by E A Price
“What about Carrick? After an old friend of mine – it is a good name.”
“Good as any.”
Two
Two months later
Carrick. It was strange how easily he had accepted being called that. Even stranger how he fitted into life in the pride. But then, it was easy. The pride was full of male and female tigers who were scared shitless of him. They stayed away from him, and he did pretty much whatever he wanted. It wasn’t nearly as bad as he thought it would be.
He’d been given a house – a big one, four bedrooms, three bathrooms. She-tigers even came and cleaned it while he wasn’t there. They did his laundry and cooked meals for him, leaving them in the freezer for when he wanted them. He had a nice, new SUV and monthly paychecks, and he didn’t have to be nice or pretend to like anyone. He could be his normal asshole self, and no one cared.
It wasn’t what he was expecting. The alpha was a slimy bastard, of that there was no doubt. Bigger than his pride mates, though smaller than Carrick, the alpha ruled through intimidation and fear, keeping his friends happy, so they supported him. Far as Carrick knew, he was no better or worse than other alphas. They all ruled through brute force.
Was Carrick happy there? Probably about the same as anywhere else. At least here he had a roof over his head. Somewhere to sleep while his dreams were haunted by his time in the cage. Plus, the pride afforded him the chance to crack a few heads.
The alpha suggested in a roundabout way that Carrick might have been interested in the position of beta. He certainly would have been able to fight off the others for the position, but he didn’t want that. Beta was a glorified manager of the pride, and he wasn’t interested in talking to any of the other tigers. But the position of enforcer suited him. Doling out punishments to the younger, stupider tigers was fine with him.
Carrick stepped out onto his porch, and his eyes hooded against the rays of the bright sun. To think that eight months ago he couldn’t even remember what it was like to see the sun.
He scowled at the brightness. He hadn’t been missing much.
The first thing he bought with his new money were weights so he could work out in his garden – a small patch of grass surrounded by some soppy pink flowers. He guessed the she-tigers were also responsible for it. His tiger grinned toothily. The flowers probably wouldn’t last much longer. Not with the way the tiger liked to mark his territory.
Carrick began lifting the heavy weights in a dull, steady fashion, only stopping when a flicker of movement caught his eye. Blood pulsed through him, and he thought of the ring, thought of that damn boa constrictor they made him fight – fucking thing trying to wrap itself around him…
He caught the movement again and saw the cause of it. He relaxed slightly.
“Beat it!” he snarled, and his tiger surprisingly remained quiet.
Three kids exploded from behind a tree, two of them pushing the third over and running away giggling. The little one, the one they pushed, stood up and stared at him. She was chubby and blonde, with pink cheeks and startlingly big blue eyes that stared at him without remorse. For a second, he worried she was going to cry, so he tried to remedy it.
“Fuck off, kid.”
He wasn’t good with kids.
The cub frowned. “You shouldn’t say bad words, Mommy says so.”
His tiger snorted in laughter. “I’m grown up; I can say what I want.”
Carrick tried to ignore her and continue his workout, but her stares irritated him.
“What?” he snapped, slamming the weights to the ground.
“You have a lot of scars,” she murmured.
He grunted and then scowled as she started whispering to the rock in her hands.
“What are you doing, kid?”
“Talking to my pet.”
“You keep a rock as a pet?”
A smile spread across her face. “It’s a tortoise. His name’s Percy.”
What else would you name a tortoise? He wondered as his tiger chuffed.
“Lauren!” howled an angry voice.
The girl visibly shrank, and fear spread across her small, round face. Something that Carrick’s tiger did not like one bit.
A hulking tiger shifter came towards her, fury lancing his features. He grasped her arm, and she squealed in pain. “What have I told you about bothering people?” he snarled at her.
Carrick took a few steps towards them. He told himself not to get involved. It was none of his business. He shouldn’t interfere with tigers and their cubs. Usually, he wouldn’t.
A small part of him told him this was his pride now, his people, that he should care. But he couldn’t dredge up anything for these creatures. Yet his tiger was pacing restlessly, with a fury that made this guy look mildly put out in comparison.
The look of fear on her face – he’d seen that before, often directed at him – but no kid should be this afraid of her father.
Carrick wanted to shift and tear the man to pieces, but he didn’t. He just moved a step closer to them and subtly made himself look bigger – which wasn’t hard. He didn’t have to threaten; he didn’t have to tell people what he was going to do to them. With just the right look, the right body language, they could imagine it all by themselves.
The man seemed to relax and tense up all at once. His anger at his daughter wilted; it was replaced by fear.
Carrick looked at the little girl, now looking down at Percy. He pretended he didn’t see the tears splashing on the shell.
“Your cub was showing me her pet.”
The male looked at him in blinking surprise. He probably wouldn’t have been more surprised if Carrick had declared he liked to put on a tutu and dance around in his free time. The male could see no reason to doubt Carrick – not that he would dare do so anyway.
The male sneered at his cub. “Yes, she loves it – it’s the only pet too slow to run away from her.” He laughed as he said it, and there was an accusing tone that a six-year-old shouldn’t have noticed. But the girl did, and she sniffled. Apparently being a chubby six-year-old was shameful in this pride.
His tiger wondered how the alpha would feel if he happened to rip this guy’s head off. Instead, Carrick smiled – an expression hitherto unseen on Carrick’s face - and that seemed to terrify the guy. Carrick put a hand on his shoulder and gave a sharp squeeze. The man’s face almost turned purple, and he let go of his cub’s arm completely
“You take care of your family, friend,” said Carrick.
The words he used weren’t the point. It was the unsaid words. The ‘or else’ hung in the air as brilliantly as if they had been painted in neon lights.
He let go of him, and the man muttered to his daughter to follow him. The girl, snot and tear stained, looked up at Carrick, those huge blue eyes regarding him without mercy. Her father shouted her, and she said a quick ‘bye’ before trotting away, carefully cradling Percy.
Carrick shook his head and returned to his weights.
*
Eight years later
“Hey, Carrick.”
The sultry, husky voice came out of the darkness and wrapped itself around his nerves. His tiger snarled at the unwanted attention from the female.
“Nia,” he rumbled as the petite tigress padded toward him.
“Nita,” she hissed showing a little more irritation than she probably wanted.
He grunted and avoided gazing down at her naked form. Nita wasn’t ugly – far from it. She was beautiful, and she damn well knew it. She was barely eighteen, and she already had half the males of the pride panting after her. Maybe that was what Carrick found objectionable – the way she manipulated and teased to get what she wanted. Whatever it was, his tiger didn’t like her, and Carrick wasn’t about to argue with the beast.
Nita stretched, pushing out her bosom, and displaying her lithe form to perfection. She was one of the smaller females of the pride, but she was lovely. Even Carrick wasn’t completely immune when faced with such a display of perfe
ct, female flesh, but he held back. A few moments of hollow pleasure were not worth the aggravation.
From the earthy scent rolling off her, she’d been for a run. It wasn’t uncommon for the tigers to wander around in the nude – they were animals after all. Carrick thought nothing of walking around naked; he much preferred it to wearing clothes. But Nita was young, and a virgin – she knew the effect her naked body was having on the males. She was doing it to get a rise out of them. For some reason, she wanted to get a rise out of him in particular.
“You should put some clothes on,” he muttered.
Nita smirked. “I like being naked. Feels good.” Her hands traveled over her smooth stomach, and she cupped her breasts suggestively.
His tiger rumbled in disgust. Did she really think he’d be so overcome with lust he’d want her as a mate? Did she really believe him so shallow?
He turned to leave, and Nita placed a small hand on his bare forearm. He stiffened under her touch. Lust and desire were not things he felt or could even remember feeling. As far as sex went, all he ever had was a need to slake his animal desires. But the feel of her skin on his, rather than inciting anything warm in him, left him cold.
“Maybe you should come running with me one day.” Her eyelashes batted at him, and his tiger pawed the ground.
“No.”
Nita pouted in a mocking way that was surely meant to be pretty but only incited some very violent urges in him. Her expression reminded him strangely of the fat man, the one who kept him prisoner, and the way he would give him a mocking smile whenever he growled in pain.
“Why don’t you hunt with the rest of the pride?”
Because he didn’t necessarily trust himself around that many shifted tigers. Clothed and human, Carrick wasn’t likely to attack, but in the middle of a hunt, where tempers flared, what would he do if another tiger got in the way of his kill? He wouldn’t stop to think and contain himself - that was for damn sure.
Carrick grunted at her. Bored and tired of the conversation, he turned his back on her, catching the scowl on her face as he dismissed her. She wouldn’t like that. Good thought his tiger in satisfaction. Anything to keep her away from him. He strode to his house, ignoring her growl of irritation.
Life in the pride was easy. The days turned into months and the months turned into years. Time rolled by and little changed, and that suited Carrick just fine. He knew all the tigers in the pride, and they all knew him, but they left him alone to do what he wanted. In the beginning, the alpha made noises about him taking a mate, even going so far as trying to tempt him with a young tigress called June. He brought her to Carrick after a pride hunt, trembling and naked, treating her as if she were nothing more than cattle. It was cruel and even in the deep recesses of his black soul Carrick felt pity for her. To June’s relief, he did not want to mate her. He did not want to mate anyone. He suspected the alpha felt a mate would ground him more, make him more controllable, but ultimately as the years passed, the alpha stopped worrying. Carrick was somewhat content with his life; he had no aspirations to either leave the pride or try and take over the position as alpha. The alpha was given monthly stipends from the SEA to keep Carrick in the pride, and Carrick was left to brood. It was the best they could both hope for.
But Nita’s interest in him was unexpected. No female in the pride had ever desired him. Female shifters instinctively looked for males who would best protect them and father them strong cubs, but even they had their limit. Moody, scarred, ugly brutes seemed to be it. But Nita… she was ambitious. He could only imagine she wanted to push him into taking over as alpha. Not a headache he needed. Could he beat the alpha? Definitely, and all his followers, but he didn’t want to play nursemaid to a pride full of whiny tigers. If they had problems, they could sort them out themselves.
He pushed his way into his house. He never bothered to lock it. No one in the pride was suicidal enough to try and steal from him.
His tiger started growling as he sensed another presence. Then again, maybe one of them had a death wish. His tiger was all for tearing them apart, but in a flash, the beast backed down, curious as to the childish scent.
Carrick strode into his kitchen to find the chubby blonde kid folding his laundry. Lauren. She was thirteen or maybe fourteen now and was still getting used to her shift, but she retained the baby fat she had when she was five, and her eyes still seemed too large for her face.
“What are you doing?” he snapped.
Lauren dropped the laundry basket and instantly cringed. The females in the pride were too damn skittish. He tried to keep his distance from them. Something about his scarred face seemed to make them extra nervous.
“I’m sorry,” she said, scrambling to pick up the items of clothes.
“Leave it,” he said, his tiger growled at him to play nice. Carrick almost barked in surprise at the beast’s attitude. Since when did the beast give a shit about playing nice?
“What are you doing here?” he asked, striving to hold onto his patience.
“Your laundry and cleaning your house,” she admitted miserably.
“Why?”
“The alpha asked me to.”
“Why?” he asked again lamely. It was a silly question. He knew the females of the pride did things for him, even though he told the alpha to stop them. He was just taken aback that they would send this child to do the work. Surely she had better things to do with her time?
“I guess, so they’d be clean.” The girl looked like she was in hell. Those huge blue eyes that always looked too big even for her round face pleaded with him for mercy.
She hadn’t changed all that much. He’d seen her around the pride since the first time they talked, but he never bothered to speak to anyone in the pride unless he had to.
“Lauren, right?”
She nodded.
“I don’t need help cleaning or doing my laundry.”
“But the alpha…”
He gritted his teeth. “I said…”
“I know!” she cried and Carrick looked at her in surprise. She blushed. “But I can’t go back to the alpha and tell him I didn’t do it. He’ll be mad. Please, just let me finish and then if you don’t want me to come back tell him.”
Carrick regarded her for a few moments until his scrutiny was bordering on uncomfortable for her. There was a sliver of steeliness in her resolve that he would never have guessed she possessed. Even if he told her to get out, he wasn’t sure she would go.
“Fine, just… don’t get in my way.”
He grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator and watched her through narrowed eyes as she sorted through his laundry and ironed his clothes. Her presence wasn’t as annoying as he thought it would be. But then, she was just a kid; she hadn’t discovered how to be truly irritating yet. Other pride females, particularly the young ones who were of age to mate were chatty to the point of mind-numbing – not chatty towards him of course, but he’d seen it in their behavior to others. But Lauren was so quiet that even he was considering talking just to fill the silence.
He had planned on watching TV, but instead he grabbed the newspaper and sat at the kitchen table. He didn’t know why he did that; he should leave the house, do anything.
It was the girl – he was checking that she wasn’t stealing his stuff or burning his clothes.
No, that wasn’t it argued his contrary tiger. It was her, though. It was the aura of loneliness she emitted. She seemed sad, and for some reason, he didn’t like it. It came to something when even he felt sorry for someone. He’d seen her around the pride over the past eight years, only briefly, but she always seemed to be on her own. Or talking to her pet rock - what was it called, Perry?
“Where’s your pet rock?”
Lauren looked at him in surprise. “You mean tortoise.”
“Yeah, sure, what happened to him?”
She grimaced. “My little brother attached a firework to him… he’s gone.”
He grunted, wondering if he had be
en that kind of little boy when he was young. Probably sneered his tiger.
“What are you doing with that shirt?” he snapped. It was the only smart thing he owned. It wasn’t like he went anywhere and needed to look good. Not that he ever would look particularly good.
Lauren froze, the blue shirt clutched in her fingers. “I thought you’d need it for Saturday.”
“Why?” he rumbled.
“Well, it’s Jolie and Rainn’s mating ceremony. I thought you’d want to wear it because it’s your best shirt.”
Vaguely he remembered the alpha mentioning it. “Another fucking mating ceremony,” he grumbled, and his animal agreed. “Fucking waste of time.”
Lauren smiled as she might at an escaped convict who she hoped wasn’t too dangerous. He didn’t know why he hated the idea of matings so much – he just did.
“I thought you were mating Nita,” she said in almost a whisper.
Carrick gave her a cold look, and she shrank, trying to make her chubby body seem smaller.
“Who told you that?” he demanded as his tiger prowled. If fucking Nita had said anything to anyone about them mating…
She shook her head and became far too interested in her ironing.
“I am not mating Nita. I am not mating anyone, not now, not ever, got it?” he hissed, and Lauren bobbed her head in acknowledgment without looking at him.
His chest heaved in anger, and his tiger actually told him to cool it. It would be a cold day in hell before he mated that vacuous creature. The matings were fucking jokes. The females popped out cubs and pretended their mates weren’t chasing human tail in town. It was all about rank. Nita would be better off chasing after the beta, he was higher than Carrick and would jump at the chance to mate her. The disgusting male would take any female.
Whenever a female approached nineteen – the age when she first started going through heats - the alpha asked the unmated males who was interested in mating her. Any of them could make a claim, and if she accepted one, that was that. If she refused all claims, the males held a competition, and she was stuck with whoever won. Carrick wasn’t keen on the way they did things in the pride, but given that he had never been interested in mating one of the females he hadn’t considered how they felt about it. Not his problem whether they liked it or not.
