Valentine's Day Tigers (The Holiday Shifter Mates Book 3)

by Kestra Pingree

  Something flickered in the smoke just as Yuri’s throat was starting to scratch. Yelps and zaps suddenly exploded in his ears like the volume was set on high. Spots of light appeared, grew, and coalesced, revealing the sky and Luc standing below it as if a spotlight were shining on him.

  He set down the bone, gingerly nosed it, and the light exploded. It pushed away all of the smoke in a rush of wind. It passed through Yuri’s body like an electrical current, paralyzing him. However, it only lasted a couple seconds.

  The smoke was gone.

  Luc was in front of Yuri, and an odd barrier seemed to extend from several feet behind him. Yuri could only guess it was a barrier. It was clear like glass, but it rippled when a purplish spark lit up here and there, revealing a dome. Yuri was inside of that dome, and everyone behind him was just outside of it.

  He was trapped inside a magical forcefield cage with a bloodthirsty monster.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THE FORCEFIELD BUBBLED AND rippled when someone headbutted it. It was Lance. The forcefield knocked him backward in a spray of snow and dirt, but he rushed at it again and again. The others followed him. Gale, Mateo, none of them could get through. Cedar even stepped forward, paws alight with Sun Magic. She released a controlled explosion, but the ripple just got more intense, and the feedback was worse. Cedar went flying several yards away and crashed into a tree that snapped in half from the force of her body.

  Yuri roared. It was as much a call for the others to stop as it was an announcement to Luc that he was dead meat. Yuri was trapped. No one was getting in to help him, but no one would get in to get hurt either. This worked out as well as it could. He would stop Luc here and now. He wouldn’t lose. If Luc got past Yuri, everyone else would be in danger, and Yuri wouldn’t allow that.

  Without the bone to hinder the behemoth, Luc moved. Fast. All the strange twitches in his body seemed to amp up his speed. Yuri tried to dodge, but Luc grazed his flank with spit-covered teeth. Yuri growled and slashed at the monster. Red blood sloshed in white snow, hot and sizzling against the cold.

  Luc charged again. He could’ve had Yuri’s throat this time, but he either miscalculated, or Yuri somehow evaded in time, because his teeth went to Yuri’s foreleg instead. He latched down on Yuri’s paw and snapped his head to the side, yanking Yuri’s body like a rag doll. He kept his teeth locked down, or else Yuri would have gone flying. Pain shot through Yuri as his flesh tore deeper with each shake of Luc’s massive head. His shoulder was going to get dislocated again.

  Yuri yowled in pain and slashed out with his other paw, barely able to fight against the momentum. He got a good cut across the wolf’s cheek, but Luc didn’t seem to feel the pain. Red became the prominent color on the ground as Yuri slashed again. This time he narrowly missed Luc’s eye, but Luc had had enough. He threw Yuri down, cracking Yuri’s back against cold earth, and grounded him. Yuri couldn’t even swipe his paws up to rip out the monster’s throat. He was bound by powerful legs and paws. The last thing he would hear was Lance trying over and over to break into the barrier, his roars echoing across the land.

  But then a voice pierced through his skull, painfully, like a screwdriver drilling its way in. “Enough.”

  Yuri’s eyes snapped open. He vaguely recognized that voice. The wolf hovering above him stared intently at him, fighting through the strange tics causing his fur to twitch to keep eye contact with him.

  “Find me again when the time is right, tiger.”

  The pain in Yuri’s skull got worse. The pressure built until he was screaming with the pain, and then it ceased as quickly as it had come. When he was able to open his eyes again, Yuri’s vision slowly went from blurry to clear. There was nothing weighing him down.

  Luc was gone.

  The bone was gone.

  Yuri was alone in the snow with nothing but clear skies above him. A green aurora moved through it like a meandering river.

  Dazed, Yuri slowly turned to his side, and shifters surrounded him. Lance protectively hovered over him by stepping one paw over his body to keep him shielded underneath. Lance growled and warned the others back. Then he shifted. As the sound of bones reforming filled the air, Yuri took in the scenery and realized that everything outside of where the barrier had once stood was blown over. Some trees had even been uprooted. Dirt and big rocks were on top of the snow. It was an entirely different landscape. The holes had been covered up, too. It explained why everyone around him was covered in dirt, he supposed. Some of them were bleeding too, but none of the wounds looked deadly.

  “Yuri,” Lance said. “Yuri, are you okay?” He touched a lump on Yuri’s head. Yuri flinched and roared, opening his mouth wide to show his teeth in displeasure. Lance roared back, and although he was in his human form, it held the same power behind it. Yuri shifted too, realizing communication was in order. It made him aware of just how many cuts he’d gotten as the shift made them worse by opening them wider. When he was finished, Lance’s hands went to the welt on his head again.

  “Stop,” Yuri growled. He batted Lance’s hand away.

  Ash knelt down next to the brothers. Thankfully, they didn’t reach out with hands all over Yuri like Lance.

  “Goddamnit,” Lance said. Then he had his arms so tight around Yuri that Yuri could hardly breathe.

  “Everyone okay?” Yuri wheezed.

  After also shifting back to his human form, Gale replied, “Nothing life-threatening.”

  “Good. Did anyone see where Luc went?”

  “No. It was like a tornado formed outside of that Black Magic barrier. It stopped almost as quickly as it came on. Everything was a mess. Luc was gone and so was the bone. All we saw was you.” Gale folded his beefy arms and stifled a shiver.

  “Let’s go to the Lodge,” Yuri said. “Luc gave me a message.”

  “Great.” Gale sighed. He shifted back into his polar bear and gathered his mate and cub. Cedar had a limp but looked okay otherwise. He nudged them in the direction of the Lodge and began rounding up the others as well. Mateo looked like he was going to dart for the trees and run for miles, but Austin wrapped his arms around Mateo’s neck and held him close for a few minutes until Mateo was calm enough to follow the others.

  “Let’s go then,” Lance said. He grabbed the back of his brother’s head, fingers tearing into Yuri’s hair, and then he shoved him away and shifted back to his Siberian tiger. He looked at Ash and then at his huge, striped back. Ash got the message easily enough and climbed onto his strong body. They held on to his fur and rubbed their face into his neck, breathing him in.

  Yuri shifted back as well, eager to stave off the cold. He wasn’t so injured that shifting was out of the question. He didn’t have any broken bones or any dislocated joints, so his cuts had to deal with the change again. Even the cuts were surprisingly shallow considering everything. Right now, the cold was the biggest enemy. He followed Lance once he had finished shifting.

  Yuri couldn’t ignore this anymore. There was no point hiding what Luc said to him because it was real, and it was a problem. After seeing what he saw and all the years he’d suffered, he needed to stop ignoring the signs. Whatever happened to him when he first ran into Luc all those years ago left them connected somehow.

  For some reason, Luc had reached out to him. Maybe it wasn’t on purpose but… he knew it meant he had a job to do.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  APPARENTLY, TRINITY WAS DEVELOPING its very own live chat and video app called the Portal, which Cedar must have downloaded when they first got this computer. There was only one computer available at the Lodge currently, but at least the internet here was pretty responsive. Also, this computer had a webcam, since Eurio was trying to get more connected to the outside world. Some of the new shifters Trinity brought in recently had family overseas too, so this kind of connection was priceless to them.

  Yuri sat down next to Cedar at the Lodge computer after Cedar had called Trinity ahead of time for a video chat. Everyone was getting cleane
d up, and no one was in the talking mood. Somehow, it got quieter. It was like everyone was holding their breath in anticipation.

  “I’ve got it,” someone said, voice sounding through the speakers. “Rei filled me in on the situation.” The video on the monitor was grainy at first, but it cleared as a guy sat down. Unlike the Earth Alpha, this guy looked alpha. He wore a designer suit that flaunted his physique and deep pockets.

  “Samson.” Cedar’s eyebrows rose.

  He sat tall in his seat like a king and raised his chin just a little higher. “How can I help you?” His eyes shimmered a warm brown. “Rei and Jasper are on their way. You haven’t run into any trouble, I hope.”

  Yuri scooted Cedar’s chair over rather than fidgeting with the computer screen and webcam so he’d be the primary focus. The lady was not light, but Yuri was strong. The chair’s feet screeched across the wood, though. Cedar didn’t like that. She grumbled something about scratching the floor but otherwise didn’t complain.

  “Luc is gone,” Yuri said, “but he left a message.”

  Samson crossed his legs and laced his fingers together as he pressed them against his knee. “A message?”

  “He told me to ‘find’ him again when the time is right.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but I faced him.” Yuri looked behind him, at everyone in the Lodge. “We faced him, and he didn’t kill anyone.”

  Samson’s face was impassive. His expression hadn’t changed once since he came on, but his eyes flickered, lighting up in a way that almost reminded Yuri of Mateo—or maybe it was Sun Magic. Solsis.

  “You were instructed to stay hidden. There should have been no interaction, and yet you forced one.”

  “I had to,” Yuri growled. “I wasn’t going to let him hurt anyone.”

  Cedar stood up to take care of her strained arm with a hot pad. Gale was ready and waiting. Samson’s eyes followed her until she was off-screen. “It looks like he already did,” Samson said.

  “Who are you, anyway?” Yuri asked.

  “The Sun Alpha.”

  “You might try being a bit more respectful,” Cedar called.

  “Whatever,” Yuri said.

  Samson chuckled darkly. “You’re a bold one, aren’t you? You should have been born a Sun Shifter. I would have liked the challenge.”

  “I want to help. Take me to Trinity, teach me how to contact Luc again or track him down when I choose to or something. I don’t know. I bet Rei could teach me a lot more in person than she can over video. So, take me to Trinity HQ or whatever Cedar called it.”

  Samson tilted his head. “That she could, and it’s nice to see you’re so willing. With everything going on, and after Rei’s assessment, it might be necessary to bring you in whether you want to come or not.”

  “Yuri,” Lance growled. He came forward and gripped the back of Yuri’s chair. “What are you talking about? You’re going to leave Eurio?”

  “Yes.”

  Lance balked. “You’re just… just like that?”

  “It’s better this way.”

  “I’m coming to Trinity HQ too, then.”

  “No.” Yuri growled this time. “I don’t want you to come.”

  Lance scowled. “You don’t want me to come?”

  “You heard me. You’ll just get in the way. You don’t want to leave Eurio anyway. You want to stay here with Ash, so stay and take what you want instead of chasing my tail like you fucking always do. You’re not a cub anymore.”

  Lance clenched his fists. Yuri had hurt him. Good, he thought. That’ll make him leave.

  And it did. Yuri knew his brother well. Lance stormed out of the Lodge without another word. Ash gave Yuri a quick glance, and he held their gaze, unwavering. Then, like he had hoped, Ash went after Lance. Lance would be okay because he had Ash. Ash had been thrown into a shitstorm and had taken it all in stride, with the kind of adaptiveness they needed in this kind of life. They could handle this, and they loved Lance enough to make sure of it. They’d stay, and Yuri would go.

  Lance told Yuri he was always stuck as his shadow. Well, not anymore. Yuri was setting Lance free.

  “That was dramatic,” Samson droned.

  “When can I come to Trinity?” Yuri asked.

  “First tell me more about your encounter with Luc. We can talk Trinity later.”

  Yuri almost glanced at the door, like he was expecting Lance to come back or something. But he couldn’t do it. This needed to be a clean break. Despite what Lance thought, Yuri had depended on Lance just as much as Lance had depended on Yuri. Maybe more. This was better for both of them. He was convinced of that much.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  THE CABIN WAS EMPTY without Yuri in it—in a way. Ash was there with Lance, so it was full in another way.

  Lance hadn’t talked to Yuri in almost a week. An entire week! The twins had had their squabbles before, but it had never lasted this long. Truthfully, Lance had hoped Yuri would return home, come back to his senses and say he didn’t want to run off to Trinity after all. With each day that passed, that was looking more and more unlikely. Rei had come and gone, or so Lance had been told. He never went out to see the Earth Alpha, but she gathered whatever information she could, with whoever she brought along with her, and said she’d be back for Yuri after taking care of some business elsewhere.

  Ash sat beside Lance on the new couch. They pulled their knees into their chest and leaned into him, head resting on his shoulder. “You need to make up with Yuri before he leaves. Tomorrow is your last chance.”

  “I’m surprised Weston and Cary haven’t kicked him out yet,” Lance grumbled.

  “Lance.”

  “I know. I just don’t know how to say… goodbye.” Lance wrapped his arm around Ash.

  “It’s not goodbye. Things will be different since you won’t be living together anymore, but that doesn’t mean you can’t stay in touch. Eurio is connected now, right? We have phones and the internet. It’s going to be okay.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Take it from a person who has traveled all over North America and has stayed in contact with fans all over the world through social media. That’s how connected we can be if we want it.”

  Lance smiled, but it was half-hearted. “It’s not the same, though.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  Lance held Ash tighter. Then he curled up against them and pressed his nose into their neck. “I’m glad you’re still here after everything that happened. I thought for sure you’d get the fuck out and leave all this craziness behind.”

  “I’m not afraid of a little craziness. Give me some credit, Lance.”

  “Oh, right. You and Yuri set yourselves on fire for fun.”

  Ash rolled their eyes, but they smiled. “We didn’t set ourselves on fire.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.”

  “Ash.”

  “Yes, Lance?”

  “I want to give you everything you need.” He meant that. He did.

  “You do give me everything I need.”

  “Do I?” Ash had to be lying. Their attraction wasn’t something they could hide from Lance. He smelled their arousal multiple times a day, almost every time he was with them—especially when they were close like this. Ash had a need Lance could fulfill but didn’t, and Ash didn’t ask for more. He could smell that odd sweet scent right now.

  Ash cradled the back of Lance’s head, applying pressure to each fingerprint. “Yes. I’ve never been happier.”

  “I want to give you more.”

  “Lance, you don’t owe me sex.”

  “It’s not about owing you sex or not. It’s like when I take you out on dates. Yeah, I enjoy it too, a lot, but I’m doing it and picking places I think you’ll like because I’m so in love with you. I like to see that glow on your face when you’ve smiled so much you say your cheeks hurt. So, I’m not great at sex, but I’ll learn to read you, and I’ll learn how to give it to you the way you like it. You do
n’t know how badly I want to please you.”

  Ash flushed, and their sweet scent grew more intense. “Keep talking like that, and I’ll explode.” Ash interlaced their fingers behind Lance’s neck. “If you want to try sex with me again, I won’t say no.”

  Lance smirked. “I know you won’t. I can smell your need.”

  Ash’s face burned hotter, and Lance kissed them, long and slow. Ash was uncharacteristically shy. They had kissed too many times to count, and Ash was holding back. They started holding back ever since Lance admitted sex was not his favorite thing. He doubted it ever would be, but he liked this much less. He didn’t want Ash to feel like they were overstepping any time they wanted to kiss him deeper or any time they got aroused and pulled back because they didn’t trust themself to stop. Lance had observed all of it this last week, and it wasn’t what he wanted.

  He was deeply moved by how much Ash cared for him and the fact that they stayed after everything. If Ash was willing to be so considerate of him, Lance wanted to reciprocate. And he had time to think about it. He much preferred Ash glowing to not having sex. He was pretty sure he’d do anything to see Ash happy. He wanted that smile permanent on their beautiful face to match their rainbow hair.

  To prove his point, Lance breached Ash’s teeth with his tongue. Ash was happy to let him in, but they hesitated with initiating anything more. So, Lance took the lead again, catching Ash’s tongue with his. That broke part of the cautious barrier Ash had erected. They held Lance tighter, dug in deeper. Ash kissed him like they’d never get to kiss him again. And it was him. All him. Ash meant every word they had said to Lance. Yuri was just a couple miles away, but Ash wasn’t staying for Yuri. They were staying for Lance. They chose Lance.

  This felt too good. Lance was on top of Ash, kissing them, muscles flexing. He hadn’t pinned them like this before, and Ash liked it. They liked it a lot. They held his neck and kissed him deeper as their bodies pressed together on the couch. Ash was good and wet, but they didn’t know if Lance was hard yet. Or if he wanted to be.