Tiger Mate (Silverlake Shifters Book 3) Read online

  Her breath hitched in her chest, and she almost panicked again. “I forgot how to change back,” she admitted in a low voice.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “You remembered. You did it.”

  She shook her head, finally getting the courage to look him in the face. “You did it,” she said. A sense of wonder blossomed in her mind. He’d faced down her tiger, and coaxed her back from the brink with just his voice and his touch. “You brought me back.”

  They stared at each other a moment, but the heat of his gaze was too intense and she dropped her eyes. He was dressed only in a pair of sweatpants, his chest bare, and she could feel the warmth radiating off his skin. His body was so beautiful. Even sitting naked in a cold hard cell, she couldn’t help an intake of breath at the rugged lines of his abs, his defined pecs. Memories of their lovemaking flooded through her—memories that had brought her out of her tiger shape and made her want to be a woman. His hands on her, his lips, the raging heat between them. She shivered.

  “You’re cold,” he said. “Hold on, I’ll get you something to wear.”

  He left her and picked up a battered gym bag, digging a pair of sweats out of it and bringing them back to her. She reached up and took them from him, meeting his eyes again.

  “Are you going to tell?” she asked. His brow creased in confusion, and she said, “That I went rogue.”

  “You panic changed,” he said. “That’s not your fault.”

  “I panic changed into a lethal tiger that I can’t control,” she said. “And I killed someone. I don’t remember much, but I remember that.” The remembered taste of blood in her mouth sickened her.

  “You killed someone who was attacking us,” he said. “No one’s going to prosecute you for that.”

  “The Council will, if they find out I can’t control it,” she said. If Nash didn’t kill her first. “You know what they do to rogue shifters.”

  Jesse knelt down by her again. She could feel a growl building in his chest. The thought of the Council branding her as a rogue seemed to be upsetting his wolf.

  “No one’s going to hurt you,” he said. “You just have to learn to control her, is all. Now that you know she’s in there, you should be able to sense her and work with her.”

  “Maybe,” Sophia said.

  If only. She’d had the tiger since she was six years old, and she couldn’t sense her at all, most of the time. She just burst out when Sophia lost control of her emotions, and then she wouldn’t go back inside. But she couldn’t tell Jesse that. She couldn’t bear the look of disgust and betrayal on his face if he found out she’d hidden her true nature from the Council, and agreed to the mating contract with his pack under false pretenses.

  “Can you sense her now?” Jesse asked.

  Sophia shook her head. She didn’t want to try.

  “It’s okay,” Jesse said. He rubbed his hand in a circle on her back. “You’re shivering,” he said gently. “Come on. Let’s get you dressed.”

  He helped her to her feet, and positioned her so that he was between her and the door. “Security camera,” he said in answer to her questioning look, and jerked his head toward the door.

  Sophia looked over his shoulder to see a small black camera mounted over the door, its eye watching them.

  Jesse added, “No sense in giving the guards an eyeful.”

  Sophia was used to the pack seeing her naked after a run in the woods in wolf form, but the thought of anonymous, hostile humans ogling her body through the camera made her skin crawl. Using Jesse as a shield, she pulled on the rough gray sweats.

  As she zipped up the hoodie top, she muttered, “Can I give the guards the finger? Please?”

  The corner of Jesse’s mouth turned up in an almost-smile. “Probably a bad idea. But oh, so tempting.”

  “Where are we?” she asked, glancing around at the barren room, with only a ratty mattress on the floor. “Who were those men who attacked us?”

  Jesse’s face twisted in distaste. “Alexander Grant and his minions.”

  Sophia stopped tying the drawstring of her sweatpants, shocked. “Alexander Grant?” she repeated. “But that makes no sense. He’s a friend of Nash’s—they do business deals all the time. Between them, they must own half of Nashville. Why would he suddenly start kidnapping people? And why us?”

  “Have you seen Grant lately?” Jesse asked.

  Sophia shook her head. “No,” she said. “No one’s seen him for a couple of months. He crashed his Ferrari and had some pretty bad lacerations. I heard he was in a private hospital somewhere.”

  “Yeah…no,” Jesse said. “Actually, he tried to kill Emma, after she left him, and he almost succeeded. Jace went wolf and kind of tore half his face off. So our pack is at the top of his shit list.”

  What? Sophia was struggling to wrap her mind around everything Jesse had said, so it took a second for the last part to sink in. When it did, she went cold all over again. “He knows you’re shifters,” she whispered. “And now he knows I’m a shifter. Does he know about my pack? Will he tell people? What’s he going to do to us?”

  Jesse cupped her shoulders with his hands. “Breathe, okay?”

  She took a deep breath, and nodded.

  Jesse said, “I don’t know how long Grant has known about shifters, but he knew about us before Jace changed in front of him. Whether he knew about you and Nash and your pack, is anybody’s guess at the moment. But from what he said, I don’t think he has any plans to out us publicly.”

  Sophia closed her eyes in relief. There were a few humans that knew about shifters, mostly criminals who did deals with them on the down low. But they all lived with the fear of being outed to humans. She actually wouldn’t care if Nash were hunted down like an animal, but the thought of it happening to her sisters and the other wolves in her pack made her want to throw up.

  She swallowed hard. “So what does Alexander want with us, then?”

  Jesse tried to steer her towards the bed. “Come and sit down, okay?’

  Sophia planted her feet and refused to budge. “Don’t treat me like a delicate little rose, Jesse. Just tell me.”

  He closed his eyes as if looking for patience, and then heaved a sigh.

  “Okay,” he said in a low voice. “But come over here anyway. I don’t know if this cell is wired for sound as well as video, but the farther we are from that camera, the less chance they’ll hear us.”

  She followed him to the mattress and they sat down on the thin blankets. Sophia pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Okay, spill it,” she said.

  Jesse angled himself away from the camera, speaking so softly that anyone listening would need shifter hearing to understand him.

  “Grant’s lost his mind,” he said bluntly. “I mean batshit crazy. He planned this whole ambush to get back at Jace.” He grimaced. “He thinks I’m Kane, and because of my supposed status in the pack, he thinks Jace will come after me. I’m bait, basically. He wants to take out Jace, preferably by torturing him to death. Decimating Silverlake by killing the rescue team would be a bonus.”

  Sophia sucked in her breath. “Do you think Jace will fall for it? I mean, will he come here?”

  Jesse closed his eyes. “Yeah. I’m sure he’ll suspect it’s a trap, but it won’t matter. He’d never just leave us. Neither would the rest of the pack.”

  Sophia bit her lip. She wanted desperately to be rescued, but at the same time, she didn’t want half of Jesse’s pack throwing their lives away to make it happen. And from the look on Jesse’s face, he felt the same way.

  “Nash will help,” she said. “Jace will contact him, won’t he? For backup?”

  Jesse worried his lip between his teeth. “Probably,” he said. “But…” he trailed off.

  He knew something.

  “What?” she asked. He refused to look at her. “Jesse, stop it already with trying to spare me,” she snapped. “I was raised to be tough. So spit it out.”

  He still wou
ldn’t look at her, but he said, “Grant was in here earlier. He said that Nash wasn’t really interested in what happened to you. He might have just been talking smack, but he—he said he wasn’t even going to offer to ransom you back to Nash.”

  And if Nash wouldn’t bother pay for her return, he wouldn’t risk any lives to make it happen either.

  A spear of ice stabbed through Sophia. She’d never been under the illusion that Nash had any affection for her. But she’d always known she had value, for what she could buy the pack in a mating alliance.

  If Nash was willing to throw that away, she was worth nothing. Not to anyone. As much as she’d hated being a bargaining chip, the loss of that feeling of worth left her hollow and empty. What had changed? Why was he abandoning her?

  Jesse’s fingers wrapped around hers. “I’m sorry. Maybe he hadn’t talked to Nash yet?”

  Sophia shook her head, her mind racing.

  “Don’t worry about my feelings,” she said, even though she felt numb inside. “Nash never gave a shit about me. I just don’t understand what’s changed—why my mating with Kane isn’t valuable to him anymore.”

  She looked up at Jesse. “Explain to me about Silverlake,” she said. “If something happens to Jace, what then? Who’s in line to be alpha after him?”

  Jesse frowned. “Well, Rafe Connors is Second,” he said. “But…”

  “But what?” Sophia asked. “Can he hold the pack?”

  Jesse sighed. “He’s my best friend,” he said. “He’s a great fighter, and everybody loves him. They’d rally behind him. But he and Jace and I are like brothers. If he lost us both at the same time, I don’t know if he could hold it together emotionally, enough to handle the responsibility.” He glanced back at the security camera, and then lowered his voice again. “Our Enforcer would probably challenge him and take over the pack. The guy’s not the cuddliest stuffed animal on the shelf, but he’d probably do a better job in a situation like that, to be honest.”

  “And what if K—”

  Jesse put a finger to his lips and shook his head.

  Right. They thought he was Kane. She didn’t know why he wanted to keep that lie going, but if he did, she wasn’t going to mess it up.

  “So what if he was also killed in the battle?”

  Jesse paused for a moment, and she could see the blood draining from his face. “Fuck,” Jesse muttered. “The pack would fall apart.”

  It hurt something in Sophia’s chest, to see how the idea tore him apart.

  And when it happened, Nash would sweep in and pick up the pieces. He’d offer advice, financial help, maybe one of the other girls as a mate for whoever ended up as the new alpha. And it sure wouldn’t be this Rafe. Not if he was that loyal to his fallen pack mates.

  That was why Nash had abandoned her. This was an even easier way to get his hooks into Silverlake than mating her off to Kane. Now that she’d been captured, she was expendable.

  “What’s all this about?” Jesse demanded, very quietly. “Why are you asking all these questions?”

  She put a soothing hand on his chest. “I’m sorry, Jesse,” she said. “But I had to figure out why Nash won’t help. It’s because he wants Silverlake for himself. All that beautiful land, off the beaten track and protected by magic, where no one comes but shifters. He’s been looking for a place to expand where he’s not as visible to humans as he is here in Nashville, but he knows the Council won’t support him growing his base of power directly. He was hoping to get a foothold into Silverlake by mating me to one of the pack leaders, but if Grant takes out you and Jace instead...”

  “We’ll all go down like a pack of dominos,” Jesse finished. He looked gutted. “Your fucking wolf daddy is a real piece of work. This is what you grew up with?”

  “Welcome to my world,” Sophia said bitterly.

  Chapter 12

  Damn Nash Jenkins all to hell. And Alexander Grant could go there with him.

  It was all Jesse could do not to slam the wall with his fists, over and over. He’d probably break his hands, but he almost didn’t care. The kings of Nashville were planning to rip his pack wide open and leave it bleeding on the ground—one doing it for profit, the other for sick revenge.

  Jesse couldn’t let that happen.

  He didn’t know what he could do from inside these walls, but he’d figure something out, or he’d die trying. He and Jace and Rafe had worked for ten years to buy that land, and three more building a home and a pack so the Council would let them call Silverlake their own. Three scared teenagers who’d seen their pack torn to shreds around them, and had somehow survived and started over.

  No fucking way was Alexander Grant taking that away from them. And neither was Nash Jenkins. And neither of them was selling Sophia into fucking slavery, either.

  Sophia sat on the bed, arms wrapped around her knees again, just watching him. He knew he was sending out waves of rage that her wolf could feel.

  Maybe even her tiger.

  Shit. He had to be careful. If he set her tiger off, he might not be able to bring her back this time.

  It took everything he had to rein himself in. All the years of tamping down his rage to keep the more dominant wolves from considering him a threat. All the years of negotiation, keeping control of his own feelings so he could keep control of the situation around him as well.

  Jesse closed his eyes, resting his palms against the concrete wall, slowing down his breathing. He reached out with his mind and felt Sophia. He didn’t know if she could sense her tiger, but he could. It was far in the background, but it was getting agitated because Sophia was scared. Even though she wasn’t showing it.

  Its energy felt jagged, like lightning, and Jesse deliberately focused on smoothing and cooling it. He sensed some of the tension draining out of Sophia. Oddly, he felt calmer as well. Somehow, they seemed to have a positive effect on each other.

  He had to do something useful. The smart thing would be to thoroughly explore this place, and see what the possibilities were.

  “I’m going to find out what’s in there,” he said, nodding toward the bathroom door. “Want to come?”

  “Sink. Toilet.” Sophia answered, not moving. “A shower if we’re lucky. And in case you were wondering, watching guys pee—not my jam. You can go by yourself.”

  Jesse managed a half-grin at that. “Noted,” he said. “Don’t you want to see if there’s a Jacuzzi?”

  “More likely a bucket in the corner,” she said.

  Jesse gave a quick nod toward the door, then held Sophia’s gaze. He wanted to get her out of range of the camera, but he didn’t want to be obvious about it. After a moment, she got up with a martyred sigh and walked over.

  Jesse let her precede him into the bathroom, then followed her. God, even scared and disheveled, she was gorgeous.

  The bathroom was dank and featureless, with stained white porcelain fixtures and the same concrete walls and floor as the cell outside. Mildew spattered the walls, and it smelled musty.

  Jesse put a finger to his lips and did a quick scan for cameras and microphones. Nothing obvious. He turned on the water in the sink. It was slightly brown, and Sophia wrinkled her nose.

  “Complain about it,” Jesse whispered in her ear. “Loudly.”

  He had to lean in to get close to her, and her scent wafted over him. She smelled of sunlight and citrus, and despite the shitstorm they were in the middle of, his cock still rose slightly. God, he wanted her. If they ever got out of this, he’d grab Kane by the balls and threaten to tear them off unless he gave up his claim to her.

  Sophia flushed slightly, as if she could hear his thoughts, but she began a litany of complaints about the mold, the stains, the state of the water, and all the other less-than-five-star amenities.

  Jesse tuned her out, scanning the area more carefully for hidden cameras and bugs. Short of an electronic scan, he was as sure as he could be that this room wasn’t covered by security. Grant was a certified nutcase, but apparently not
pervy enough to put cameras in the bathroom.

  Which meant it was the only private place in this cell.

  Jesse turned off the water in the basin and turned on the shower, just so the security team wouldn’t wonder why they were running the water in the sink so long. Always assume people were paying attention.

  It was nothing but a shower head coming out of the exposed pipes at one end of the room, with a drain in the floor, but it was more than he’d expected, even if the water seemed like it wasn’t going to get hot any time soon. He moved up close to Sophia.

  She raised her eyebrows. “I hope you don’t expect me to take a shower with you at a time like this,” she murmured.

  The thought of it immediately started a boner, which was the last thing he needed right now. But it seemed like he couldn’t get within a couple of feet of Sophia without getting hard. Even though they were imprisoned in a concrete cell, his cock apparently had not gotten the memo.

  He backed her up against the wall, his chest blocking her in. “Too busy for a shower,” he said. “I just don’t want them to hear us. And I don’t want them to wonder why the sink is running for so long without anyone splashing the water, or wringing out a towel.”

  “Oh,” she said. She sounded breathless. A small part of him hoped she felt the way he did, even though this wasn’t the time.

  “Are there security cameras in this room?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Not that I can find. So you should be okay if you want to take a shower or anything.”

  She nodded.

  “Jesse…” she said. “Jesse, do you think we’re going to get out of here?”

  He slid his hand up over her shoulder and stroked her cheek with his thumb, looking deeply into her eyes.

  “Sophia, I don’t know what kind of fucked-up shit is going on with Nash and Alexander Grant. But I’m telling you right now, I’m going to get you out of here. Okay?”

  He didn’t know if she believed him. Or if he even believed himself. But somehow, he had to make it happen.

  She shook her head. “I’m not your responsibility,” she said. “I lied to you. I probably got you in trouble with your Enforcer…”