Tiger Mate (Silverlake Shifters Book 3)

by Anastasia Wilde

  “You’re welcome,” Jesse muttered. He got a definite “thanks and fuck off” vibe from the fox’s energy as she disappeared.

  The lion was still behind him, shaggy black hair standing out wildly from his head. The panther woman was next to him, staring straight ahead, almost catatonic. The lion glanced at the lights closing in, and the growing sound of engines. He stepped forward and held his hand out to Jesse. “I owe you.”

  Jesse clasped his hand. “Jesse Travis, Silverlake pack, Idaho,” he said. “If you ever need to find me.”

  The lion gave a curt nod. “Flynn,” he said. “Watch your back, Jesse Travis.”

  Flynn reached a hand out to the panther. She recoiled and shifted with startling suddenness, snarling and swiping a gash across his thigh.

  Flynn sighed, then hauled off and smacked her across the muzzle. She went limp, passed out. Flynn threw her over his shoulder and started walking.

  “You going to be okay?” Jesse called softly.

  Flynn wiped blood off his mouth and threw him a crooked grin. “Always,” he said, and walked off into the forest, naked, the panther slung across his shoulders like a fur scarf.

  Jesse turned. “Sophia?” he called. No wolf. No tiger. No feral green eyes—not even a snarl.

  He was alone.

  Chapter 19

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Jesse plunged through the trees, scenting the air as best he could in human form, trying to pick up Sophia’s scent. What if she’d lost control again? What if she was wandering around crazy-scared?

  He was heading across a moonlit clearing when he heard a small sound. A huge form leaped out of the shadows and hit him in the side. At the same moment, he heard the crack of a rifle. Then there was a stinging pain in his thigh, and his leg buckled.

  He hadn’t seen any lights. They must be using infrared and night scopes.

  If the tiger hadn’t hit him and thrown their aim off, he’d probably be dead.

  Jesse stumbled to his feet, grabbing onto Sophia’s fur. She pulled at him, clearly telling him they needed to run.

  His right leg wouldn’t work, though, and he could feel the blood dripping down onto the ground. He was losing blood fast, and he couldn’t run.

  Sophia nudged her head underneath his arm, then heaved with her body, almost knocking him off his feet.

  Jesse gaped. “You want me to get on your back?”

  She dipped her head, and gave a “hurry up” growl.

  Jesse flung himself across her back on his stomach, wrapping his arms around her muscular neck. She took off running as two more bullets whined overhead.

  That run through the forest was something Jesse would relive in nightmares for years to come. It seemed to go on forever, the ground jolting by under Sophia’s paws, the pain in his leg and his ribs, the feeling of poison spreading through his veins, as if they’d coated the bullets with some kind of toxin.

  The sound of guns in the distance, and then the baying of dogs.

  They were following his blood trail.

  His whole existence narrowed down to not passing out, trying to keep his arms locked around Sophia’s neck, not falling off as she dodged and twisted between trees and burst through thickets of underbrush that scored his skin with deep scratches.

  Suddenly, Sophia plunged up to her shoulders in a fast-running stream. The water hit Jesse in the face and woke him out of his half-stupor. She was using her brains and her instincts, trying to shake the dogs.

  They came to a small waterfall, and Sophia didn’t even slow down. She sprang straight up its face, her claws scrabbling on the slick moss-covered rocks, leaping from one to the next while Jesse struggled for breath under the pounding onslaught of the water.

  When they got to the top, the bottom dropped out and he felt her swimming for a short time, and then she scrambled out on the bank of the stream, huffing and dripping.

  She gave Jesse a questioning whine.

  “I can’t get off,” he said. “I’ll never get back on again, and we need to find shelter. I’m sick. I think they put something on those bullets. If we can just find a cave, or a house…something…

  He was shivering.

  Sophia rumbled a low growl, and moved on.

  Jesse’s mind went away again, and he didn’t know how much time had passed before he felt Sophia’s back tilt, and then she lowered her shoulder and rolled him off onto a flat surface. Wooden floorboards. He forced his eyes to focus.

  He was lying on the porch of an isolated cabin. It was completely dark, surrounded by trees. A hunting cabin, maybe. People and a phone would have been nice, but someplace abandoned and isolated was the next best thing.

  Sophia nosed his neck, and then rubbed the side of her face gently against his shoulder.

  “We have to get this bullet out,” he wheezed. “I think—whatever they coated it with is killing me. Same thing—happened to Jace.” And Jace had almost died.

  She made a low rumbling sound. “Can you change back?” he asked.

  She blinked at him, then stepped around and nosed the wound in his leg. She sneezed.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Poison. I think you’re going to need hands for this one, babe.”

  Slowly, she lay down, putting her weight on his good leg. Then she reached out her right paw, claws extended, and sliced into Jesse’s thigh.

  Only the certainty that screaming would lead to them being found by Grant’s men kept him from doing it. He felt the bleeding start again, but then he heard the “plink” of the bullet landing on the wooden floor.

  “Fuck,” he muttered between clenched teeth. “You could warn a guy.”

  Sophia lapped at the wound with her rough tongue. “Jesus, babe, that hurts,” he moaned. She spit out a mouthful of blood, and then lapped at him again.

  She was trying to get some of the toxin out of the wound, he realized. Like sucking the venom out of a snakebite.

  After a few minutes of tiger-style medical treatment, Sophia moved away from him. Jesse didn’t feel any better, but he’d stopped feeling worse, so that was something.

  He struggled to a sitting position and tried the door of the cabin. It was locked up tight, seemingly barred from the inside. The windows all had wooden shutters.

  “Soph,” he said, “I need you to change back. We need to find another way in; if we break down the door we won’t be able to bar it up again. And you need to be human to do that. Can you be human?”

  He touched her giant paw. “Hands,” he said. “Can you remember hands?”

  There was a tremor, and her paws rippled. For a moment Jesse thought she wasn’t going to make it, but then there was the familiar body-melting, bone-crunching shimmer, and Sophia was back.

  Jesse crushed her to his chest, rocking back and forth. She clung to him, eyes closed, holding on.

  Jesse stroked her hair. “You are so damn amazing,” he said. “I just want to hold on to you forever. But we have to get inside. Can you check the back for another entrance?”

  She nodded, and gave him a hard kiss on the mouth before standing up and starting down the porch stairs. “Stay here,” she said.

  “No problem,” he said. Staying here was pretty much all he was capable of.

  He leaned against the door, his head feeling like it was floating about a foot above his body. Cicadas were singing in the woods, and the leaves were rustling in the slight breeze.

  And then the cicadas stopped.

  Jesse fought to open his eyes. Standing at the bottom of the porch steps was Volkov. His cadaverous face looked like a skull in the moonlight. He had a trank gun, but it was slung over his back, and in his hand was a taser rod. He hit the button, and sparks fizzed.

  This had to be a hallucination.

  “There you are,” he said. “Slippery little wolf, aren’t you. And stubborn. Who would have known you’d make it this far on your own? And wounded, too.”

  Jesse stared at him. Did he know Sophia was here?

  “I’ve been checkin
g all the hunting cabins in the area,” he said. “One by one. They think you’re all animals. That you’ll hide in the woods. But I know that you’re humans. And humans seek shelter they feel comfortable in.”

  He smiled at Jesse.

  “I got so tired of working for Grant,” he said. “Grant just wanted obedient shifters. Sex slaves and curiosities for collectors. He has no imagination.”

  He stepped forward. “I need the stubborn ones. The unbreakable ones. I want to see what it takes to break them—and then what it takes to rebuild them the way I want them. It’s not animal training,” he went on, as if explaining to a rather slow student. “It’s the human psychology that’s the key.”

  Jesse tried to struggle to his feet, to warn Sophia. He should have known this shelter was too good to be true. The guy must have parked his vehicle down the road and walked in. And he was wearing something to mask his scent, the way hunters did. Between that and his delirium, Jesse hadn’t even sensed him coming.

  “Now, it’s better if you don’t fight me,” Volkov said. “I’m just going to give you an injection, and it’ll counteract that toxin.” He pulled a case out of his pocket and removed a syringe. “Well, eventually. But if you don’t fight, I’ll give you one to make the pain go away now.”

  He stepped forward again, depressing the plunger on the syringe until a drop of liquid flowed, making sure there were no air bubbles. He looked down at Jesse. “Are you going to fight?”

  Jesse found his voice. “I’m one of the stubborn ones,” he said.

  A voice came out of the darkness. “I’m not stubborn, sugar,” Sophia said. “I’m just really pissed off.”

  Volkov dropped the syringe and slid the trank gun off his shoulder, but Sophia was already running at him, shifting as she went. One moment she was a tall, shapely woman, and the next she flowed into tiger form without breaking stride. One bound, and she was on Volkov before he could even raise his taser.

  She tackled him, and they crashed through the porch railing and rolled down the steps. She gave a snarl that echoed through the woods, drowning out his screams.

  Volkov was wearing some kind of body armor on his chest, keeping her claws away from his vital organs. Sophia ripped at the fastenings, exposing his neck and his belly. Her claws raked deep gashes in his abdomen.

  Jesse could feel her energy—in his delirium, he imagined he could see it. Instead of the jagged ball of panic he’d sensed from her other times she’d gone tiger, her energy was fierce and calculating, using her human knowledge to figure out the best way to attack Volkov’s defenses with her animal body. In moments the armor was in pieces, and Volkov was bleeding from a dozen deep slashes.

  Sophia raked her claws one last time across his neck, and finished him.

  Chapter 20

  Sophia ran up the steps and knelt down by Jesse. His eyes seemed unfocused, and he was having trouble sitting up.

  “Hey, babe,” he mumbled. “Fucking…poison bullets…need shot…”

  His hand reached for something, but he was having trouble moving his arm. Sophia saw the syringe lying a few feet away.

  “You want me to give you this?” she asked. “Jesse, it could be anything. It could kill you.”

  “Toxin…killing me now.”

  She bit her lips. He was right. The toxin had spread before she got the bullet out of him. If there was a chance this would help him…

  “Do it,” he murmured, looking at her insistently. “You…can.”

  She nodded resolutely. She’d brought herself back from tiger to save Jesse. She could give one little old shot.

  She grabbed the torn edge of his jeans, where her tiger had ripped them getting the bullet out. She stuck the needle into the big muscle in Jesse’s butt, closest to the wound.

  “If you want to see my ass, you should at least buy me dinner first,” he mumbled.

  She gave a slightly hysterical laugh.

  “I have to get you inside,” she said. “I found a back entrance that should be easier to get into. Can you make it back there?”

  Jesse shook his head. “Can’t…really move,” he said. “You go. Open the door from inside.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “Did you forget what happened last time? I turned my back on you for one minute and you almost got killed by a crazy-ass animal trainer.”

  A small grin ghosted onto his face. “I promise…this time I’ll be good.” When she still hesitated, he said, “Go on. Go.”

  There really wasn’t any other choice. She went down the steps and around the cabin, avoiding looking at Volkov’s body. She’d had to do what she did, but it still made her feel queasy.

  She broke in through the back entrance, came through the cabin and unbarred the front door, pulling Jesse inside. He seemed really out of it, but his breathing and his pulse seemed okay. She just hoped they’d gotten the antidote into him in time.

  She managed to get him up onto the sofa in the main room, and found a blanket to put over him. She started a fire in the wood stove, and then she sat on the living room floor and steeled herself for what she had to do.

  Taking a deep breath, she went back outside and stripped everything useful from Volkov’s body. Weapons. Radio. Keys. Cell phone. She found the little case in his jacket pocket. It had two more syringes in it, and two glass bottles—one with an amber liquid, and one with a clear liquid like the syringe they’d used on Jesse. The toxin and the antidote?

  She put that in the pile. Having samples of the toxin and the antidote might save lives in the future.

  She was shaking by the time she finished, her jaw aching from clenching her teeth.

  Back in the cabin, she dumped all Volkov’s possessions on the dining table. First she turned on the phone. No signal, and it was security protected as well. Damn.

  “Hey, beautiful,” came a slurred voice from the couch.

  “Jesse!”

  She hurried over to him. “How do you feel? Is the antidote working?”

  He looked at her for a long moment, blinking, as if he were thinking very slowly. “I don’t feel poisoned,” he said finally. Another pause. “You’re not a tiger,” he said, as if he were just figuring that out.

  “I changed,” she said. She couldn’t help the surge of pride that went through her. “I changed into tiger without panicking. And I changed back. All by myself. Because you needed me.”

  No one had ever needed her before. Not just wanted to use her, but really needed her.

  “You’re amazing,” Jesse said. There was another pause. “And you have really beautiful tits.”

  What? She looked over at him. He was staring at her boobs like he was mesmerized. She took a closer look at his eyes. “Are you high?” she asked.

  Jesse furrowed his brow. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “I believe I am.”

  Crap on a marshmallow stick. That antidote stuff had sent him into la-la land.

  “Jesse,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  He was still fixated on her chest.

  She shook her head and went over to the table, bringing back Volkov’s phone and radio. “Here,” she said. “See if you can get a signal on either of these while I find something to wear.”

  She found some men’s clothes in a dresser, and put on a pair of pants and a shirt. The pants were tight in the ass and thighs, but they were better than nothing.

  When she got back to the living room, Jesse had the back of the phone open. “No signal,” he said, his words still slurring a little. “Not even an itty bitty one. Got to turn it off so no one can track it.”

  He was fumbling with the phone battery, his fingers slipping off the edge of the flat surface again and again. “Oopsie,” he said, giggling. “Butterfingers.” He looked up at her, and then frowned. “You made the boobies go away,” he said, disappointment all over his face.

  All the tension of the last thirty-six hours welled up in Sophia, and she started to giggle. He looked so cute lying there, all high on drugs and pouty
because he couldn’t see her boobs.

  She went to sit down on the edge of the couch, but missed and slid to the floor. That just made her giggle even more.

  Jesse just watched her, smiling. “You’re really pretty when you laugh,” he said. “But you’re bad at sitting on couches.”

  That set her off again.

  She was just calming down when Volkov’s radio squawked. Sophia jumped.

  “Sector 4,” said a man’s voice. “Pull back. We’re calling it for the night.”

  Sophia looked at Jesse. “Are they calling off the search?” she whispered, as if they could hear her.

  He shrugged.

  “Copy that,” came a response. “Sound off.”

  “Delta one, returning to base.”

  “Delta two.”

  “Delta three.”

  “Delta four.”

  The first responder said, “Delta squad returning to base.”

  Jesse put the radio down. “I think we’re okay until morning.”

  Sophia leaned her head back onto the couch, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

  Despite what they’d heard on the radio, she sat up late into the night, curled into the corner of the sofa with Jesse’s head pillowed in her lap. Volkov’s trank gun and sidearm were within easy reach.

  Jesse had wanted to stay up and protect her, even though he was still high as a kite from the antidote. She’d managed to get him to sleep by promising to wake him up halfway through the night and let him take watch.

  Which she had no intention of doing. He’d taken enough damage today, between Volkov’s treatment this morning, the fight in the guardroom, and then the bullet and the toxin.

  But being Jesse, he still wanted to take care of her. The man just did not know when he was beaten, even temporarily.

  And he hated the idea of her protecting him, instead of the other way around. As if all the damage he’d taken today hadn’t been about protecting her.

  This amazing, strong, caring man would do anything to make sure she was safe. He didn’t even realize he did that by just being there.

  Ever since she first woke up in the cell and Jesse talked her tiger down, she’d felt his effect on her. He didn’t have the dominance of an alpha like Nash—the kind that pressed on you and forced you to obey. He led by inspiration, by making people believe they could do things they didn’t think were possible. Making them better, somehow. Stronger.