by Shara Azod
It didn’t matter that the massive mountain man was a stranger to her. He was certainly very sure of her identity. Mica couldn’t recall her parents ever talking about a Russian man in town, and he most certainly had a thick Russian accent, but he had to have known them. For one brief, shining moment, Mica closed her eyes and relished the careless gesture of affection. The man smelled of pine and something wild. Most of all, his embrace didn't even hurt. A rare, wonderful thing, as everything seemed to hurt more and more these days.
“Get! Off! Her! NOW!!” Mica more or less felt the thuds against the man even though the blows weren’t anywhere near her. “You’re hurting her you big, dumb oaf! Let! Her! Go!”
“Megan, stop!” Mica jumped away as soon as she realized what was happening. Oh God, Megan was actually whaling on the poor guy with an umbrella! And she was swinging with all her might. “He didn't know! And he didn’t hurt me at all, I swear!”
How could she have forgotten Megan; the woman was fiercely protective. Almost fanatical. How could she have forgotten her constant companion? Sometimes Mica swore Megan acted like her illness was all her fault, which was insane of course. Every doctor, every scientist, even some witch doctors claimed Mica was suffering from some rare genetic defect. That left Megan completely in the free and clear, as they weren't related by blood.
“Didn’t hurt you?” Suddenly the fatherly man who had hugged her unabashedly looked downright fierce. Those strange eyes of his blazed as if he were ready to tear something apart. Oh, not her; Mica didn't feel threatened in the least. Not Megan either—he was completely ignoring the woman who had just tried to beat the crap out of him. In fact, he looked kind of similar to the way her father used to look when he was afraid she had gotten hurt.
“She’s fragile, you dunderhead!” Megan was fuming, throwing down the umbrella and rushing to stand in front of Mica like she could really keep a man his size away from her. “A simple hug causes excruciating pain for her. You must never, ever touch her!”
Mica didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The very last thing she wanted was pity. She was sick to death, pun intended, of people treating her like she would drop dead at any second. Death would come soon enough; she didn't need people treating her like she’d be there in a few minutes. Just once, she wanted to live. Really freakin’ live, before it was all over. And damn it, she hadn't felt this close to normal for as long as she could remember.
“You are ill?” The man looked past Megan as if she wasn't even there. His booming voice filled with horrifying concern. Just great—exactly what she didn’t want. “You are weak, yes? Like you are fading away?” Wait, how did he know that? “You’re bones, they are easily broken, da? And it hurts for you to breath? To thrive? This is why you are so small, da?”
Whoa, that was just too freaky for words. No way could this man know so much about her condition. Now Mica did back away in fear. Not fear of him, but fear of hope. Hope was a faithless bitch that offered so much and provided nothing. It was cruel, and in the end led to nothing but more pain.
But he knew so much! Had she contracted something here after all? The only town was inhabited mostly by Inupiat, a North Alaskan tribe of Eskimos. There had been no reports of any other children falling ill; her parents had checked repeatedly.
“Has this happened here before?” Mica managed past her suddenly stiff lips. “What—what happened to them, the ones that got sick?”
Deep down, buried so deep Mica had never had to acknowledge it, she had always wanted answers to her illness. There was always that part of the human soul that just didn't want to give up. But dwelling on these things only led to depression, and Mica was determined not to fall down that rabbit hole. The people she loved had been depressed enough already. While there was ignorance, there was a slim sliver of a chance that she never had to think about. It was something she’d never shared because she needed to be strong for everyone. But the man wasn't looking as if this illness had ended well for anyone he knew. He looked…he was looking pissed, which was really, really weird. Unless he believed she had brought the sickness here and someone he loved had died from it.
Please no. God, no, not that.
“Who are you?” Barely managing to hold herself together, she did manage to speak that much.
When she had first become ill her parents had spoken with everyone in the area. Where had this man been? Why hadn't he spoken up then if someone else was as sick as she was? Sweet Lord, what had happened after she and her family had returned to California?
“I am Valeri Teegr, of course. I will be your new father. You will be healed. Damn idiot son will right this great wrong.”
Chapter Two
The heavy snowfall was a blessing. The heavy cover of pure white helped Luka blend in so he could stay in tiger form as long as he liked and be virtually undetectable. It made it so much easier to hunt Gleb. Luka’s lack of stripes made it far less likely the other creatures that dwelled in these mountains would send up a warning, intentional or not. Just as long as he stayed downwind, nothing could sense he was there. Gleb had to be constantly aware—he was the most wanted tiger shifter in three countries. It helped immensely that Gleb was half-feral; with time he was losing his fight with his most primal urges, thinking mostly as animal. The renegade tiger was actually marking territory, like a mangy wolf.
That didn’t mean the white tiger Luka was searching for wasn’t wily. Only a fool would underestimate Gleb. He had done that once before; never again. If Gleb wasn't covering his tracks quite as well as he had all these years, there was sure to be a reason for it. The greatest outlaw to his people had evaded capture for over twenty years; Gleb was as treacherous as they came. And Luka was determined to put an end to him, family connections be damned.
Tigers in the wild were solitary creatures, and their shifter counterparts weren’t a hell of a lot different. However, family units lived and traveled in the same general area. Every year Luka had crossed the Bering Strait into Russia for the summers, then back to Alaska for the winters. It was his family’s territory. The tigers swam, while the mates crossed in a boat, guarded by at least three of the shifter men now. Every male in his family had hunted Gleb at one time or another, but no one had ever gotten this close.
At one time Gleb had been Luka’s beloved uncle. A sad tiger who had lost his mate through no fault of his own. No one ever suspected how bitter time without the woman nature gifted to be his one and only had become. There had been no warning, no signs. Because the homes they all dwelled in were so far apart from one another, no one had seen Gleb’s gradual descent into madness. No one could have ever predicted Gleb would slaughter Luka’s mother, but not before setting a very young Luka up to kill his own mate slowly.
Thinking of the idiot cub he had been made Luka sick with shame. No matter how many times Luka told himself he was just a kid, that he couldn’t have known better, impotent rage still ate at him. Thinking of that beautiful, trusting little face who had only been trying to help him... God, she had been like something out of a fairy tale. Almost too pretty to be real, with gloriously dark skin, her hair usually in a braid twisted like a rope crown on the top of her head. He used to watch her, fascinated by her laughter. Such a tiny little thing who had braved the snow to free him from a wolf trap. Not once had she hesitated, even though she hadn’t been more than seven.
Luka hadn't been that young, but for a tiger, he might as well have been younger than she. At thirteen in human years, he looked more like a three or four month old when he shifted to tiger form. That was one of the reasons he wasn’t supposed to ever shift unless he was with an older male member of his family. He’d thought his uncle was so cool because he had encouraged him to shift as often as possible. He had encouraged Luka to shift that night and led him to the big stone house where the captivating little dark fairy-girl lived. Funny, but that cool uncle was nowhere to be seen when Luka had walked into a wolf trap.
The pain had been a shock. Luka and his brothers had
always been protected, surrounded by adults that were maybe a little too cautious when it came to the cubs. Unlike so many other families, they weren’t expected to learn on their own how to survive. The metal teeth that had penetrated his fur, right down to his bone, was a pain unlike any he’d ever felt. All he’d wanted to do was watch the little girl for a little while, and instead he’d been caught, and it had felt as if he might lose his paw. It hadn’t been the first time Gleb had led him to the house, but he had never seen the monstrous thing threatening to take one of his limbs before. All he had ever noticed was that enticing scent that seemed to surround the little girl. It smelled better than fresh-baked cookies or even roasted deer.
All he had wanted to do was watch the little girl. Maybe even stand guard over her. His uncle had warned of wolf shifters in the area, and everyone knew you couldn’t trust a wolf shifter.
But it had been a horrible setup. While Luka had been caught in the trap, crying pitifully, Gleb had gone back to tell his parents Luka had been trapped by humans. Of course his father had rushed off to save his son. Gleb had doubled back and slaughtered Luka’s mother viciously. And Luka, in a mixture of confusion and pain, had bitten his mate, who had not been ready for such a claiming.
Because Luka hadn’t reached the age of shifter puberty, no one had explained to him what it meant to bite the woman the male found irresistible. A shifter’s bite changed a woman’s genetic code, creating a bond that had to be completed through a true mating. He’d had no idea. But he had instinctively known something was very wrong. When his little mate had fainted, he’d carried her back to her home, tucked her in bed, then shifted back to tiger form and spent the entire night cuddled close, licking the wound he inflicted on her. While he was close, her body temperature regulated and the tremors stopped. He really did believe she was going to be all right. He'd thought maybe it was just that she’d come out in the cold.
But he hadn’t been able to stay. Once he had returned to his own home and seen the carnage, felt his father’s pain, his own transgression slipped to the back of his mind. His mother was gone, cruelly ripped from the men who adored her. It wasn’t until the spring when his mate’s pain ripped through him that he had gone to his father. But Mica Richards and her family had been long gone. They had all tried to find her, but it was like the entire family had disappeared. There was no way his mate would’ve lasted more than a few years away from him. She had to be long gone beyond his reach by now.
And Gleb needed to pay for her innocent life as much as he needed to pay for Luka’s mother’s death.
It had taken time to shut out little Mica’s pain. Even now he felt a ghost of what had to have been her final days in agony. That would never go away. There was no way a human, and one so young, could’ve survived the kind of pain that was Luka’s constant companion. It was his penance, and he accepted that.
If fate was kind, he would only live long enough to destroy Gleb. His estranged uncle was massive in tiger form, weighing at least eight hundred pounds. All shifters tended to be larger than their pure animal counterparts. Gleb was larger than most. Luka had spent his entire life preparing for the fight he wanted to come, needed to come. What he didn’t have in weight, he had in sanity. At least for now. It was losing Gleb’s mate that had driven him crazy; Luka didn't want that kind of future for himself. He needed vengeance, then he would join his mate in the great beyond.
Finally, after all this time, Luka had caught Gleb’s trail. He wouldn’t lose it until Gleb was dead.
“Papa wants you back at the store.”
There was only one other tiger on the planet that could sneak up on Luka like that. Grigori; the most irritating little brother to have ever been whelped.
“Can’t you and Ilya handle whatever it is?” The last place Luka wanted to be was anywhere near town. Especially when someone else would be occupying what was Mica’s home this Christmas. It was the place Luka had spent the majority of his time as a way to be close to the mate that he would never have. He didn't think he could handle another family staying there. God knows he didn't want to be anywhere that could cause him to snap.
The Inupiat people who more or less were the sole occupants—human, anyway—of this part of Northwest Alaska used to be the ones who were hired out to keep up the homes and cabins scattered in the area for vacationers. They also used to run the only general store. However, the trips into Russia had become far and few in between for some of his clan. Like his father. When Valeri had bought out the tribe that owned that business, the Inupiat hadn’t put up a fight. They knew exactly what the Teegrs were. Besides, the tiger shifters took very good care of the tribe. For once in a very long time the Inupiat in this area were thriving.
Luka rose from the snowbank in which he had tried to hide, shaking the flakes from his fur before shifting back to human form. The little bastard had actually snuck up on him on two legs! Oh, the indignity! Luka could swear Grigori was part ghost. Best damn tracker ever. Just sucked in combat.
“Tell Papa—”
Grigori held up his hand. The little shit. “He said no excuses. You ass. The store. Now. That’s what he said. Even how he said it.” The brat had the gall to grin while he said it. “I can take up where you left off. You’re hunting the traitor, right?”
“No!” That was said a hell of a lot louder than Luka’d intended. So much for stealth.
There was no way he was going to lose anyone else to Gleb. Grigori had just passed puberty, hadn’t met his mate yet. It was a fun, carefree time for a tiger. A time Luka had never had. His brother was not going to put his life on the line before he had a chance to live it. He would kill the kid himself first.
“Ouch.” Grigori was completely unfazed. “Fine. Come on then. You know how Papa can get. Don’t want to get his Russian up.”
Both brothers shifted and ran to where Grigori had left his truck and a change of clothes for each of them, about five miles away from where Luka had been.
“Did you walk to find me in human form?” The kid really was amazing at times. Luka would never admit it, but he was proud of his little brother’s abilities.
“Of course I did. I needed a challenge. Which you were not, sadly.”
Oh, Luka would love to see the day when Grigori was brought low by some woman he was destined for. He had thoroughly enjoyed seeing his older brother Misha after he met his mate. It took him six months to get the woman to talk to him. Best laugh Luka had ever had. If he were still around when Grigori finally mated...
The thought brought back the melancholy that had briefly fled. Rubbing his chest against the sharp pain there, Luka tried to focus on something else. God, anything else.
“Rumor on the wind is Gleb’s taken up with wolf shifters just across the Canadian border.” Grigori began fishing for information.
Luka clenched his teeth. He had heard the same things. Bears were notoriously chatty. It wasn’t a subject he wanted to discuss with Grigori.
“Do you know why Papa wants me?” It wasn’t like Valeri to track down any of his sons. Well, he didn't track Misha or Luka. Sergei, Maxim and Grigori needed tabs kept on them. In Luka’s opinion, all three of his little brothers needed leashes.
“Like he would tell me anything.” Grigori snorted.
Luke did note Grigori drove like a bat out of hell to get back to town. So obviously, their father had expressed an urgency.
The drive took about thirty minutes when it should’ve taken closer to a little over an hour. Valeri could be seen loading a delivery truck used to carry supplies to the few humans who liked to stay away from all forms of civilization. Odd types mostly, but they kept to themselves and paid in advance. But all the deliveries until Christmas had already been made, including to the interlopers who would be invading his mate’s place.
“You will take this to the Blue Ridge cabin,” Valeri ordered, not bothering to even look in his son’s direction.
Yep, that was the Richards place. Why would his father do this to him? T
he pain of seeing another family inside those walls...
“And if I kill the humans before I can stop myself?” Tigers were territorial. Although Luka was surprised at himself for actually admitting one of his fears, he knew his father had to understand.
The older man turned then, fixing him with a stare that gave Luka pause. HIs father said nothing, just stared so long Luka began to squirm as if he were a young cub caught with his hands in the cookie jar.
“You won’t be hurting anyone,” Valeri finally spoke, his thick Russian accent a little thicker than usual. “Not even yourself, though I understand this is your ultimate goal, da?”
Luka’s face burned but he admitted nothing. Yes, after finally hunting down and killing Gleb, Luka had no intention of trying to go on. There were no plans, just a knowledge that there was nothing but an endless stretch of loneliness to look forward to. Shifters lived up to two hundred plus years. There would never be another mate for him; you were only blessed with one. The last thing he wanted to do was turn into the tiger he planned on killing.
“Papa, I—” He what? He was terrified of ending up like his father’s brother? He was too weak to even try to survive on his own? How could he admit that to a man who had lost his own mate so violently, and survived to be there for his sons nonetheless?
“Go, Luka. Storm’s coming. We will talk when you return.”
Turning his nose up toward the sky, Luka sniffed the wind. Not just a storm, a blizzard. No wonder all had been so quiet on the mountain ridge. That was something he should’ve sensed long before now. Without another word, he climbed in the truck to make the delivery. He needed to get back before the snow made travel impossible. It was going to be close—the very last thing he wanted was to be trapped in the home that reminded him of his greatest failure with people who didn't belong there.
