Tiger Mate (Silverlake Shifters Book 3) Page 10

  And then he made a plan.

  He woke Sophia in the early hours of the morning, before the day shift came on duty and the lights went up. She was sleepy and protesting at first, but she came awake quickly at his whispered words.

  He helped her dress and pulled her into the bathroom, where they could talk. They stood pressed together, arms around each other, murmuring so low only they could hear.

  When he’d explained the whole plan, she muttered, “You are one crazy wolf, sugar.”

  “I know,” he said. “But can you do it?”

  “Honey,” she said, “I was raised by Nash Jenkins. If you need me to put on an act, I can act my titties off, and Grant will believe every word I say. He thinks I’m dumber than a box of rocks, anyway. Everyone does.”

  Jesse kissed her forehead. “You are a goddess,” he said. “And don’t you forget it.”

  Her response was to hug him tightly. “Whatever happens,” she whispered into his shoulder, “I just want you to know that no one has ever made me feel the way you do.”

  He held her tight. “Me either,” he said. He pressed a kiss into her temple and then leaned his forehead against hers. “But do me a favor, okay?”

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Try to keep the titties? I really like them a lot.”

  He felt her smile, and she threaded her fingers through his hair, stroking it. “I knew you were a boob man,” she said.

  Breakfast came, sliding through the slot at the bottom of the doors. It was an unappetizing mess of raw meat.

  “Feeding time at the zoo,” Jesse muttered.

  Sophia poked her finger into the mass of bleeding chunks. “You have got to be kidding me,” she said.

  “At least it’s fresh,” Jesse said.

  She shot him a look. “Seriously?”

  “We have to eat,” Jesse told her. “We need our strength. Both of us.”

  “I can’t stomach raw meat unless I change,” she said.

  Jesse said, “Will your wolf come out?” He didn’t want to mess with the tiger, even if Sophia could reach her. She might recognize him and be drawn to him—and she might not. He didn’t know how mating worked with tigers. But he didn’t know how dual animals worked, either. Would Sophia even be able to take her wolf form, now that the tiger had manifested?

  “My wolf will come out if she’s hungry enough,” Sophia said. She turned her back to the camera and pulled off her sweatshirt. The sweatpants slid off her hindquarters as she shifted.

  Luckily, she was right. Jesse sat back from the tray of food and let her eat. She was a gorgeous beast, cinnamon-brown with a cream-colored face and tip of her tail, with black markings accenting her back. His wolf was growling contentedly, low in his chest. Ours.

  I hope so, buddy.

  Sophia got through half of the meat, and was moving on to Jesse’s half. His wolf growled for real, an alpha warning for when a subordinate wolf tried to take too much of the kill. Asserting his rights over the food.

  To his shock, Sophia froze, and then dipped her head and tucked her tail in a submissive pose. Jesse’s wolf burst out of his skin, standing over her, ears erect and tail up, accepting her submission. Then he turned and started eating.

  Holy shit, Jesse thought, wolfing down the meat. What the hell was that?

  Sophia had shifted back and was getting dressed. Jesse wasn’t looking at her, but he could feel her energy clearly—much more clearly than he’d ever felt anyone before. It was a strange mix—respect, and…something else. Contentment.

  Jesse’s wolf grinned. Ours.

  He finished the food and rubbed his head against her affectionately. Then he gave her a big wet sloppy kiss on her face.

  “Gah!” She rubbed her skin. “Dufus.”

  He shifted back and pulled on his sweats. “I’m not a dufus.” he said. “I’ll have you know I’m the only wolf in my pack who’s been to college.”

  He saw her hiding a smile. “You still have wolf breath.”

  He flicked her hair with his fingers. “Only when I’m changed.”

  Then he put his back between her and the camera, so they couldn’t see his face. It was time for their plan. “Ready?” he mouthed.

  She nodded.

  At that moment, there was a pounding on the door.

  “Get up and face the door,” a voice boomed. “Stand in the center of the cell. Let us see your hands.”

  Jesse exchanged glances with Sophia. Shit. What did Grant want with them now?

  Briefly, he considered ignoring the instructions, but there was no point. It would just piss Grant off, and he’d probably throw in a tear gas bomb or something.

  Slowly, the two of them rose to their feet, hands raised, facing the door, in full sight of the security camera.

  A light on top of the panel by the door flashed green, the bolts clanked back, and the door slid to the side, revealing a row of guards with weapons trained on them. No trank guns today, Jesse noted. Grant wanted them awake. That could be a good thing, or it could be a very, very bad thing.

  Two guards stepped into the room, brandishing more of those special shifter tasers. Jesse shot a glance at Sophia, to make sure she wasn’t going to freak out at the sight of them. She seemed to be okay.

  Then the other two guards moved aside and Alexander Grant stepped into the room.

  He was as impeccably dressed as he had been the day before. Dress suit, tie, shiny black shoes. Jesse’s wolf growled, and he longed to lunge at Grant and rip that fancy suit right off him, along with half the skin that Jace had left him with.

  Jesse lowered his hands and took a dominant stance—chest out, weight on the balls of his feet. He was proud to see Sophia with her head high, as if she were wearing a ball gown instead of a set of grubby sweats that just barely covered her assets. Jesse could see Alexander’s men staring at her lush curves, and a low growl rumbled in his chest.

  Grant laughed coldly. “So you don’t like anyone looking at the female? Empty threats, dog. Empty threats.” Jesse wanted to growl again at being called a dog, but it wasn’t worth it. Insults from vermin like Alexander Grant meant nothing.

  “Don’t worry,” Grant said. “I don’t screw animal women. It’s disgusting.”

  Jesse growled again. He couldn’t help himself. “But you don’t have any qualms about selling her to someone who will,” he said.

  “No, I don’t,” Grant agreed. “This is business, and anyway, neither one of you is human.”

  “Does that really matter to you?” Jesse asked. “Emma’s human, and you threatened to do the same thing to her. Admit it, Grant. You don’t have any standards. But then, you’re only human.”

  Grant gestured to one of the guards, and he swung his taser rod at Jesse. He tried to resist the pain, but the shock sent him to the floor. Grant walked over and kicked him in the ribs. Jesse heard one of them crack.

  Shit. He’d barely recovered from yesterday.

  Grant leaned down and put a rough hand under Jesse’s chin, tilting his head back at a painful angle.

  “You need some training, dog,” he said. “And I need to show Monroe what’s going to happen to you, to make sure he comes here to rescue you from your kennel.”

  He gestured to his men. “Take him!”

  Two of the guards grabbed Jesse and began to drag him out of the cell. Shit! Jesse started to panic. This wasn’t part of the plan. He’d counted on being in his cell until Jace came. He struggled against the guards, but all he got for his trouble was another hit of the taser. He seized, his wolf whimpering with pain and fear.

  Grant gestured to the other guards. “Bring her too,” he said. “I want her to see what happens to animals who don’t respond to training.”

  Jesse tried to stay limp as they dragged him down the hall. His ribs hurt like hell, and pain stabbed through him with every step the guards took. He would rather have tried to walk, but he sensed that Grant enjoyed seeing powerful shifters reduced to being dragged along the floor. It
gave the sick fuck a sense of superiority.

  He couldn’t see Sophia. He just prayed that Grant wouldn’t take his sadism out on her. He’d seen her face when they hit him with the taser. If they turned it on her, after what Nash had done to her… The thought of his goddess brought to her knees by Grant’s cruelty made his wolf start growling again.

  One of the guards aimed another kick at his midsection, and agony shot through him.

  Be smart, he told his wolf. We’ll get our shot.

  He just hoped when they did, it wasn’t too late.

  Grant’s guards dragged Jesse into a large, bare room. There were racks of weapons—more taser rods, and pikes and prods and elephant hooks. All the kinds of animal-training tools that had been outlawed when humans finally developed some sense.

  At one side of the room were two huge spigots with fire hoses attached. Next to the door was a glassed-in observation area, reached by a short flight of steps.

  Grant led Sophia up there, flanked by two guards. The others dropped Jesse in the middle of the floor, where it sloped down to a drain. There were faint bloodstains soaked into the concrete—layers of them.

  What the hell was Grant up to down here? This room had clearly seen more than its share of pain and torment. And now Jesse’s was going to be added to it.

  He prayed he was strong enough to handle it. And he prayed Sophia was strong enough to keep her tiger from coming out when she saw what they were going to do to him.

  Or they’d do it to her too.

  Jesse heard slow footsteps on the concrete floor, and then a pair of black riding boots came into his line of sight.

  Jesse looked up. Alexander Grant’s “trainer” seemed to think he was some kind of circus ringmaster—he was not only wearing riding boots, but jodhpurs and a white shirt. Seriously?

  He soon found out the man was pretty damn serious.

  He commanded Jesse to keep from shifting, and then they started in on him. Electric shocks. Sharp prods from the pikes that pierced his skin. Blood and pain and scorching agony.

  Within minutes, Jesse wanted to rip the man’s face off. In between torments, the bastard studied Jesse thoughtfully, like he was a programming problem, as if he were simply trying to find the right combination of blood and pain to get the result he wanted.

  It seemed to go on for hours.

  Every time Jesse shifted, he was punished, until finally his wolf retreated, whimpering, and refused to come out.

  Then they commanded him to shift, and every time he couldn’t they started it all over again.

  When his wolf finally burst out and went wild, they doused him with the fire hose until he tumbled across the room, unable to stand, or think, or breathe.

  They videoed the whole thing. Jesse knew it was going to be sent back to Silverlake. The pack would go crazy—and they’d all come here, straight into Grant’s trap.

  Every now and then he caught a glimpse of Sophia in the observation booth next to Grant. She sat tall in her seat, unmoving, her face a mask of stone.

  Inside, though, her wolf was howling—and her tiger was snarling. In the few moments where Jesse got a chance to breathe, he could feel them. He didn’t know how she was managing to hold it together. He wished he could use his abilities to calm her down, but he could barely think straight for more than a minute at a time, when the trainer was choosing a new form of torture.

  He couldn’t help her. He couldn’t help himself. He was more helpless than he’d ever been in his life.

  Finally, Grant turned on an intercom and said, “That’s enough for a while. Volkov, take a break from this one, and bring in the panther.”

  The trainer nodded and turned away, that thoughtful look still on his face, leaving Jesse soaked and bleeding on the floor.

  Grant said, “Juan, send the video to Monroe as proof of life. He wanted it, he can have it.”

  Then he spoke to Sophia. “I hope that wasn’t too disturbing for you, darling.” Jesse could hear the lie in his voice. “I wanted you to understand what happens if you fight the training, so we don’t have to waste too much time teaching you to behave yourself. I have very special plans for you.”

  Volkov returned with a gorgeous dark-haired woman, lean and lithe. Her eyes were bright green, almost like Sophia’s when she was about to turn tiger. The woman was wearing the same type of sweats as Sophia, and she walked docilely behind the trainer.

  Volkov chose a small cattle prod from one of the racks and then turned to the girl. He gave her a short jolt, and aside from an involuntary shudder, she didn’t react.

  “Very good,” he said, in his thick Russian accent. “Take off your clothes.”

  The woman complied, without looking at him, and without hesitation or hurry. When she had folded up her sweats in a neat pile, Volkov gave her another short jolt and said, “Shift.”

  She turned immediately into a black panther, and crouched submissively, as if waiting for a command.

  “Good kitty,” Volkov said. He petted her head like she was a house cat, and then gave her a treat from his pocket, which she accepted.

  He then jolted her once more and said, “Shift.” She shifted back to human, still not looking at anyone. “Display yourself.” She altered her stance subtly, to show off her body. Volkov walked around her, running his hand over her back, her ass, her breast. “Very nice.”

  Jesse wanted to vomit.

  Sophia was looking on, still stone-faced, but Jesse could almost feel her skin crawling.

  The panther woman dressed herself at Volkov’s command, and he walked her back out of Jesse’s sight.

  “I’m going to auction her off in two days,” Grant said over the intercom. “I’m sure she’ll find a good home.”

  He turned to Sophia and said, “And as soon as you’re properly trained, I’ll find a buyer for you as well. A tiger should bring a good price—provided you can be trained to behave.”

  Jesse’s wolf wanted to bust out of his skin, but neither one of them could move. He’d die before he let Sophia turn into that.

  He reached out with his mind, trying to give her some comfort, and he felt her mental walls slam down. She turned to Grant, and with southern honey dripping from her voice she said, “Sugar, I’m already trained. And I can make you ten times the money that little wild animal can.”

  Grant stared at her, and she laughed.

  Jesse’s head started whirling, and he could feel the blackness overtaking him. The last thing he heard before he passed out was his goddess saying, “After all, I’m Nash Jenkins’ daughter.”

  Chapter 16

  Sophia held Alexander Grant’s gaze with hers. The scars on his face stood out in livid red, but his eyes were just as cold and calculating as they’d ever been. As cold and calculating as Nash’s.

  But Alexander wasn’t nearly as wily as the old wolf. Or as wily as he liked to think he was.

  He said, “You’re trying to tell me that you want to be sold off to the highest bidder.”

  The thought of it made Sophia’s stomach turn, especially after the seeing what he’d done to that poor panther girl.

  But she was a cat, too. Not just a wolf. And the thing Grant didn’t know about cats was—they didn’t fight back the same way wolves did. Dominant, aggressive, in your face. A cat would stalk you from the shadows, wait until you thought you were safe.

  And then it would rip you to shreds before you knew what hit you.

  She forced her best southern belle smile to her face, and turned on the charm.

  “Alex, sugar, what do you think Daddy has been teaching me all these years? I don’t just run and fetch, and strip off my Wal-Mart sweats on command.”

  She leaned in, tilting her head seductively. “Imagine a wealthy, powerful man who has everything, knowing he can walk into political dinners and society functions with a tiger on his arm. A tiger who knows how to dress, and how to act, and how to charm the pants off his rivals. Who has shifter hearing—the better to overhear his rivals’ c
onversations with. Shifter senses, to read people’s lies.”

  She leaned closer, sensing she had him on the hook. “Imagine that he’s the only one who knows what she is. The only man in the world to possess something like her. Can you imagine how…intoxicating…that could be?”

  She ran her finger lightly down his arm. He flinched a little, but she could see the front of his pants swelling. Apparently his body didn’t share his mental aversion to shifter women.

  The calculating look in Alexander’s eyes intensified. “Do you have any martial arts training?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course I do, sugar. I didn’t spend all my time shopping. I could be a sweet little ol’ bodyguard for some rich-ass human who also likes something…different…in the bedroom.”

  She thought she was going to gag, but she made herself look up at Grant seductively under her lashes.

  He narrowed his eyes. “But you’re still loyal to Nash. What assurance do I have you’re not going to wreck the deal by trying to run back to him first chance you get?”

  Sophia allowed herself a delicate, ladylike snort. “Sugar, my nasty ol’ daddy raised me to enjoy the finer things in life, and then he traded me to some backwoods Enforcer in Idaho whose idea of a night out is going muddin’ in his truck and then drinkin’ a couple of six-packs. It was plumb insultin’. And now, since you’re plannin’ on doing something distasteful to my promised mate, I need a Plan B. Preferably one where I end up with a man with sophisticated taste and unlimited credit, you know what I mean?”

  Grant was still eyeing her. She could almost hear the wheels turning in his head.

  Sophia decided it was time to back off. She shrugged and stepped back. “Well, if you can’t see a good deal when it bites you on the nose, I can’t help you,” she said. “But I guarantee you, if you put me on video and contact your top-shelf buyers, you won’t regret it.”

  She pushed out her lips in a pout, then turned toward the door, giving the guard a brilliant smile. “Can I go back to my room now? I’m bored.”