Egan leapt into the air, soaring above Sable with the full moon behind him, landing on his brother. The air whooshed out of Sable’s lungs, and it was several moments before Sable could breathe again. Egan rolled off his brother in one smooth motion and sauntered away without a backwards glance, leaving Sable broken, lying helpless on the ground. Sable tried to call out to Egan, but the teen was long gone and Sable was alone.
His body, battered and broken, was unable to hold his tiger form any longer. With painful slowness born of soul-crushing exhaustion, Sable’s body slipped back into human form. The moonlight burned his naked flesh, setting his very soul on fire as his body struggled to heal itself. A heavy fog rolled in off a nearby lake, shrouding Sable in its thick blanket. Smoky tendrils caressed his tortured flesh, drawing anguished moans from his cracked lips.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel path beyond, but Sable was too weak to lift his head to see who was coming. Too broken to fight, Sable lay on the ground complacent. Perhaps his brother had come back to finish the job. Or to help him.
Floating above him, face etched with concern, Olivia appeared out of the fog. She kneeled above Sable, her tiny fingers floating over his skin. He looked down to see the tips of her fingers glowing, blessed heat coming off of them as they worked their way over each broken bone. He could feel his body healing with her touch, each bruised and broken part setting itself right as she moved from one injury to the next. She worked ceaselessly, humming to herself as she went.
When Sable’s body was healed, the pain all but forgotten, Olivia lay down beside him, weakened from the effort it took to mend his shattered soul.
Sable wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair when she rested her weary head on his chest. She moved until she was on top of him, her body wrapped around his, the fog beginning to envelop them as it moved in slowly.
Olivia leaned up, looking deep into Sable’s eyes, her face set and determined. Her eyes grew brighter with each passing second, until they seemed to glow green in the darkness. Her lips parted and her voice floated on the fog to him, sounding as if it had come from miles away.
“You belong to me.” The fog surrounded her, and all at once she burst into nothingness, the fog enveloping him completely in her absence, snaking around his neck and closing around his throat. He tried to scream, to call out to Olivia to save him, but the fog slithered down his throat and cut off the sound.
Sable shot straight up in bed, gasping for air and clawing at his neck. He tried desperately to release himself from the grip of the malevolent fog when his eyes finally adjusted to the dim light peeking through the heavy curtains on his windows. With a heavy shudder, Sable fell back onto the pillows and let out the breath he’d been holding; it was only a dream.
Anxious to shake off the lingering fear, Sable jumped out of bed and dressed quickly. He took the stairs two at a time and headed for the garage. He slid into the driver’s seat of his car and put the vehicle into gear, passing under the opening garage door with mere inches to spare.
He drove down the driveway and turned right, heading for Olivia’s house in town. He had to see her and it couldn’t wait. He glanced at the clock and was surprised to see that it was already noon. He’d been asleep for hours, trapped in his dreams, struggling to breathe. A cold sweat clung to Sable’s body as he guided the powerful machine through the city streets. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t shake the heavy burden the dream left on his soul.
His world was about to change, and drastically. The fight with Egan was a metaphor for something else, and not just his mind reliving the events from the week before. Egan and Sable had long since made up and the house had returned to normal. The fight in this dream was different, but the message was clear: he was going to be fighting for his life, one way or the other. Scoffing at his own thoughts, Sable tried to remind himself that he didn’t believe in prophetic dreams. But the images were too real to shake.
Then there was Olivia, mending his wounds with the strength of her love. And her words, you belong to me. What had that meant? Generations before, all unions were heralded by an announcement dream; a way for two souls to declare their status as one entity. But Sable didn’t believe in announcement dreams. That couldn’t have been a real one anyway, because announcement dreams were purely a shifter experience; no human had ever ha
d or been in one. His dream was obviously the result of days of pent up, sexual frustration working its way out in his subconscious.
Sable settled on that explanation, satisfied that he’d explained away the dream in a logical fashion. But he was still overwhelmed by the need to see Olivia, and he knew this was more than pent up desire.
He pulled up next the curb in front of her home, parking hastily, his stride eating the distance to the door. He knocked, but there was no answer. Trying the handle, he found it unlocked and let himself in.
He could hear voices coming from her bedroom, soft moans and short breath; the tell-tale squeaky bed springs. Sable strode down the hall, his large body filling up the doorway.
The man looked up and shouted, “What the hell!” when he noticed Sable appear from the dark hall beyond the room.
“Get. Out.” With a calm that was almost eerie, Sable stood in the entryway, waiting for the man to comply. The stranger moved quickly, adjusting his clothes and heading for the door.
Hair in disarray, but otherwise still dressed, Olivia sat up in bed.
“Jeez, Sable, you scared the hell out of me.”
“I had a dream.” He offered no explanation at first, practically shouting the declaration and sitting down beside her on the bed.
“A dream? What does that even mean?”
Sable shrugged. He honestly wasn’t sure, but he knew it was important.
“Are you going to tell me what it was about or leave me here in suspense?”
“It was about you, and me. Something big is going to happen, and I need you by my side when it does.”
Olivia blinked. “Are you saying you had an announcement dream and I was in it? How is that possible? I thought only shifters announced to each other. Are you sure it wasn’t just a dream?”
“It wasn’t just a dream.”
“But you don’t believe in announcement dreams.”
Sable shrugged again. She was right, but he’d be a fool to ignore the pull he’d felt towards her. Sitting beside her was the first time he hadn’t felt frantic with the need to be by her side. He knew that, if he walked away, that same force would pull at him again, making it hard to breathe, until he found his place beside her once more. Whether he believed in the dream or not was irrelevant, the force between them was more powerful than either one of them.
Olivia watched the emotions play across his face as he recounted the dream to her in frightening detail. She didn’t understand most of it, though he assured her that the fight and her subsequent disappearance into the fog wasn’t meant to be taken literally.
Sable struggled with his emotions as he continued, leaning on Olivia, who wrapped her arms around him. She pulled him down with her to lay on the bed, stroking his temple as he searched for the words to explain to her exactly how powerful the dream had been. She held him quietly, the implications of his dream heavy on her mind. Whether she believed in fated mates or not, the majority of shifters did. If the council got wind of this dream, they’d be in an uproar. No shifter had ever had a human as a fated mate, and the news would spread like wildfire. Olivia loved Sable like no other, but she was completely unwilling to be tied down to one man; even a man a great as he.
Olivia realized that Sable had stopped talking and his head had grown heavy on her chest. His breathing was deep and even, though his arm still held firmly around her waist, locking her in place beside him. Olivia maneuvered until she was free, sliding silently off the bed and onto the floor.
She padded barefoot into the kitchen and turned on her laptop. Typing quickly, she searched “fated mate,” “tiger-shifter,” and “human.” As she anticipated, there wasn’t much that came up, though there were endless articles about shifters finding their soulmates through announcement dreams. Near the bottom of the search results, there was a short article tucked in among the countless ones covering fated mates.
She clicked the link and began reading, her stomach sinking with each word. Olivia heard sheets rustling in her room, then the door to the bathroom shut quietly. She clicked print, sending the article to her wireless printer in her office down stairs. She shut down her computer and shut the lid as Sable was walking down the hall, his sweet smile crooked as he looked her over.
“Always working, aren’t you?”
“You know me. I can’t go a day without checking my emails, even on vacation.”
Sable moved behind her and held her in his arms.
“Thank you, for being there.”
“You’re welcome. Did you find Egan? How was he?”
“Egan has finally accepted that you’re not right for him. I can see that his heart is still broken, but he’s finally moving beyond his infatuation with you. He’ll get over it, and he’ll find someone who will make him forget he ever thought he loved you.”
“Gee thanks, you really know how to make a girl feel special.” She elbowed him in the ribs playfully.
They chatted easily, but Olivia was distracted by the papers waiting for her in the office. The first paragraph had frightened her enough, but there was more to it than that. Should she tell Sable? She wouldn’t know until she finished reading the article, and it didn’t appear that Sable was in any hurry to leave.
CHAPTER THREE
Sable watched Olivia push her dinner across her plate, her meal untouched.
“What’s wrong, Olivia?”
She looked up, a little startled that she’d been so thoroughly lost in thought.
“I’m just trying to process the last few days. So much has happened in the last week, I feel like I’m spiraling. I hate that feeling. You worked hard on this meal, I’m sorry. It’s delicious, I’m just not in the mood to eat.”
Sable reached across her narrow table and grabbed her hand, squeezing it gently. She smiled at him, but he could see that she was still struggling. He understood completely. Even for Sable, this week had been trying, he couldn’t imagine how daunting all this would be for a human. She’d been his friend for a very long time, and he’d never met a human who understood and accepted them so easily, but it was still a lot to take in when you were viewing it from the outside.
Sable stood and moved around the table to stand behind her, wrapping her in his strong arms. She leaned against him, the weight of the world heavy on her shoulders.
“Sable, I don’t know if I’m cut out to be a fated mate.” Her voice caught, her emotions heavy on her heart.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to do anything. We don’t even have to act on the dream right now. No one knows about it but you and me, there’s no reason to worry.”
“So you’re not going to tell anyone?”
“Do you want me to?” He kneeled down beside her chair, cupping her chin and looking into her eyes. He saw so much in their depths, but most evident was the fear. He’d laid a heavy burden on her without even considering her feelings. He’d been so desperate to see her, so eager to share, that he hadn’t even taken a moment to think about how the news would impact her. She was scared and it was all his fault. He felt like a complete ass.
“I’m sorry, Sable. But for now, can we just keep it between us?”
“Of course, Olivia. Anything to make you happy.” He kissed her tenderly on the forehead, drawing a shy smile out of her.
Her smile turned wicked for a moment. Sable knew that look, so her next words didn’t surprise him.
“You know what would make me really happy?” She leaned in and kissed him, gently at first, then with increasing urgency. He stood and pulled her into his arms, his lips sealed to hers as he tasted her sweetness.
She wrapped her legs around his hips, her tongue darting into his mouth, kissing him passionately as he walked down the hall to her bedroom.
He laid her gently on the bed, climbing in beside her and pulling her into his arms once more. Olivia placed her hands on his shoulders, pushing him to lay on his back and undoing his pants. He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the floor while she teasingly worked his jea
ns down his legs. Her smile was mischievous as she pulled his boxers off and began stroking his shaft, her hands working like magic on his skin.
“It’s been a long time,” she purred, her eyes drinking in the sight of him as she teased him. Sable’s eyes locked on hers, holding her gaze while she worked her hand on him, each measured stroke driving him further and further into madness.
“Too long,” he muttered before he grabbed her and rolled her onto the bed beneath him. She giggled, surprised as he began removing her clothes hastily.
“My, my, aren’t we eager, Tiger?”
Sable arched his eyebrow at her, his nimble fingers helping her out of clothes in record time. His breath caught in his throat as he took in the sight of her. Her body was lean, but curvy, her tanned skin and toned muscles reflecting hours spent outdoors. Sable ran a single finger down her body, tracing circles around her navel and skipping past her erogenous zones as he teased her slowly. Olivia reached out, grabbing his hand and attempting to push him towards the hot apex of her thighs, but Sable continued his lazy exploration of her body, delighting in her frustration. He watched her cheeks flush with need as the heat within her began to rise.
Smiling wickedly, he began kissing her body. His tender little kisses drove her mad as he purposely skirted around her breasts, choosing instead to focus his attention on her delicate collarbone and throat. Olivia thrust her hands into his thick hair, her hands clenching almost painfully with the force of her need. Sable teased and licked, delighting in her moans of pleasure and agony. More than once, he dipped his head towards the apex of her thighs, kissing her within inches of her sweetness before moving back towards her neck.
