by Celia Kyle
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
About the Author
Copyright Page
Tiger Tails #2: You’re Kitten Me
Want to mate a wolf? It's easy. Just make him—er, her—howl.
Braden, the second in the national weretiger pride, put Veronica on a plane back to wolf lands for her own protection. With DoPE—the Department of Paraphysical Entities—secretly determined to control shifters through any means necessary, he needed her out of harm’s way. Especially since “any means necessary” included the forced mating of the daughters of alphas to humans of DoPE’s choice.
But going home didn’t keep Veronica safe—DoPE still went after her—so now she’s back in Wilden… Back with him. With her so close, her delicious scent calling to him, taunting and teasing him at every turn, he’s not sure he can resist the curvaceous, delicious Veronica much longer. Screw it. He can’t. He wants her and he’ll figure out a way to have her—even if he is a tiger and she’s a wolf.
Except DoPE hasn’t given up. They have new tricks up their sleeves—deadly ones—and they’re resolute to test them on Braden. Can he survive their tactics and keep Veronica safe?
Chapter One
There could only be one reason for her father’s decision. Only one reason he’d lost his mind and ordered Ronnie back to tiger land, er, Wilden. A wolf in a pussy town? Yeah, no.
She stepped closer and laid her hand on his forearm. Her movements were slow and careful so she didn’t draw the national wolf alpha’s anger, only his attention. “Daddy?”
He swung his amber-eyed gaze to her, fury blazed across his features. She couldn’t blame him, not after the previous night.
“What?” he snarled.
The flesh beneath her fingers vibrated with his anger, and the scent rolling off him nearly had her baring her neck in an act of self-preservation. It was only her wolf’s strength, and the knowledge he’d never hurt her, that kept her on two feet instead of her knees. Everyone else in the room had dropped to the ground long ago. Colin, the beta, stared at her, his eyes wide and beseeching. She could practically hear his voice in her head.
Submit and shut up already. What the fuck is your problem?
Her problem? Her daddy needed someone to break the cycle before he tore apart half the world with his anger. Okay, not literally half the world, but the man could do some damage.
She ignored his snapping and kept her voice solemn, her face serious as she met his gaze and answered his question. “Crack is whack.”
That got her what she wanted. Her father’s inner wolf went from furious to confused, his yellow eyes relaxing as he tilted his head to the side and stared at her. Puzzlement was better than being two seconds from killing everyone. With his focus on her, bewilderment replacing rage, the tension in the room deflated to the normal unease that came from being in the alpha’s presence.
“What the hell are you talking about?” He still growled, but it was missing the snarl. Progress.
“Well, I assume you must be smoking crack if you think I’m heading back to the Wild.” The Wild, or the Den, or just Wilden depending who you asked. It was the home of the national tiger alpha and her best friend Zoe. They’d recently celebrated the mating of Ares and Zoe—all four apex shifter groups partying-ish together—and then the wolves had returned to the Lakes. Now he wanted to ship her, a wolf, to kittyville. “Besides, you said you hated the pussies.”
And he had. Loudly. Repeatedly. Until her mother had stopped him with a softly whispered hush and a stern glare. Her dad was such a pushover for Mom.
“That was before last night,” he spoke through gritted teeth.
Last night. Right.
“Oh, that? That was nothing.”
Wrong answer. He returned to being angry, the scent scorching her nose with its strength, and she was pretty sure she heard a whimper from the omega at the back of the room. Damn, they had Theresa in the office and he was still raging? Shit.
“Nothing?” Oh, his voice was all calm and crap. This was not going well. “Nothing?”
“You see…”
“Colin,” he snapped, and the beta pushed to his feet, the order relaxing the hold his alpha held over him.
“Alpha?”
“Remind her of the ‘nothing’ that happened last night.”
Ronnie sighed and rolled her eyes. “Colin, don’t bother. Daddy, I know what happened last night, but they didn’t succeed, did they?”
“They—” He took a deep breath, and as he released the air, fur slipped free of his pores, decorating him with the gray of his wolf.
She really should shut up before she dug herself deeper, but she’d never been one to do the smart thing. “Look, Daddy…”
“They broke into your home.”
“Just a tiny bit.” She held up her hand, thumb and forefinger an inch apart.
“Tiny…” This time his breath took on more of a heave, making him sound like a steam train.
She wondered if he was gonna huff and puff and blow her house down. The soldiers last night hadn’t, but maybe her daddy could. Though the soldiers had been concerned about picking locks but…
Soldiers. Right. The reason she was being sent away. Allegedly being sent away because she wasn’t gonna go easily.
Her father dropped his head. His eyes squeezed shut. “Tiny? They were inside your house, Veronica!”
Okay, technically they had been, but only part of it. That had to count, right?
Ever since the tiger shifters were revealed—thanks to Zoe’s ex-boss—there’d been trouble with the wolf packs, bear clans, and the lion and tiger prides. Someone inside the Department of Paraphysical Entities had decided controlling their kind was better than just registering them.
When five DoPE soldiers made their first attempt to claim a high-ranking shifter female—the national tiger alpha’s sister Claire—it’d ended with four dead males. The fifth, well… Unfortunately, he’d successfully pulled the tigress’ tail. It bound the feline’s soul to the damaged human; the animal’s essence twined with the hated man. When she’d left Claire, the young woman looked two steps from death, her normal vivaciousness dimmed. To be forced to mate like that…
The human still clung to life—barely—and the pride waited to see if he’d make the transition to tiger. Then the kitty alpha could kill the male in a legal Challenge, and Claire would be free.
Memories from her own past tried to assault Ronnie, but she shoved them back, pouncing and stomping on them. Her human mind never wanted to think about that time and place—a situation that resembled Claire’s so closely. Her wolf had no such desires. The beast was still proud of their actions that day. The way they retaliated when…
She mentally shook her head and really did push that emotional trauma away. She needed to focus on the now, not over ten years ago.
It’d been a busy couple of weeks with the apex shifters. Now, home for less than forty-eight hours and DoPE had tried to snatch Ronnie. Okay, first drug, then snatch. The sedative would have downed a lesser wolf, but Ronnie Barrington wasn’t a regular wolf. She was her father’s daught
er. She was tougher—stronger—than any other female and some of the males.
Knock her out with wolfsbane? Ha! She’d been weaned on the stuff.
Really, she had. Her daddy—God love his twisted soul—had helped her build a tolerance for the drug from the moment she cut her first tooth. It’d been a bitch during her teen years, when her hormones were all funky, and she’d had to deal with PMS and the poison at the same time. But now she could take a licking and keep on ticking.
Her dad’s face slowly turned the weird shade of purple that told her she’d kept quiet for too long. Dammit. “They were in the outer courtyard. You know they weren’t really inside.”
“They shot you with a poisoned dart through an open window,” he hissed.
She wondered if he was part cat. Which would make her part cat and would explain her attraction to a certain tiger back in… She cut off that line of thinking. Nothing could come of remembering the curl of that tiger’s hair at his collar. Or the breadth of his shoulders. Or the beauty of him when he shifted. Pure power, pure strength, pure deliciousness in a striped kitty-shaped package. Wait, she wasn’t going to think about him.
“The dart only had a little bit of wolfsbane on it.” She waved her hand.
“Any is too much. They were trying to knock you out so they could take you and do who knows what to you.”
Ronnie swallowed hard, knowing exactly what they’d planned. She was overjoyed that her father now held them captive. Locked up, and away from her, until her father knew everything they knew. Then her dad could get rid of them. Hopefully forever.
“You think they’ll let us take a shot at her?”
“General wants her howling for someone before the end of the week. If it takes too long, they’ll offer her up to anyone on base who’s good at following orders.”
Howl. The bastards. Wolves could give and take a bite to begin the mate bond, but it wasn’t true and complete unless the wolves made each other howl. Anyone could compel a bite, but only one person could lure a howl from a wolf’s mouth—their mate. She knew of only one male trying to force a howl from a female and that’d ended… badly.
DoPE wanted her to howl for a human. They had no idea what they would set themselves up for. What they’d unleash if they got their hands on her. But if they succeeded, and she didn’t kill the male who’d forced the mating, they’d have control over Ronnie, and by extension, her father. If her mate threatened to hurt her, her daddy would do whatever asked to keep her safe. The perfect way to keep the current hierarchy in place while controlling the players.
“I understand what you’re saying, but—”
“No buts.”
“No really, I get it, but—”
“What,” he growled, “did I just say?”
“Oh!” She was grasping at straws at this point. Going back to Wilden could only end in heartache, no matter what her wolf thought. Her and that tiger? Getting their mat—Er, getting their freak on? Not happening. “What about Mal? You told me I should give him a chance, and you want a tie to the Acton pack.”
Her father had been pushing—shoving—her toward Malcolm Acton as a potential mate and she’d resisted at every turn. Her wolf would’ve liked Mal Acton over for dinner. As in, the bitch wanted to eat him for dinner. The she-wolf had definitive issues with weaker males even thinking about dominating her. Deadly ones. Or at least ones involving maiming. It assured her there would be a lot of blood and bathing in it. Ew.
But if spending time with Mal kept her from being run out of her home and forced to face the one male who made her wolf sit up and take notice, she’d keep it under control and date the guy until this all blew over. This was her house. She was staying.
Her human half was stronger than the bitch. Barely. And that control only remained if she stuck to a mostly-vegetarian diet. One thick steak and hello wolfdom.
Her vegetarian tendencies hadn’t been a possibility in Wilden. The bitch was a beast at the moment. Damned strong.
Her wolf snarled and scraped its claws against her mind, cutting deeply and voicing its displeasure through pain. Ronnie kept the animal contained, breathing through the jolting ache as she fought to keep her heart rate steady and body relaxed.
The animal had been on edge, waiting for a reason to snatch control and return them to where it believed they were meant to be—Wilden. Wilden with her best friend. Wilden with its quaint town and endless mountains. Wilden with that one tiger who scared the ever-living fuck outta her.
“You’re going.” Her father wasn’t bending.
Okay, bargaining hadn’t worked. Ronnie crossed her arms over her chest and returned his glare, ready to prod at his pride. “You want me to believe the national alpha thinks his daughter would be better off with a bunch of tigers?”
Not that she didn’t love Zoe to bits, and the chick’s mate was nice. But live with tigers? That specific tiger. There had to be a way to stay home. She’d be unable to avoid him if they were in the same town.
The wolf told her it didn’t want to avoid Braden. That tiger was… yummm…
Stupid wolf.
“I think the media is focused on the tigers and attempting to kidnap you—again—would be pretty fucking stupid with cameras stationed all over the mountain.”
Okay, he had a point. Even two weeks after their coming out, reporters still swarmed Wilden, and the PR machine was constantly in motion. Which was amazing, considering the media’s short attention span.
The story Zoe spun about DoPE, along with the shots of shifters acting like regular people and playing with their cubs, had public opinion on their side now, but it was close. DoPE’s approach was to bitch about their killed “representatives”—ugh, soldiers—as well as the one who’d been forcibly mated to a tiger. Not the other way around.
Lying bastards.
“I see your point, but—”
“And they need to witness further cooperation between us all.”
“Yeah, I get it, but—”
“Veronica,” he said her name with a soft but firm voice. “I need you safe. I can’t lead the wolves through this mess and worry about my baby girl at the same time. Do this. For me. Please.”
The please deflated her. That right there was why she found her furry ass on a private jet taking her from the majestic Great Lakes to the mountains of Wilden.
Back to him.
Chapter Two
Braden smelled her first, the delicate scent blasting him in the face through his SUV’s air conditioner. He kept the thing set to recycle interior air instead of drawing it in from outside, but the aroma seemed to sneak in, and his tiger picked up the flavors. Sweet and hot, it called to his inner cat, and the animal perked up, suddenly interested in his surroundings.
The beast had been on strike and refused to come out ever since he’d put her on a plane headed for home. Now Veronica was back, and the feline wanted out. It wanted to chase and hunt the strawberry scent tinged with a hint of honeysuckle. Delicious.
Delicious, and he knew he was fucked. He’d been fine with sending her home. It was dangerous to be around tigers with DoPE on their ass and stirring up shit. Even now, Cadman and by extension, DoPE, proclaimed their own innocence and that all fault laid with the cats.
The agents sent to forcibly mate his alpha’s sister were a rogue group, and their actions were not endorsed by the agency. There was no way DoPE would ever do something so heinous as to claim any shifter without permission.
Cadman even insinuated the tigers attacked his officers without provocation.
So they were rogue, yet still agents who shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions? The fucker couldn’t decide how to get his ass out of trouble, and it showed. Unfortunately, the media hadn’t picked a side yet, and the public remained clueless of the facts. They simply knew there were four dead and one severely injured.
Which meant it had been time to kick Veronica out of Wilden. Somehow Braden had fought the beast and won. He’d even managed to preten
d he didn’t want to pounce and hide her in his den when he sent her on her way.
It’d been hard as hell—and he wasn’t just talking about his dick. His tiger fought him tooth and claw with every step until it’d taken a harshly whispered, “Get your shit together, fucker,” from his alpha to wrangle the feline under control.
He flicked a look to Gannon in the backseat and then to Murphy at his side. He hadn’t been able to drag Hawke away from Ares’s sister Claire—the male was determined to protect her even if she wanted nothing to do with him.
Hawke was convinced he was her mate, but Braden had his doubts. Still, he could respect the young male’s dedication. Since he couldn’t force Hawke to accompany him, he wanted Daniel. The man’s growl and twitchy temper were more welcome than Gannon’s smooth teasing or Murphy’s light flirting. If either male laid a hand on Veronica, he’d…
He wasn’t sure how his tiger would react but it’d be bad.
But Ares wanted Daniel with Zoe for one reason and one alone. If someone came at the alpha fem, Daniel would kill first and never ask questions. If he was given a job—protect Zoe—he’d do it and wouldn’t give a damn about whom he took out in the process.
Daniel was a good guy… even if a little unhinged.
Zoe thought he was cute.
Weird.
“We getting out of the car anytime soon, Second?” Murphy interrupted his thoughts, and the mention of his title reminded him why they sat in an SUV on the airstrip. “I don’t see the plane, so I assume they pulled into the hangar.”
The presence of Veronica’s scent confirmed Murphy’s words and told Braden she’d already disembarked. This meant she was in the open while the three of them were supposed to guard her and get her back to the Wild in one piece.
“Yup.” Braden tugged on the door handle so it could swing open. “Gannon at my side, Murphy at our backs.”
They didn’t anticipate trouble, not really. Not with the camera crews chasing them everywhere. Even now, there were a few parked at the gates to the strip with cameras tracking ’em.
