Tiger Tail: Shifter Romance

by Sky Winters

  The warm water made it harder for him to hold off, and he came inside her within a few blissful moments. They finished cleaning each other and then stepped out of the shower, wrapping her pink and green towels around themselves.

  With all of her stuff packed up in boxes that had been taken off to who knew where, Vicky did not have a reason to stay in her building. “I guess I need to end my lease, and my art classes,” she said sadly.

  Amos shook his head. “Yeah, end your lease but don’t give up on your classes. I’ll pay for them if need be.”

  “Can you pay for the rest of rent I’ll have to pay?” she asked, laughing slightly bitterly. “My class is at least mostly paid for with a scholarship.”

  “I can do that, too,” he said, leaning towards her and kissing her chin. “C’mon now. Let me take you to your new home.”

  They got back on his motorcycle and he drove them back in the direction of the bayou. They did not go to the same bayou however. When he’d finally parked the bike in a new bayou, Amos smiled at her. “Welcome to your new home. This is Bayou Segnette.”

  Vicky looked around, smiling. “It’s about as hot as I suppose one might expect,” she said. He led her by the hand up to a large cabin. It appeared to be much more spacious than the other one. “Does this one have a shower?” she asked, squinting up at him as the sunlight blinked through the trees at them.

  Amos chuckled. “Just go inside and see.”

  They walked in together, hand-in-hand.

  The cabin was definitely bigger. This one had an actual living room, a larger kitchen, a bedroom and – best of all! – a bathroom with a shower and tub!

  “Now, it’s not exactly meant for a large family, but I figure it’s a start?” Amos said.

  Vicky leapt into his arms, kissing him. “I love it!” she cried. “I love you!”

  EPILOGUE

  After everything that had happened to Vicky, she was not going to continue working at Zydeco. She hadn’t disliked the place, but it was not the safest place for her to be. Not only that, but the heat exhaustion and second-hand smoke were liable to kill both her and the baby if she stayed.

  Instead, safe with her biker bear, she focused on her artwork and taking better care of herself. It turned out that Amos was a bouncer at one of the local dance clubs; he made enough money to support them until she became a successful famous artist.

  Her pregnancy did not last as long as a normal pregnancy. That was because, as Amos explained to her, “Werebears do not live by human rules.”

  Four months after they moved in together at La Grande Grotte, Vicky gave birth at home to a healthy baby boy. They named him Sylas. “Sylas Steele” just sounded like an awesome name to Vicky, and Amos was not going to argue with that.

  The time spent away from Zydeco did wonders for her work. Vicky still went to classes every so often, but she was devoted to her baby and did not want to leave him at home. It didn’t seem to matter if she was still taking the class or not. She continued to improve and explore new techniques that she incorporated into her pieces.

  One morning, Vicky sat outside on the cabin’s back deck right over the bayou. The baby was in a rocking cradle right beside her, staring up at her canvas as she attempted an oil painting. As she watched the familiar sunrise over the water, she did her best to let the colors of the water and the trees and the sky inspire her.

  “Who is this?” she asked little Sylas, cooing down at the little boy as he looked up at her, smiling and eager to know what the hell was going on. She’d felt like that pretty recently. She had a lot in common with their baby already.

  And he had a lot in common with his daddy.

  “This is Daddy,” Vicky said excitedly, pointing her thumb towards her portrait of Bear Amos. He was done up in blues and yellows, but it was him all right. “This is your daddy.”

  “Oh, that needs to go up on the wall,” Amos’s voice said behind her.

  She turned and smiled at him. He came up to her and they kissed. Vicky brought her hands up to his face and accidentally got blue paint all over him.

  Well, maybe it was an accident.

  Maybe she was simply imprinting on him.

  The End.

  Lion Shifter Romance Bonus

  Lion Shifter of OZ

  Chapter 1

  Delilah Harrington swore under her breath as she stumbled on the cracked steps leading up to her apartment building. Flipping one unruly tendril of hair from her face, she tried to collect herself and stop the world from spinning.

  Humidity hung in the air, clinging to Delilah’s silk dress and making her skin feel sticky. She hated Boston in June. Hell, she just hated Boston.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come with me to the Emerald City? The DJ tonight is supposed to be beyond incredible. Plus, two-dollar cosmos and they never card.” Tammy begged with her eyes, while holding Delilah’s arm to steady her friend. But why did she keep glancing up at the window to De’s apartment?

  “Nah. I’ve had enough for tonight. Finals start tomorrow, and it’s my last chance to pass Hollinder’s class. If I don’t do that; I don’t get to junior year.”

  Tammy snort-laughed, still holding her arm. “Um, you’re not in any shape to study. Either you pass or you don’t at this point, De. At least you can go out with a bang. Your parents will bribe you on to Junior year, just like they did last summer. Come on!”

  De yanked her arm away and followed Tammy’s gaze up to the window again. WTF? “Why are you trying to get me away from here so hard?” she slurred. “Is it Patrick? Did he do something again? Shit. If he’s cheating…” De let her voice trail off as she forced her way up the remaining steps to the glass door that was never locked.

  “Come on, De,” Tammy whined, but stayed at the bottom of the steps. “Screw him anyway. Let’s go pick up some real men.”

  Delilah ignored her and stormed inside the building as much as someone drunk off her ass in stilettos could storm into a building. The metal stairs clanged as she yanked herself up floor by floor until she reached number four.

  Being quiet was unnecessary, she realized after finally jimmying the door open on their studio apartment. A tornado wouldn’t have stopped Patrick when he was that far along. Delilah watched as his bare ass rose and fell between two legs stuck up in the air like flags waving shiny patent leather heels—strawberry-colored, of course. Because you couldn’t pick anything trashier.

  Delilah shrieked, stalking forward and snatching every garment off the floor around the humping couple. A bra way too large and red for De, a leather mini-skirt, Patrick’s favorite T-shirt with his band’s logo on it, and a pair of thongs that matched the bra in color and material. She’d have grabbed Patrick’s pants, too, but they were down around his ankles.

  “Wait,” the slut said, finally noticing her presence as she continued toward the same window Tammy kept glancing at. “What are you doing?”

  Delilah didn’t pause because she knew Patrick well enough to know he wasn’t about to pause either. Using her shoulder, she forced the window open in one shove and tossed everything out.

  The clothing fluttered to the sidewalk and stairs. All except the bra, which got snagged by a tree branch and hung in the heavy night air. Delilah poked her head back in, the immense flood of satisfaction already waning.

  “Oh my gawd!” the slut said, smacking Patrick’s sweaty chest with her scarlet-nailed hand. Could she be any more of a cliché?

  Delilah leaned against the window frame, crossing her arms.

  Patrick let out a grunt, which usually meant he was satisfied and collapsed over the Jersey Girl, rolling off and spying De for the first time.

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. That about sums it up,” De said, straightening up. She’d waited for his full attention for her next move.

  Grabbing hold of his favorite – and only – acoustic guitar, which he’d had since he ran away from home at age seventeen, she swung it like a baseball bat, spinning around in the sm
all space.

  “Whoa! De! Stop! That’s not funny,” Patrick screamed, scurrying to his feet only to nearly trip over his pants, which were circling his ankles.

  “Oops.” Delilah let the body of the beast hit the window frame, where it made a horribly satisfying crunching sound.

  Patrick yanked his pants up and rushed to her side as she watched it bash its way down the side of the old building, finally hitting pavement below.

  “Bitch! That was important to me.” Patrick raised a hand as though he was about to hit her while she stood her ground, trying not to flinch.

  He let his hand drop, smacking his thigh instead. “She’ll be okay. Kitty is sturdy.”

  She should have known he wasn’t worth it when she found out he’d named his guitar Kitty.

  De shrugged. “I tried. If I managed to get a good chip out of it, maybe you’ll think of me whenever you see it. Either way. This is it. The last straw.” She hated that her voice wavered on the last sentence. She’d tried so hard not to cry in front of him. He didn’t need to see how much he’d gotten to her.

  “Get me my clothes!” the slut on the bed demanded.

  Delilah didn’t know if it was her drunken state or some primal animal chord Patrick struck by cheating too many times, but she leaned around and hissed at the girl, sending her cowering back on the bed.

  She pulled her beat-up suitcase out and began shoving everything inside. It was sad, but she didn’t have all that much to show for herself after being at college for two years. Maybe it was her way of telling her parents that she didn’t want to come to this Ivy League shithole in the first place.

  Pre-law? They actually thought they could buy her a degree. Maybe they could. But the one thing they couldn’t afford was her. It was time to stop throwing away her life feeling sorry for herself and start doing what she wanted.

  Patrick followed her to the door, his face pale beneath his shadow he called a beard. His washboard abs still glistened with sweat, and she wrinkled her nose.

  “Come on, babe. You know I’m sorry. I’m a temperamental artist. You got even though, throwing Kitty out the window like that, right?”

  “You can stop with the fake British accent,” De said, holding her suitcase between them. “I know you’re from Kentucky. Look, it was fun. The sex was great. But it’s time I move on anyway. Do that girl a favor and go down and get her clothes when you get your precious Kitty. You and I both know the clothes don’t make much difference, but it’s the right thing to do.”

  With that, Delilah flipped a stray piece of hair from her face again and left her apartment and her sad excuse for a boyfriend without looking back.

  When she got to her car, a Mazda convertible and her eighteenth birthday present from her parents, she finally let loose. Tears rolled freely down her face as she slung her suitcase in the trunk. Some part of her wished Patrick would run after her, begging her forgiveness again. But she knew it didn’t mean anything anyhow. It would just be easier was all. Easier to keep living the charade of a life her parents set out for her than actually striking out on her own.

  Because that’s exactly what was going to happen the second the Harringtons of Marsh Harbor got wind of their daughter deserting her post. They’d disown her without blinking. Anything rather than risk the family name.

  Delilah drove away from the city, ignoring the texts filling her phone from both Patrick and Tammy. In fact, Tammy was the only one she felt a twinge of guilt about leaving. But her friend was one of those people who could command the whole room’s attention the second she walked in. She’d be fine.

  By the time her tank needed filling, she was long gone from the city and all the noise and pollution. She bought a pile of gas station snack food and a giant coffee to keep herself fueled and drove on through the night and most of the next day, stopping only when necessity demanded it.

  She had no clue where she was going, but she already felt like a new person. By night number two, she stopped at a crappy motel and paid cash, not yet ready to face her parents. She treated herself to a shower, a hot meal at the local diner, and was on her way again. This time in skinny jeans and a cut-off shirt she’d found on sale the week before. She left the top down on the car and braided her hair so it wouldn’t fly around like crazy as she sailed through the middle of the country on the back roads.

  The scenery provoked the first real smile she’d managed in a while. Thick pockets of trees and rolling green pastures filled with crops and old-fashioned red barns dotted the sides of the road. The sky was almost purple it was such a deep shade of blue, and the wind picked up as she passed a herd of cattle, chewing lazily on the emerald grass.

  This was real beauty. The farmers here were probably real people, too, unlike the people she was used to. They worked hard and lived a simpler life where the things that mattered didn’t have a price tag or a designer label.

  The sky grew a deeper shade of purple, darkening so gradually that Delilah didn’t realize how ominous it appeared until it was too late. She slowed her little red convertible to a crawl and lowered the volume on the song she had blaring from her phone. The wind continued to whip her hair loose from her braid and the field of long grass beside her seemed to do the wave as a great shadow engulfed the land.

  “Shit,” De said, pulling over and pressing the button that would put the roof up on her car.

  An earth-rumbling crack made her jump, gripping the steering wheel tighter as she glanced over to the other side of the road. In the distance, a monstrous storm wound around like a giant spinning top. Objects and even animals were sucked into its massive corona as it slithered across the field.

  Her car wasn’t going to protect her from that.

  De snapped into action, snatching her cell and abandoning her car. She could come back for it later. She tried punching in 911 as she stumbled across the field, but there was no service.

  When she finally gave up on the phone and stuffed it in her pocket, she realized the wind behind her had stopped and everything was unnaturally still.

  Maybe the storm died. Maybe it went a different direction. Maybe it was really miles away and it was her big-city imagination that scared her senseless.

  De stopped running and turned.

  That wasn’t possible, was it? The twister had somehow gained at least half the distance between where she’d first seen it and where she now stood. And it appeared even bigger. Jaw droppingly big.

  De ran.

  The closest structure was a farm house with a large brown barn in the rear. She changed trajectory and shot toward the house, coming within a few feet of a large black cow who mooed in protest as she whipped by.

  “Sorry, Bessy, every girl for herself,” she yelled back, wondering even in her panicked state if there were some way she could save the animal.

  Maybe the people in the house would know what to do.

  The gale force winds were so strong by the time she reached the front steps that the swing on the porch banged back into the picture window and the cushions flew off into the melee.

  De pounded on the door and twisted the handle, desperate for shelter, but no one was answering. She cupped her hands and pressed her face against the glass, careful to avoid the wild wooden swing.

  All she saw was a quaint living area with a patchwork quilt slung over the back of an overstuffed loveseat and a wooden table beyond. Living plants lined the sills across from her so she knew someone had to live there.

  She pounded again, but it was no use over the sound of the storm.

  Heart thumping against her chest like it was trying to escape, De began searching for some other way in. The twister was closer than ever, and visibility was almost non-existent past about a foot in front her. But she pushed on, fighting against the force of the winds, grasping the side of the house as a guide until she nearly tripped over a stone ledge.

  A cellar! She’d found the double doors to a storm cellar. That’s where the owners must be. Surely they wouldn’t mind a little
company? De knelt beside the wooden doors and tugged at the plank holding them down.

  When it finally swung open, the wind tore it off the hinges and the two-by-four flew into the swirling dust. The doors flipped open, slamming into the borders and a gaping dark square beckoned her out of the chaos.

  De swung a leg over just as one of the doors was ripped off. She squealed and tucked inside, finding footing on some sort of stairway.

  “Hello?” she called, feeling for some kind of banister to guide her.

  Nothing.

  She swallowed and glanced back at the opening just in time to avoid a mailbox that threatened to decapitate her. The twister was practically on top of her now and it was time to throw caution to the wind.

  Trusting that the stairs would be there, De jogged down into the dark. She was just starting to calm down again when her right foot caught on something that shot out from beneath her with a screech. She tumbled down the steps, banging her knee and shoulder, grappling for hold, but unable to see anything. Then her head hit cement and the world blurred as she finally came to a stop.

  The last thing she heard as she blacked out was a man’s deep voice saying, “Bad kitty.”

  Chapter 2

  De threw an arm over her eyes to block out the sunlight that had blinded her right through her closed lids.

  “Ow,” she moaned, working her way into a sitting position. She must have had too much to drink again because her head pounded like it had hit a ton of bricks. But before she could even work her eyes open, it all came flooding back.

  She’d fallen down the steps – tripped over something, a cat? Was the storm over? How had it gotten so bright in the cellar?

  De blinked and forced her lids open.

  She’d expected devastation. She’d expected trees torn from their roots, houses with roofs ripped off, cars overturned. She hadn’t expected to be lying outside in the center of a tiny ghost town rimmed by thick forests on all sides and green mountains in the distance. She definitely hadn’t expected the buildings neglected by time to be tiny, three-quarter versions of normal ones, like they’d been made for spoiled rich kids like herself.