by E A Price
There must be something about her that he wanted, he must see something in her that… what? Pleased him? He didn’t seem overly pleased on their walk; he seemed moody and distant – which was the same as usual – but at one point he seemed angry. It made her wonder if he actually wanted to be there.
Lauren slipped out of her dress, folding it carefully – it was her best one after all, and there was no way she was going to beg Carrick to buy her anything new.
She surveyed herself in the mirror. She’d always been told that a fat tiger was unattractive, but she couldn’t do anything about her curves – she’d tried, exercise and diet were no good. She was curvy, and that was that.
Her tiger rumbled excitedly. At least one of them was excited by the turn of events. Yes, the beast thought she was getting a strong male to take care of her.
Lauren, on the other hand, felt nothing but confusion.
Ten
Lauren sighed and looked at the can of corn despondently.
Get the dented cans, Lauren, and if they’re not dented, dent them yourself – they have to reduce them.
She’d searched high and low, and there were no dented cans. It was just dishonest to do it herself!
Her parents were just too cheap to pay full prices. They complained constantly that they didn’t have enough money to feed all their kids, yet her dad went out drinking every night, and her mom always seemed to have new clothes.
She lifted the can, readying to smash it on her cart, but she just couldn’t do it. She put it back on the shelf and moved along to the next item on her list. She could lie and say they were out of corn.
“Hey.”
Lauren started and whipped around to find Clay grinning at her and carrying a six-pack of beer. He looked like his usual, cheerful self, except there was curiousness in his eyes that she had never seen before.
“Hi,” she murmured. Her tiger yowled sulkily – not the male the beast wanted to see.
“You certainly seemed interested in that corn,” he said jovially.
“Oh, ah, yes.”
“Can’t make up your mind?”
“Something like that.”
“So,” he started and then paused.
“So?”
He rolled on the balls of his feet. “You and Carrick?”
Lauren blushed and looked down. Her tiger rumbled warily. “He has mate-claimed me.”
“Yeah, I heard. I kind of understand why he didn’t want me teaching you to drive. I had no idea you two were…”
“We’re not!” she denied quickly. “I mean, I was shocked, too. Not that I…” She stumbled over her words, unsure exactly what she wanted to say.
It had been over a week since Carrick arrived at her house, told her he was mate-claiming her and took her for an extremely awkward walk. Since then… nothing. He hadn’t been anywhere near her. She wasn’t sure whether that was a good or a bad thing.
Carrick wasn’t so bad, or at least he wasn’t as terrifying as he tried to make himself out to be. But he was odd. How could they live together as mates when they could barely get through a conversation without awkward pauses?
But then considering her parents’ usual mode of communication was yelling, perhaps it wasn’t that bad. It really made her wonder how her mother could be pregnant with her seventh cub when she could barely stand her mate.
Carrick was kind of scary to look at, but the scars didn’t really bother her. Truthfully, she was still flummoxed as to why Carrick wanted her. Over thirteen years he’d been in the pride, and he could have claimed numerous tigresses, but he never did. So why her?
Clay gave her a look. He didn’t believe her. Why? What did he think she was up to with Carrick?
She thought of Tansy, a female who had been mated for about six months. She told Lauren how her mate demanded oral sex from her before they were officially mated. She couldn’t imagine Carrick doing something like that.
“I guess Carrick will definitely be taking you for your driving lessons.”
“I haven’t accepted his claim.” Yet added her tiger. “It’s not a done deal,” she added to annoy her soppy beast.
Clay gave her another look of disbelief – as if someone like her would say no to a male like Carrick.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” said Clay dismissively patting her shoulder. It wouldn’t matter to him whether she was fine or miserable she thought sadly.
A growl thundered down the aisle, and they both jumped – possibly Clay more than her.
Carrick.
Her tiger trilled as Clay turned bright red. They both froze as the huge male moved towards them slowly, stalking them with fluid, deadly movements. His eyes flickered yellow, and his face looked as hard as granite.
Lauren recovered first, reminding herself that they weren’t doing anything wrong. Why did Carrick always have to turn up at the wrong moment?!
Carrick may not like Clay, but even if Lauren had accepted the mate-claim, she was still allowed to talk to any pride mates she wanted.
“Hello,” she whispered almost defiantly.
Carrick gave her an empty look before he placed a huge hand on her neck. She flinched slightly at the unexpected intimacy but forced herself to calm under his touch.
“Carrick…” started Clay but he was silenced by a snarl from Carrick.
“Move along, cub.”
Clay didn’t like being ordered around or being called a cub, but he extinguished his annoyance pretty quickly, nodded and made pains not to look in Lauren’s direction as he walked away.
Lauren could feel herself heating in both anger and embarrassment. Her tiger didn’t like it, but Lauren was not happy. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I don’t want you talking to any unmated males on your own,” he rumbled, his voice thick with fury.
“We were just talking – about your mate-claim actually!”
Her skin tingled as the rough pads of his fingers stroked her neck. It felt nice – too nice. “Why haven’t you come to see me?” she blurted, feeling somewhat put out at the week of neglect and then sudden macho jealous attention.
“I’ve been busy. How much more shopping do you need to get?”
“What? Oh!” She clutched at her list. She’d almost forgotten where she was and those damn fingers didn’t stop stroking her skin. “I’m about half done.”
“Then let’s finish.”
“Oh, ah, sure.” Her tiger whimpered as he removed his hand and dumbly, she followed him.
*
Carrick put all her bags into his SUV. He insisted on taking her home. She was supposed to wait there for her father to collect her, but with her father, she had no idea when that was likely to be.
He’d also paid for all her groceries. At the checkout, she was short of eight dollars and was considering what to put back, but Carrick just wordlessly paid for everything. Her parents would be thrilled. They’d be interested to know what else they could get out of him. Lauren was mortified. She’d offer to pay him back, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to, so what was the point?
She buckled into her seat and waited until Carrick was in the driver’s seat.
“I’m sorry about that.”
He grunted and started driving. “Doesn’t matter. Just stay away from Clay and the unmated males.”
Lauren’s mouth gaped in surprise. “I meant that you had to pay for my groceries. That thing with Clay… That was nothing.”
Carrick seemed to grow even bigger as he growled. “He was touching you.”
Frustration welled within her. “It was barely even a friendly tap, I’ve seen him touch male tigers more intimately!”
“I don’t want you near him,” he spat out with barely contained rage.
“It’s not really up to you,” she said stubbornly, in spite of her tiger’s wishes.
“I mate-claimed you!” he howled.
Maybe so, but she hadn’t accepted the claim. She was still free. Lauren nearly scoffed. Was she free? Had
she ever been free in her pride? Being mated was supposed to mean that she could at least be free from being a virtual slave to people like Nita. But being with Carrick might even be worse.
The car felt stifling, and she couldn’t stand it. She could feel the changes starting in her body. Female tiger shifters endured sexual heats, and her first would come after her nineteenth birthday. She could feel the prickling changes in her, could feel it in her reactions to Carrick.
She wanted to get out of there, out of the hot tension of the car. Wanted to get away from the rippling dominance of this male, from her own confused feelings and the whimpers of her tiger.
So what if he mate-claimed her – it didn’t mean he owned her. Not yet at least. What the hell was he doing to her? Claiming her then ignoring her then barking at her when she dared talk to another pride mate. It was too much!
“Why do you want to mate me?” she demanded. Didn’t she at least deserve an answer to that?
“What?” He flicked suspicious little glances at her.
“Why do you want to mate me?” she repeated a little more forcefully.
Carrick hesitated, and she caught his displeasure. “I… don’t have a mate.”
That was no answer at all. Her tiger was at least quiet for these questions. The beast was interested to find out the answers too – perhaps hoping for some kind of compliment from Carrick. She might be waiting a while for that. “But why me?”
“You’re available.”
Even with her mediocre senses, she could sense the falseness in his answer. “Is that it?”
His eyes flashed, and his fingers tightened on the wheel. “What else do you want me to say?”
“But isn’t there something…”
“What does it matter?”
“Why can’t you just…”
“Enough!” he roared. “I can’t stand all these questions. I chose you because you’re quiet, so I didn’t have to put up with these annoying questions. Are you mating me or not?”
She cringed at his awful tone and looked out the window. She had never particularly feared Carrick, but then she had never had much to do with the male. She knew others feared him because of his size, because of his strength and the wildness within him, because he didn’t appear to bend to the will of even the alpha. But she had never really seen him this angry before.
Is that what she wanted for her future, to fear the wrath of her mate for asking him a question?
She wasn’t sure what other future she could expect, but being used and bullied by her parents was one thing, she no longer feared their physical punishments, but she would not willingly go into a mating with a male who scared her
An image of Clay darted before her eyes – handsome, smiling Clay who always had a kind word. A male who could talk to her without it blowing up into an argument in less than a minute. She knew what she had to do.
She swiped a hand over her heated forehead. “No,” she whispered before she could stop herself.
Her tiger mewled uneasily, the cowardly beast retreating, as usual, to leave Lauren to her fate
She dared to peek at him and was surprised by the lack of any emotion on his face. There was neither fury nor regret nor relief for that matter.
He drove his SUV and parked in front of her house. He stared out the windshield.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured before darting out the vehicle and running into the house.
Coward her tiger sneered. Lauren didn’t even bother to argue. She locked herself in her tiny bathroom and sought the cool spray of her shower.
Eleven
Carrick prowled outside of her house.
She said no.
He should have expected it, should have known she would, yet it came to him like a slap in the face. More like a kick to the crotch rumbled the beast.
He was surprised at the calm way he had taken her rejection. He didn’t roar or snap at her, or even try to chase after her when she ran from him. He merely listened, carefully unloaded her groceries and then drove home. After that, he ripped apart his couch, shifted to his tiger and spent the next two hours hunting and maiming every small creature within a mile, and then found himself at her house – again.
Lauren was young, vibrant, beautiful and he was… old and miserable. Since he mate-claimed her, he stayed away - which was perhaps a mistake. But he thought it would be a good idea. Thought he should stay from her until the actual mating, then she wouldn’t realize what a mistake she was making, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything stupid. Talk about a pipe dream.
It was just by accident that he happened upon her in the grocery store, but he wasn’t going to allow that damn cub to touch her – even if it was just friendly, it was too much. He couldn’t scent any arousal from either of them. If he had, Clay would already be dead. But if he allowed Clay to touch her once, he might get it into his thick head that he could do it again.
Mine snarled the tiger.
Except she wasn’t. Didn’t want to be and he didn’t exactly blame her. But where did that leave him?
He should have told her he was doing it to save her from the beta. That was why he was doing it… mostly. Or at least, that contributed to the reason why he was doing it. But he didn’t tell her that. What if she turned around and told him that she’d prefer to mate the beta? That the twisted, slimy son of a bitch would be a better mate than him? Sure, he was no charmer, but surely he was a better option than that sorry excuse for a tiger.
Fuck, maybe he wasn’t.
The tiger yowled and lowered his huge body to the ground with a thump. He looked up to her window like a lovesick cub.
He kept telling himself that he was merely doing this to help her, to spare her from another abusive mate, but it wasn’t just that. Lauren was different to the other females and the thought of any male touching her infuriated him.
He should go, but he couldn’t force his tiger to move. His beast needed to be there in case any other male showed up thinking they could mate-claim her. They couldn’t. He had mate-claimed her.
She said no.
Well, he was just going to have to make her say yes.
*
“Lauren, why don’t you invite Carrick over for dinner?” suggested her mother.
Lauren froze in the middle of spooning some peas onto her plate. Her brother Jordy growled and slapped the spoon out of her hand before depositing the remaining peas on his own plate – much to the consternation of everyone else at the dinner table who also wanted some. Her brothers really were animals.
“I’m not sure Carrick would be interested,” she muttered.
Her parents and Lois were giving her keen looks. Her brothers were entirely disinterested and inhaling all the food at warp speed.
After her shower, she was amazed to find that Carrick had left all her groceries on the front porch. All of them were intact, none of them mangled or bearing any teeth marks. He’d done the decent thing after she ran away from him like the big, cowardly tiger she was. Her beast huffed at her, but Lauren defied the animal to say it wasn’t true.
Truthfully, she’d expected him to blow up, to be angry at her, to wonder why someone like her would dare say no to someone like him. But he didn’t. He acted like a normal, grown-up person, and she acted like a child. It wasn’t exactly that she feared his wrath, more like she feared her own reaction to his wrath. If he ranted and railed at her, she expected herself to give in and tell him she would mate him.
“When are you seeing him again?”
Lauren sighed inwardly. It wasn’t like she could hide it from them forever. Now seemed as good a time as any to become public enemy number one.
“I’m not seeing him again; we’re not going to mate.”
The silence was so severe; she swore she could hear crickets and possibly even tumbleweeds.
The disgust was thick in her father’s voice. “What did you do to make him take back the mate-claim?”
“You stupid girl!” snapped her mother.
“I didn’t do anything,” protested Lauren as her animal cowered.
Her father slapped his palm on the table, making the plates shake. Though it didn’t seem to slow down her brother’s eating. “So why did he change his mind?”
Lauren stared at her own plate, not at all surprised to see that one, or possibly more than one, of her brothers had taken advantage of her distraction and stolen her corn and the rest of her chicken steak. “He didn’t, I said no.”
“What?!” they cried in unison.
Lauren’s eyes flickered to the door. Could she make it before her father stopped her? Maybe, but she’d have to come home eventually.
“How could you be so stupid?”
“What were you thinking?”
“What is wrong with you?”
“Do you really think a girl like you will do better?”
The questions were fired at her in rapid succession; it soon became hard to distinguish who was asking them.
Her father stomped away and came back carrying the phone. His eyes flashed menacingly as he thrust it at her. “You will call Carrick and apologize right now.”
Stubbornness rose in defiance of her fear, and for her father, it really was fear. She suspected Carrick had control when it came to disciplining females. She knew her father had none.
“No, I don’t think we should be together.”
Lauren had to be mated, there was no way around it, and being mated might make her life a little easier – at least she’d be away from her parents. But being with Carrick might be even more difficult, albeit in different ways. Despite her tiger’s mewls, she truly thought she would be better mating someone like Clay.
“You will mate Carrick; nobody cares what you think.”
“Have you even thought about your family?” asked her mother piteously.
Lauren instinctively looked down at Lois, happily munching away on a slice of bread while listening to the conversation she didn’t really understand with wide eyes. She always thought about one member of her family – the one person that stopped her from trying to hotfoot it out of there altogether. Still…
“But it’s my decision; I’m the one who’d have to live with him.”
