Tiger Born

by Tressie Lockwood

  Deja shivered. She wanted to get up and pace, but she didn’t want to give him the idea she judged him. No matter what he did, she would stand with him because she knew Heath had valid reasons. “Who was it? Not—not one of the citizens of Siberia?”

  His gaze skittered away from hers. “No, he was a city paper-pusher. He held a public office.”

  “The guy who controlled whether Ward could buy the land you want?”

  “Yes.”

  This time she did stand up and pace. “You’re telling me you killed him to get a ranch?”

  “No!” He glared at her. “You know me better than that. Carmine was involved in more than holding back some stupid land. We confirmed he was behind the near abduction of one of the tiger borns. We also know he’s been in contact with someone in Washington. He needed proof of our existence, and the child was his way. The human from a couple weeks ago that Carter found out was involved with Spiderweb was double dealing with Carmine.”

  All strength left Deja’s legs. “Wait, so Carmine had connections with Washington and Spiderweb?”

  “That we haven’t confirmed. Every person we’ve found involved with them have been dealt with—unfortunately before we could confirm any more than we already knew.”

  “You mean killed.”

  “Deja.”

  “I’m only trying to understand, Heath. This is…” She sat on her butt at the edge of the blanket and dropped her face in her hands. After some time gathering her thoughts, she raised her head to look at him. “I get your reasoning, and I’m not going to run from you because of it. It just blows me away. We’re doing stuff like setting our own laws here, acting like the U.S. government doesn’t govern us. I mean we’re not a separate country, and this isn’t some paranormal novel where people can get away with killing others. This is real life, and I don’t mind saying, I’m scared of it. How far will it go?”

  Heath reached out and pulled her back toward him. His arms were bands of steel, yet comforting as they cocooned her. “It will go as far as it needs to, to protect our people.” He raised her chin. “To protect you, I would kill again and again.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “It’s true.”

  She laced her fingers with his, and they sat in silence, forehead to forehead. A tear ran down Deja’s cheek, and Heath thumbed it away. She sighed and licked her lips. “Yet it bothers you, doesn’t it? That’s why you looked so haunted when you came back. It’s on your conscience.”

  “I won’t pretend it’s not, but each day it will get easier.”

  “Did Ward order you to do it? Why didn’t he do it?”

  He jostled her as if to shake her from a delusion and then squeezed her arms. “Stop it. Ward and I were in total agreement about how to handle this. Carmine’s been plotting for years, biding his time for when he would screw us all over. Think about it. He was about to turn over a small child to be experimented on just because the child was born a shifter. He planned to take money in exchange for what he knew, where to find us, our weaknesses. He wasn’t the one who arranged for Siberia to be an official town in Texas, but he did hide the paper trail. You know why, don’t you?”

  Deja guessed. “So even if someone came snooping around, they wouldn’t know where to look.”

  “Exactly.” Heath frowned, staring out over the water. “Despite all that, sometimes I feel like we’re all in a petri dish anyway, being studied by someone we can’t see. Our enemy is just out of sight, taking notes, maybe even biding his time until he strikes. Ward and I aren’t going to sit around and wait for him to make his move.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Heath kissed away her protests. “I’m more interested in you and me right now. Deja, you’ve been gone from my bed long enough. Move back home.” She tried inching away, but he caught hold of her and once again hauled her to him. “I’ve indulged you enough—”

  “Wait, indulged? Who the hell do you think you are?” Before he could react to her anger, she wiggled free and stood up. “I think you’re letting your new position as junior alpha go to your head.”

  He frowned. “Junior alpha?”

  “That’s what it is, isn’t it? Ward’s mini-me?”

  That she’d offended him was obvious in the way his chest swelled, and his expression darkened. She stood her ground as he rose and faced her.

  “You belong with me. I know you love me just as I love you,” he growled.

  “Wow, I’m feeling the warm and fuzzies right now! Sorry, pal, I’m keeping the apartment, and you can’t make me move.” The fleeting thought about how she’d pay for said apartment passed through her mind, but she dismissed it. She’d been taking care of herself without Heath Hunter’s help for years. He could get over himself.

  Heath stepped closer. “One word from me, and your landlord will cancel your lease.”

  “You bastard! So you’re going to force me to live with you. Is that it? What else do you want to force on me?”

  His eyes narrowed. He didn’t move, but she felt the shift in his attitude and stance. A hand came up to the side of her face, caressing and robbing her of the ability to say more. His thumb brushed across her lips, and she had to fight not to part them in a gasp.

  “I don’t have to force you. You’ll come to me willingly for that.”

  “The hell I will.”

  He raised her chin higher and ran fingers down her throat to her chest. All the while he never turned his gaze from hers. She hated how her body sang to his tune, strained toward him. A taunt that two could play that game hovered on her lips, but she couldn’t say it out loud. That would mean she had control enough to tease him, and she didn’t.

  “I don’t appreciate being commanded to move back home,” she said instead. “And I don’t like the threats.”

  “Deja, you are the air I breathe. Do you understand that? We are mated. We’ve fought it. We’ve argued and separated. We’ve given ourselves a thousand different reasons why it can’t be true, but it is. Period. Now, I’m going to make one thing clear to you, and I hope you can fully grip the truth of my words.”

  She opened her mouth to complain that if this was a makeup speech, it sucked. The frown on his face, and the harsh way he spoke each word did not motivate her to jump into his arms—well, other than from sexual desire. Before she could say anything, he placed a hand over her mouth. She grabbed at his wrist, but his strength outmatched hers by miles.

  “I am at the end of my rope. I cannot allow you to live away from me. Not because I want to bully you or force you, but because I can’t do it. You will live in our house with me, or I will live in your sardine can of an apartment with you.”

  When she pulled at his hand covering her mouth again, he let her. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You would live in that closet of an apartment?”

  “I would.”

  “Why?”

  He turned away, his face reddening. “You know why.”

  She tilted her head to the side, watching him. “You miss me?”

  He flicked a glance in her direction and looked away again. “It looks bad.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  She walked around in front of him and pointed a finger in his chest. “So you want to get back with me because to not do so makes the big bad Heath look like he can’t control his woman. Is that it? I can’t believe you. Of all the worst ways a man can tell a woman he loves her, that has got to take the cake. I mean—”

  “When will you learn?” he roared, cutting off her tirade. “There are those who look at you like an available woman. They come after you. It pisses me off. No, it more than pisses me off, Deja. Instinct drives me to deal with the situation with as much violence as possible.”

  She gaped. “You mean kill… You wouldn’t do that, Heath. You’re not just an animal. You have a human side, and you would respect me being with another man if I chose to, wouldn’t you?”

  “My tiger ha
s chosen you to be my mate.”

  “So? We’ve heard all that before.”

  “Deja, I am tiger born.”

  “Okay, right. We’ve all heard that too. Your parents were both shifters, so you are considered what they call ‘tiger born.’ So what?”

  “It’s more than that.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It means you belong to me.”

  “I’m no one’s property!”

  “I am also yours, wholly yours. We don’t get the luxury of changing our minds. We don’t get to date around or try something new. If you allow another man in your life, I will kill him. As you say, I have a human side, but because I am tiger born, I will not—I cannot—allow you to be with another man.”

  Deja stumbled several steps back from him and whirled away. She walked down to the water’s edge. All this time, it felt kind of freeing to think she had choices. Hell, everyone liked to have options. That’s what it meant to be an adult. One could make one’s own decisions about the direction of one’s life.

  She tensed when she heard him step up behind her, but he didn’t touch her. “So what you’re saying is, if you weren’t born a shifter, you could choose whoever you wanted to be with.”

  “Not exactly.”

  She turned and glared at him.

  “You see how Ward mated with Coreen after he’d lost my mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “He can only do that because he’s not tiger born.” He clenched his hands at his sides. “If I lost you, I would not have anyone. No, correct that. I could have someone physically, but I would not love her. We would not be connected. If she left, I could let her go.”

  “Aren’t you being a little dramatic? After all, we don’t know all there is to know about us, and we’ve only been in existence for, what, thirty-some years?”

  He shook his head, and her eye widened. She wasn’t even going there. For all she knew, Heath could just be making all this nonsense up to trick her to come home. She studied him from his troubled eyes, to his tight shoulders, all the way down to his clenched hands at his sides. He seemed wound tight like at any moment he would snap. He said he’d kill again and again if it meant protecting her. She thought back to how terrified he’d been when the tiger first awoke, how he hated giving in too much to the beast. She had the feeling Heath wasn’t playing. He knew instinctively what he was capable of, maybe even far more than Ward.

  Tiger born.

  “So.” She licked her lips and drew in a steadying breath. “If anything happened to you, I could…”

  “You could love again.”

  “That’s impossible!”

  He grinned at her vehemence. “Potentially. You’re bound to me now, and you will always love me as your mate, just as Ward will always love my mother. However, he still loves Coreen. For me, I can only love you. You can love me and if I’m gone, you can love another. I physically cannot accept you with another man. That’s why I nearly killed your friend. He can’t touch you again, Deja.”

  “I know that.” She rolled her eyes and tried for a smile that felt flat. “What you saying is you crazy, and there’s no coming back from it.”

  He grimaced.

  She hesitated and then stepped into his arms. He wrapped them around her waist and breathed deep as if he’d been holding it the entire time. A shudder passed through him, and she clung tighter. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I think I’m beginning to understand. It’s killing you, isn’t it? Being apart from me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t like not having a choice.”

  “I know, but you do have a choice. You can let me suffer.”

  “Yeah, right.” She raised her head to look at him. “Are you sure about this? You could be wrong. I know how much it hurts being apart, but sometimes people find a connection that feels like you could never move on. I feel like that about you sometimes.”

  The pleasure in his expression made her want to bite her tongue. She gave the man too much power over her. He didn’t need to know she felt like she lived and breathed him sometimes. The feelings were too intense. Yet, if what he said was true, he felt it ten times more than she did. She’d seen the strain in him over the last weeks and assumed it was all about the new responsibilities. He looked like he hadn’t been sleeping, and now that she thought about it, he seemed thinner, and she’d been the one to walk out, not him. The idea that Heath could not physically leave her scared the hell out of her and gave her hope at the same time.

  “I’m sure. Now, are we going to have some fun or not?”

  “Last one in the water is a rotten egg!” She threw off her clothes as she spoke, and Heath chased her into the chilly water. She’d scarcely taken a few steps before his arms closed in around her, and he hauled her off her feet. Deja squealed and wriggled in his hold, but Heath didn’t let go for a moment.

  “Now,” he murmured against her ear as he slid a hand down her bikini bottom, “who’s the rotten egg?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Deja didn’t remember feeling so happy or so content. She swam with Heath all morning and late into the afternoon. They ate their picnic lunch curled together in each other’s arms, and not once did they argue. In the evening, they returned to their house, and Deja showered before changing into a dress and heels for dinner out with her man. When she left the bedroom, Heath waited near the front door checking messages on his cell phone. He glanced up at the sound of her heels clicking on the hardwood floor, and pleasure suffused her being at the look in his eyes.

  “Damn it, you’re so beautiful,” he groaned.

  She laughed. “Why is it always a complaint?”

  “I’m not complaining. I’m amazed.” His gaze dropped to her breasts, and she worried he’d notice they’d swelled a bit, but he just appeared hungry.

  “Stop looking at me like that, mister. We are going to dinner and then dancing. You promised.”

  He held his hand out, and she laid hers in his big palm. He closed his fingers, and a sense of safety poured down over her.

  “I will keep my promise, but later I get to ravish your sexy body.”

  She sniffed as she drifted past him toward the door. “I’ll think about it.”

  He smacked her ass. “Tomorrow, I’m taking you shopping.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  They headed out to the truck, and Deja kept quiet all the way to the restaurant. She didn’t speak again until they’d placed their order and she sipped a soda, hoping Heath wouldn’t notice she hadn’t chosen wine or beer. “So Ward pays you well?”

  “Well enough,” he commented, and sipped his own beer. “I still have plenty from what Tate left me, and I know your salary isn’t the best.”

  “About that.” She wrinkled her nose. “I turned in my resignation. That job is so boring since Siberia’s smaller than back home. I felt like if I had to go in there one more time I’d kill myself.”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “Deja, you don’t have to work if you don’t want to. I have no problem supporting you, and you can live in as much luxury as you want.”

  “Meaning you hate my apartment. I wonder how you would stand it if I insist we live there.”

  “Don’t test me, I beg you.”

  She laughed. “Well, I don’t need you to support me. I can take care of myself like I always have. I just need a little more time to find a better job.”

  “I’ll talk to Ward.”

  “No. I want to do it on my own, but I wouldn’t mind if I could take my time to find the right position.” She bit her lip, and he reached across the table to take her hand. They laced their fingers together, staring into each other’s eyes. She wondered how they’d stayed apart as long as they had. There was no way she would go back to her apartment tonight. Lying in his arms, falling asleep and waking up there in the morning, meant everything. I love you trembled on her lips, but she ducked her head and remained silent. They weren’t all the way back, but they were getting there.

/>   “Whatever you want, baby,” he murmured.

  “Thanks.”

  The night went by in a blur of good food and great fun with the man she loved. Heath held her in his arms and stared down at her like she hung the moon, and the more he did, the more her heart swelled with happiness. He twirled her on the dance floor and stayed there with her while she gyrated her hips through every song. She laughed at his movements, and he glared at her.

  “What? I’m doing it the way you said,” he complained with his hands jabbing at the air for whatever weird reason he’d come up with in his mind. Deja laughed and grabbed his arms to pull them closer to his sides.

  “Like this, baby. Sway your hips. Whoa, cowboy, not that fast!”

  She glanced around the dance floor at the other couples and two or three small groups. A few people looked at them, and some laughed. She thought any second Heath would storm off the floor, but he stayed with her. He stays. That’s one thing I can say about Heath. He always stays. Tears sprang to her eyes, and Heath’s grew wide.

  “I’m sorry, Deja. Don’t cry. I’ll try harder,” he promised. “You’ve been helping me dance for years, and I should have improved by now.”

  She smacked his arm lightly. “Idiot, I’m not crying about your dancing. Although, yeah, seriously, you should have improved by now.” She stuck out her tongue at him, and he leaned forward to capture it. She turned away, but he took hold of her chin and raised it. Deja forgot tears in the heat of his kiss. When his tongue slid between her lips, she didn’t care who watched or laughed. All that mattered was Heath. I’m pregnant. Say it, Deja.

  When he released her to draw a breath, she opened her mouth to tell him. He tensed, and she frowned up at him. “What is it?”

  He led her to the side of the floor and found her a seat before checking his cell phone. Deja frowned. “You can’t leave that thing alone for one night?”

  He spoke without looking up. “There have been some fights in town.”

  “I’ve seen the evidence of it—broken windows. I even walked past one brewing one night.”

  Heath did look up then, his expression darkening. “What were you doing out at night?”