Tiger didn’t move.
She had to do something.
Her boss was going to kill him if she kept standing back and let things continue.
That lightning arced through her again, that dangerous need that demanded she obey it.
She had to protect the tiger.
Aware that she might get hurt, that placing herself between two cat shifters was madness and beyond a risky move, she swiftly rounded the bar, because she was equally as aware she had to save the tiger.
That only she could save him.
Kyter snarled and swung at the male, his claws cutting through the air.
Sherry leaped between them, splaying her arms out at her sides to block his path to the tiger.
She flinched away, heart rocketing, blood pounding and dizziness setting in as she struggled not to pass out from the fear that blasted through her, fear that this was the end and defending the tiger had just got her killed instead of him.
The expected blow didn’t come.
She slowly cracked her eyes open and they widened as she saw Kyter’s extended claws in the corner of her field of vision.
Her boss stood just inches from her, breathing so hard she thought the buttons of his white shirt might pop off at any moment. His golden eyes glowed in the dim light from behind the bar, drilling into her with a question, a demand to know what had possessed her and made her leap between him and the tiger.
She wasn’t sure.
She just hadn’t been able to stand idle any longer, letting him fight when he was wounded, weak from his injuries. It wasn’t fair, and he hadn’t done anything to deserve such a brutal attack from her boss.
Sherry backed off a step, moving one closer to the tiger, but maintained her pose, blocking Kyter’s way to the man.
Kyter huffed and eased back a step too, and raked long fingers through his hair as he breathed hard, clearly fighting the urge to get at the tiger and take him down.
“Reining it in.” He held his hands up at his sides when she continued to watch him, and even went as far as moving back another two steps.
He muttered something under his breath and began pacing. She had seen Kyter do that enough times to know to give him space. He had a habit of working off energy by pacing.
It was a cat thing.
She had seen their resident snow leopard shifter, Cavanaugh, use the same trick when his mate had wound him up or someone had dared to look at her.
Sherry looked over her shoulder at the tiger where he knelt behind her, doubled over and clutching his stomach, his black head bent so she couldn’t see his face.
She had the feeling he hadn’t wandered here by mistake, and hadn’t come looking for a fight.
She had a feeling that he was looking for salvation.
Protection.
He lifted his head and she sucked in a breath as bright amber eyes met hers and heat curled through her, a fire that only grew in intensity as a low growl curled from his bloodstained lips.
The club whooshed past her and she gasped as she flew backwards. She stumbled and grunted as the hand suddenly clamped around her right wrist hauled her upwards again, jerking her forwards and slamming her into a broad masculine back.
Kyter.
He held her behind him, shielding her with his body.
Why?
She hadn’t been in danger.
Not physical danger anyway.
She was no cat shifter but she had the undeniable sensation that growl hadn’t been a show of aggression.
It had been a show of possession.
A sign that even in his weakened state, knocking on Death’s door, this mysterious tiger shifter wanted her.
Sherry eased out of Kyter’s shadow, curiosity seizing control of her, filling her with a need to see the tiger. “What do you want?”
Those stunning amber eyes locked on her again, startling in their intensity. They seemed to brighten, glowing gold in their centres as he studied her. He wanted her. It was right there in his eyes for her to read, unmistakeable and undeniable.
Kyter snagged his attention again by moving a step forwards.
Tiger bristled, growling and snapping huge fangs, and then a flash of regret crossed his handsome rough face when Kyter huffed and folded his arms across his chest. The man shrank back, eased onto his butt on the floor and slumped wearily against the black bar.
When his chin dropped and his shoulders trembled, she lowered her eyes to his chest and the wounds that littered it, and then continued downwards to his stomach. The gash that darted across it was deep, still dripping blood.
“Who did this to you?” she whispered.
His lips moved soundlessly at first, repeating a single word, but then he managed to put his voice behind it.
“Archangel.”
Sherry found that hard to believe. The look on Kyter’s face when she glanced at him said he did too.
“Archangel aren’t in the habit of taking innocents, so what did you do to get on the wrong side of them?” Kyter curled a lip at the tiger and fire flared in his golden eyes.
Tiger struggled, managed to get a few syllables out but nothing that resembled a word. His head drooped again and he fought to lift it, but failed and his chin almost hit his chest. The need to know what had brought him to them and who had done such terrible things to him washed away, replaced with a more powerful need to take care of him.
If they didn’t help him soon, it would be too late.
“He needs medical attention.” Sherry ignored the gruff look that Kyter shot her, one that said he didn’t want to help the tiger until he knew everything. She glared at her boss, giving him her best withering stare, the one she had worked hard to perfect since entering employment at Underworld over a decade ago. “We can ask him questions when he can actually talk without passing out… and maybe we’ll get answers then.”
“I want answers now.” Kyter’s deep voice had that hard edge to it, the one he always used when laying down the law with his staff. It wasn’t going to work on her. “I won’t allow a dangerous shifter in my club. If Archangel comes, I’ll hand the son of a bitch over.”
“No!” There was such desperation, so much fear in that single word as the tiger jolted forwards, that she couldn’t stop herself from reacting, even when she knew it might cost her job.
Or more.
She stepped between him and Kyter again, heart racing against her ribs and a tiny part of her screaming not to do this, that it was dangerous and foolish, and blurted, “I’ll take him to my place and that way the club will be safe.”
Kyter’s golden eyes narrowed on her, but it was the feel of the tiger’s eyes drilling into the back of her head that held her awareness, making her want to look over her shoulder at him and answer his silent question.
Yes, she was crazy and she was offering to take him home with her.
She had lost her fucking mind.
“I won’t put you in danger, Sherry. I’m not going to let you take him,” Kyter snapped and shook his head, his golden eyes daring her to go against what sounded a lot like an order to her.
He had hated it when she had decided to move out two years ago, finding her own place so she could have a little space away from the club, a home to call her own, but in the end he had supported her.
Mostly because she had cited his and Cavanaugh’s tendency to snore so loudly she barely got any sleep in her small apartment in the club, and had then made him squirm by making up stuff about how her sex life had taken a huge nosedive because she couldn’t take a man up to her apartment without Kyter prowling around like some terrifying big brother and scaring them away.
Her sex life had been dead on arrival for a long time, but Kyter didn’t need to know that.
She knew he wanted to protect her, loved that about him, but sometimes she had to stand on her own two feet.
“I’m taking him.” She crossed her arms over her chest, mimicking him.
He huffed. “No. What if he hurts you?”
The tiger growled at that, as if the fact Kyter had dared to even think him capable of such a thing had pissed him off.
She looked back over her shoulder at him and realised she had no reason to believe he wouldn’t hurt her. It was a gut feeling, and her gut hadn’t failed her yet. It had brought her to this place at the lowest point in her life when she had run away from home, and told her to stick around when Kyter had offered to take her in like some stray, and again when she had discovered she wasn’t working for humans.
Now it was telling her that this man was innocent, and if she didn’t help him, he would die.
“What if he did something terrible to make Archangel capture him?” Kyter’s words were low spoken, cautious and deadly serious.
Sherry stared at the tiger, right into his amber eyes. “What if he didn’t?”
She looked back at Kyter when he huffed again.
“It wouldn’t be the first time Archangel had taken someone innocent. Cavanaugh’s brother Harbin was captured by them… and what about Loke?” She had known of Archangel’s existence from the night she had discovered Kyter was in fact a jaguar shifter and he had sat her down and told her everything he could about his world, and the truth about the one that surrounded her.
Back then, Archangel had been righteous, had reinvented itself as a champion for the fae and other immortal species after a bloody history with them. It had hunted only the immortals who were a danger to their own kind. Things had been changing though, and she knew even Kyter had his doubts about the hunter organisation now.
Kyter looked as if he wanted to argue with her, but then his face softened on a sigh and he shook his head. She was winning.
“I’m starting to get the feeling that Archangel aren’t all they appear to be… that they do bad as well as good… and you know you are too.” She pressed her advantage, seeing victory within her reach and unwilling to back down now.
Kyter would relent, and the tiger would be spared.
Saved.
That desire, that deep instinct and need that had sparked to life inside her when she had seen him close to falling, would be satisfied at last.
She would have protected him.
Her boss huffed again and glared at the tiger, who didn’t bite. He remained still behind her, so still in fact that she had to glance over her shoulder at him again to check he was still with them. He stared up at her, those amber eyes bright but dull with pain at the same time. His left hand shook against his bare stomach. Blood trickled from between his strong fingers.
“It’s my choice,” she whispered and then added with more conviction as she turned to face Kyter again, “I’m going to help him no matter what you have to say about it.”
He frowned at her. “There’s no way you’re walking out of here with three hundred pounds of half-dead tiger and making it home, not if Archangel are hunting him.”
He had a point, and she didn’t exactly have a solution to offer him. She wracked her brain, trying to think of something that would satisfy him enough that he wouldn’t revert back to refusing to let her go with the tiger in tow.
Kyter tunnelled his fingers through his sandy hair, tousling the already worry-ruffled locks further, and heaved a long sigh that spoke volumes—tomes—about how he felt about what he was about to suggest and what she was doing.
“I’ll ask Io for help.”
The hope that had been fading inside her burst back to life like a phoenix from the ashes, but she didn’t have a chance to thank Kyter for deciding to help her.
He pivoted on his heel and strode towards the door in the right wall of the nightclub beyond the bar, muttering, “Wait here while I ask Io.”
She was going to have to thank Iolanthe a thousand times over if she agreed to help out, and Kyter too for thinking of a way to get her home with the tiger without Archangel seeing her. She really hadn’t thought things through when she had rushed to his aid, acting like some white knight to his damsel in distress.
At least this way, the tiger could heal and Kyter could get the answers he wanted about Archangel.
Answers she wanted too.
She wanted to know why they had done such horrible things to him.
Kyter paused at the black metal door and looked back at her, concern lighting his eyes and echoing in his deep voice.
“Will you be alright?”
Sherry nodded.
He lingered a moment and then punched in the security code, twisted the silver knob and opened the door. It closed with a bang that echoed through the club and jangled her nerves, making her deeply aware of the fact she was now alone with the tiger.
She looked down at him.
He lifted his head, those piercing amber eyes rising to meet hers again.
Sherry stared down into them, drowning in their liquid gold depths.
Heat travelled through her limbs and warmed the space behind her breast that had been cold for so long.
At least she thought she would be alright.
CHAPTER 3
Everything was hazy, wrought with pain and fire, but Talon was deeply aware as he gazed up at the female standing over him in the large dimly-lit nightclub, a female who had defended him, that she was something to him.
Something powerful.
Something beautiful.
Incredible.
But also something impossible.
She was human.
A grunt left him as the pain blazing in his side grew stronger again, sending a fierce wave of agony rolling through him that tried to steal consciousness from his grasp. He fought it and the encroaching darkness, afraid that if he succumbed to it that he would pass out and the beauty standing before him would disappear, and when he woke she would be gone.
Nothing more than a memory.
Or a figment of his imagination.
She leaned past him, over the bar, and when she moved back to stand before him again, a dark towel hung from her right hand.
He opened his mouth, but nothing more than a croak came out of his bruised throat. He grimaced and tried again, pushing words past his cracked lips.
“Are you real?”
Pale pink full lips curled into a soft smile that reached her dazzling blue eyes and she crouched before him, a fearless and alluring little thing, and whispered, “I am. Rest easy.”
She took his hand, her touch electric, sending a fierce sizzle along his skin, and placed the towel against his left side. He stared at her as she put his hand over it and pressed down, her palm warm against the back of his hand.
“Keep pressure on it.” She glanced up into his eyes. “Io will be here soon. She’ll help me take you somewhere safe.”
Somewhere safe.
Talon wasn’t sure that was possible, but he didn’t want to tell her that, because he was lucid enough to understand that this somewhere safe she spoke of was her home, and he would be alone with her.
With this mesmerising and bewitching mortal.
His cat prowled beneath the surface of his skin, restless and hungry despite the pain that kept it held within him, caged there. Normally when he was injured, he had no inclination to shift, but something about her made him want to turn all tiger on her and drive her into submission.
There was fire in her, a spark that fascinated him, one he hadn’t seen in a female in a long time and had never considered a mere human could possess.
He had never realised before meeting this female that humans could have so much courage and strength, had been oblivious to it, believing them all weak creatures, frail and cowardly, who would last five seconds in a world of shifters, fae and demons if those species decided to make this world theirs.
The way she had stepped between him and the jaguar, placing herself in harm’s way to protect him.
A stranger.
It fascinated him.
Changed his entire opinion of her species.
Shattered it in fact, so the truth could shine through.
There were humans who were
brave, strong of heart and body, ready to stand and fight for the sake of species far more powerful than they were.
There were also humans who were strong of heart and body, and ready to enslave and torture the very same species in their quest for knowledge and power.
Archangel.
He growled low in his throat, a reaction he couldn’t contain as he thought about them, one born of anger and grief, of suffering and a desperate need for vengeance.
He narrowed his focus back to the female, shutting out the memories of his time in Archangel’s hands, not strong enough to face them right now.
He was in her hands now, and he hoped she would be gentler with him than Archangel had been, would show him that not all humans despised his kind.
Those pretty blush lips parted to reveal straight white teeth, and then she froze and looked off to her left, leaving him wondering what she had wanted to say while staring so deeply into his eyes that he was left feeling empty as she tore her eyes from his, as if her gaze had stolen a piece of him.
He looked in that direction too and frowned as a slender, tall female with a regal air strode towards him beside the bar, skin-tight black armour hugging her figure. She twisted her sleek fall of black hair into a knot at the back of her head and shoved a silver pin through it with an air of irritation that said she wanted to stick it in someone.
Who?
The jaguar following on her heels or him for coming here and disturbing the peace?
The jaguar snarled at him, baring fangs, and Talon got the warning loud and clear.
He looked away from the female. The jaguar’s mate.
She wasn’t a shifter though.
Immortal, yes, but not a shifter. How was she meant to help the human take him to her home?
The answer hit him when he risked a glance at the female and noticed something about her.
Pointed ears.
An elf?
Talon had never met one before.
A hazy notion hovered at the edges of his mind, a feeling that crept in and slowly came into focus as he tugged at it. There had been an elf at Archangel. He vaguely remembered there being one. Or had it been two?
They hadn’t been prisoners though. He frowned, trying to put the pieces together, a growing feeling gnawing at his gut as he focused, becoming clearer at the same time as his memories.
Turned by a Tiger Page 2
