Tamed by a Tiger

by Felicity Heaton

  It would have been beautiful, only the male standing at the end of the aisle in front of the fire wasn’t the male she wanted.

  She hesitated, the thought of walking towards that cruel bastard freezing her feet to the ground, doubts sparking to life inside her head and her heart, rousing a fierce need to run.

  Grey placed his right arm under her left one and raised it, so her hand draped over the back of his.

  That simple touch gave her the strength she needed.

  If she stuck with the plan, it would all work out.

  They had gone over it a thousand times, had thought of every possible thing. It would work.

  She looked at the few females gathered near the first set of torches, only five in total. The other thirty or so attendees were all male, most of them wearing trousers tied with black sashes similar to Grey’s. The males she could see near the front were another matter though. They were naked, ready to shift at a moment’s notice.

  That had her heart pounding again, that fear returning, worry that Grey was going to end up overwhelmed before he could even shift when she made her move.

  Grey’s fingers twitched beneath hers.

  A silent message.

  He would be fine.

  He would. She would make sure of it. If everything went according to plan, it would be fine. She just had to hold her nerve until it was time.

  She had thought that would be the easy part, but as Grey began walking her down the aisle, the instinct to run grew stronger, images flashing in her mind to taunt her with all the things Pyotr wanted to do with her, with how he wanted to break her.

  It was a struggle to keep her eyes on Pyotr’s as she approached him.

  He watched her closely, the fire blazing at his back making him look like some unholy lord of Hell, casting highlights in his tousled sandy hair and glowing in his golden eyes. It shimmered over his bare shoulders, outlining his powerful body as he stood before her in only a small leather cloth marked with the sigil of his pride over his crotch.

  Gods, she was thankful that tradition allowed her to be fully clothed.

  She wasn’t sure she would have had the courage to do this if she had been naked too.

  The way Pyotr’s golden eyes raked over her said she would be naked soon enough.

  Alone with him.

  She was counting on it.

  Grey stepped aside when they reached Pyotr, passing her hand to him, and she didn’t listen as Pyotr spoke the words. She said what was expected of her, somehow kept her eyes on his and her heartbeat level, as calm as she could manage.

  When Pyotr turned away with her, she could feel Grey’s desire to follow her and remain close to her. She glanced back at her brother, needing him to know that she was fine and to stick with the plan. She could do this.

  She was stronger than Pyotr.

  The bastard didn’t know it though.

  He was about to get one hell of a surprise.

  They reached his cabin and he opened the door and extended the hand that held hers, encouraging her to step past him and into the wooden building. It was dark inside, made all the darker when Pyotr closed the door behind them.

  Her eyes adjusted.

  Widened.

  She had been wrong. She had been the one to get one hell of a surprise.

  She stared at the two females locked in cages at the opposite side of the room, near a double bed, both of them naked and dirty, huddled close to each other but separated by thick steel bars.

  She whirled to face Pyotr.

  “They were brides from other prides,” he said casually as he lit a lamp, as if it was perfectly normal of him to keep females locked in cages. Her stomach churned, acid tossing like waves stirred by a violent storm, making her queasy, and an icy trickle spread through her veins. He lifted his head and looked at them, no feeling in his golden eyes, not a trace of guilt over what he had done, and then at her. “They were not promised to me. I found they had been with others. They were not only mine.”

  She tensed when he turned towards her, closed the gap between them with one stride, and raised his hand, sifting his fingers through her black hair.

  “Unlike you,” he murmured, voice distant as his golden eyes followed his fingers. “You have not been touched by another… have you?”

  Maya quickly shook her head, but she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about August, about that stolen moment in Underworld when he had changed her forever. Her heartbeat picked up, heat stirring in her veins to melt the ice.

  Her eyes flicked towards the cages.

  The fire inside her died, fear of ending up inside a cage rattling her courage and stealing her strength, making her legs tremble beneath her weight.

  Gods, Pyotr was worse than the rumours, worse than she could have ever imagined.

  She stared at the females as they watched her through dull, lifeless eyes.

  Forced herself to look at what Pyotr had done to them, how he had broken them, abused them, just because they had dared to love another.

  Her nerves settled.

  Anger rose.

  She would stop him.

  She was going to end him.

  She didn’t fight him when he untied the black sash around her waist and began to undress her, continuing the tradition of their ceremony. She stood still and let him do it, her skin crawling as his eyes shone with excitement as he unravelled her robe, removing layer after layer.

  Unwrapping her like a fucking present.

  The gift that she was, from her pride to him.

  Gods, she hated it.

  It was degrading, painful, terrifying, but she had to weather it, had to allow it and wait for the right moment.

  Her moment.

  She was going to make Pyotr pay.

  He stripped away the last layer, letting the material drift down her body to pool around her feet, the evidence of his arousal tenting his leather loincloth. It was hard to resist covering her nudity when he raked his eyes over her, looking at her as if he owned her, his gaze telling her all the sick things he wanted to do to her against her will.

  “We skip the next part and skip straight to fucking you.”

  Maya shook her head and backed away a step, her heart lodging in her throat. “No. It’s tradition and if you don’t stick with it, this means nothing. I won’t be yours.”

  He stopped undoing his loincloth and looked at her.

  But then he continued, his eyes revealing nothing as he stripped it away and let it fall to the floor, revealing his hardness to her.

  She refused to look at it, kept her eyes locked on his and her jaw set.

  Silence stretched between them.

  “Get on with it then.” He jerked his chin towards her and stroked a hand down his shaft. “I will claim you the traditional way to satisfy the contract between our prides and then I will claim you my own damn way… with you on your knees as I take you from behind… and then you will be mine.”

  She would never be his.

  Never.

  Maya shifted, bones on fire as they shrank and grew, and snapped into new positions. She fell to all fours as amber fur striped with black swept over her skin and growled through clenched fangs as her head transformed and her tail sprouted from the base of her spine.

  The second she was done, she adopted a submissive posture, lowering her body so her belly touched the wooden floor, and turned slightly to show the nape of her neck. Pyotr had to bite her there while in his tiger form, and then this part of the ceremony would be complete and they would shift back to continue with the mating.

  She twisted a little further, luring him, her heart pounding erratically in her chest as she waited for him to take the bait.

  Gold and black fur rippled over his shoulders and he snarled as he shifted.

  The moment he hit the middle of his transformation, the point when he was at his most vulnerable, filled with pain and torn between two forms, she turned, pressed down hard with her back legs and reared up, raking her claw
s across his stomach and then kicking off.

  She pounced on him, taking him down hard onto the wooden floor. He growled and completed the shift, far quicker than she had anticipated, and his back legs caught her in her stomach as he kicked, driving her off him.

  Maya attacked again, leaped on his back and bit his shoulder, refusing to give up. She had started, and there was no backing down now. She had to finish this.

  Pyotr twisted and bit her left leg, and she hissed and shoved with both of her paws, pushing him onto his side and away from her. She distanced herself and circled him, aware of the two females watching her as she kept her eyes locked on Pyotr’s, unwilling to let him get the jump on her.

  He bared his fangs and leaped.

  Maya met him in the air, wrapped her front legs around his ribs and twisted with him, but he was heavier than her and she didn’t stand a chance when he sank his claws into her shoulders and used that weight against her. She whimpered and hissed again as he slammed her onto the floor, his weight pressing down on her.

  His head lunged towards her.

  She quickly moved her head to block him, stopping him from reaching her nape.

  Her teeth clashed hard with his and he growled as she snapped at him, hissing and driving him away. He backed off, his bright golden eyes studying her, looking for another opening.

  She needed to keep his weight off her. She was stronger than him, but her strength meant nothing if he tilted her off balance. It would be too easy for him to best her.

  His hind leg muscles twitched.

  Maya leaped to her left as he sprung at her, and twisted, her back paws skidding on the ground and claws scraping over the wood as she propelled herself back towards him as he landed where she had been. She growled as she landed on his back, her claws cutting through his thick skin, leaving crimson trails in their wake, and grabbed the back of his neck in her teeth.

  Pyotr roared.

  Outside, all hell broke loose, the feral growls of his males filling the night air.

  Grey.

  Her momentary distraction was all Pyotr needed.

  He easily shook her off him and before she could bring her focus back to the fight, he had her pinned beneath him on her back, his fangs gripping the front of her throat, cutting off her air.

  No.

  The edges of her vision grew hazy.

  She struggled against him, kicking and scratching, hissing at him as he held her down and choked her.

  Pyotr’s grip on her throat tightened.

  Pain swept through her like an inferno.

  She tried to hold on to her tiger form, but the fire blazing through her burned it away.

  Her neck shrank with her transformation back into her human form and she dropped free of his fangs, the back of her head striking the floorboards hard, sending more fiery agony sweeping through her.

  She breathed hard, staring up at the tiger looming over her, her heart thundering as the sound of the battle raging outside stripped her strength away, fear for her brother and for herself overwhelming her.

  If she gave up now, would Pyotr believe she had been merely trying to make their mating interesting for him, had simply wanted him to fight to claim her as his bride?

  A familiar scent hit her.

  Earthy.

  Tinged with snow.

  The urge to fight blazed back to life inside her, roused by her deepest instincts as they seized her.

  Told her to fight for her territory.

  To fight for her mate.

  CHAPTER 16

  August ran hard, his broad paws silent on the forest floor as he wove swiftly through the low hanging branches and scrub. It wasn’t his natural terrain, but he had one hell of a leader to follow.

  Talon raced ahead of him, a huge tiger bent on tracking the scent of his sister through the dark woods, not slowing even when the trees grew thicker, making it more difficult to weave between them at speed.

  It pushed August to do the same, even as his muscles began to tire and the urge to rest grew inside him.

  He couldn’t rest.

  Maya needed him.

  All that stood between him and her was a punishing twenty mile run across mountains and through dense forest.

  He would run three times that without stopping if it meant seeing her again.

  Saving her.

  He was almost there.

  Gods, he hoped he wasn’t too late.

  Fuck it. Even if he was, he wasn’t leaving without her and he knew Talon wasn’t either.

  They were taking her back.

  And he would kill the bastard who had her to set her free.

  His heart soared as golden light flickered through the trees in the distance ahead of him, and he caught the scent of other tigers in the area, markings left on the trees to ward off other shifters and declare the area as the territory of a pride.

  Talon growled, letting him know that he had seen the fire too, and had smelled the tigers.

  They were close.

  Someone roared ahead of them.

  Talon suddenly accelerated.

  August struggled to keep up, fighting to remain on Talon’s tail, refusing to let him reach Maya first, without him. He needed to be there, had to be the one to save her. A selfish desire but one he couldn’t quite control as he pushed himself harder, lengthening his strides, and started to catch up with Talon and come up beside him.

  The big tiger growled at him, golden eyes flashing with displeasure.

  August growled right back at him.

  Ahead of them, two more roars broke the night, together with the unmistakable sound of a fight.

  What the hell was happening at the Altay pride?

  Talon broke cover just ahead of him, and he followed a second later, didn’t even hesitate as he hit the clearing and the small village of cabins nestled in it. He kicked off, sailing through the air over one large tiger to land on the back of another. The tiger growled as he sank his fangs into the nape of its neck and bit down hard, turning that growl into a pained whimper.

  The big white tiger that had been thundering towards it snarled at him, giving him the same damned look Talon had back in the woods, one that reeked of irritation.

  Grey.

  Talon had warned him not to attack any white tiger with black stripes in the vicinity of the pride, because it was his brother.

  It certainly made it easier for August to make sure he avoided attacking a friend in the fight.

  Although Talon blended badly as he launched at two more tigers, hitting one in the side with his shoulder to knock him away and sending a paw slamming into the head of the second, driving his face down into the dirt.

  Grey growled and pounced on the one Talon had knocked aside, savaging him with his claws and fangs.

  August finished with his tiger and looked around at the fight, searching for Maya.

  He couldn’t see her.

  He stood on the dead male and lifted his nose to the air, dragging it over his teeth to scent her.

  Talon tossed his opponent aside, glanced his way and did the same, sniffing the air for his sister.

  Grey growled and looked towards the largest cabin.

  August roared and kicked off, launching himself towards it, heart hammering against his ribs as he caught her scent. Grey was right. She was in there.

  With Pyotr.

  The thought of that male touching her had him ripping through the first male foolish enough to attempt to stop him, using the agility that came with his smaller size to his advantage, moving too swiftly for the male to strike or bite.

  He clamped his teeth down on the male’s throat as he twisted the tiger beneath him and growled as he yanked his head upwards, ripping a hole in it. Blood sprayed over his paws and his chest, and the male shifted back to his human form, gasping as he struggled to hold on to the life slipping from him.

  August didn’t stop to watch him pass on to his ancestors.

  He started running again, leaped over another tiger w
ho tried to attack him and didn’t look back when the male let out a pained snarl and the scent of blood in the air grew thicker. Talon and Grey were following him, tackling any foe that tried to stop him, giving him a clear run at saving their sister.

  He wouldn’t fail them.

  He grunted as something slammed into his side, knocking the wind from him, and hit the dirt, rolling across it to land just right of the cabin.

  He growled, shook his head as he tried to get his bearings, and pushed up onto his belly.

  His senses sparked.

  August sprang backwards, narrowly evading the male tiger that landed where he had been. The male growled and turned, kicked off and leaped towards him. August leaped left, dodging him again. The male’s right paw slammed down onto his tail, claws raking along it to the tip as August moved it, pulling it free. Fire burned up the length of his tail and the scent of his own blood joined the others in the air around him. Damn. He tamped down the pain, locked it away and refused to let it overcome him.

  The male rose up onto his back legs, standing far taller than August would if he did the same.

  Snow leopards were smaller, but that just meant he had to be a little more cunning in a fight, and a little dirtier.

  The male tiger came at him.

  August shifted back into his human form and hurled himself towards the huge fire to his right. He twisted at the waist as his hip hit the dirt, blindly grabbed one of the logs and swung it upwards, towards the four hundred pounds of tiger about to land on him.

  The tiger hissed and tried to evade, rotating his front half away from August in an effort to avoid the fire.

  August didn’t let him.

  He shoved upwards, forwards, drove the damn torch into the bastard’s fur and set it on fire.

  The male took off, blazing a trail into the darkness.

  August rolled onto his front and kicked off, the night air cold on his bare flesh, but the fire burning in his heart keeping him going, driving him onwards.