Mail Order Tiger Bride Wars: A Scorchingly Hot BBW Shifter Romance (13 page)

34

“No!” cried Ellen.

She wasn’t quite sure what happened next.
But it happened so fast that she barely registered what was happening.

She flew at the man pointing the gun at
the tiger who was Cole. Her teeth sank into his forearm.

Teeth?

Why did I do that?
she marveled.

Then she realized, as did everyone around
her, that her teeth were no longer human teeth but fangs. The power flowed through her body and her jaw. The very jaw that was clamped around the man’s forearm.

He screamed.
And dropped the gun.

She pounced on him
, and he went down. The clothes ripped off her back effortlessly. Her entire world became brighter and sharper and more monochromed. Her sense of smell deepened, and she could smell the fear on those men who had abducted them. She could taste his juicy, tender, dark-skinned flesh and the blood which spurted deliciously onto her tongue.

It was as if a th
ousand different sensations exploded within her. The feel of the cement below her paws, the smell of the woolen ski mask in her flaring nostrils.

Her paws!

Oh my God, she thought faintly, I have finally shifted. After so many years! And under such duress!

The man screamed and screamed, and part of his ski mask rolled up his face.
Ellen pawed at him, worrying his hand as he tried to reach for his gun again. Behind her, Cole’s tiger sprang for another man, who yelled and dropped his weapon.

The rest of the men in the room tried to flee. The video cam crashed to the ground.
They tried the door, but it was locked.

Only the gunman had the key, and he was being
mauled by Ellen’s tiger.

35

Terry stared at the feed from the camera with a mixture of horror . . . and pride.

There was so much of her who wanted to jump in and cry, “Enough!” But her own spitefulness stopped her.

So much conflict raged within her as she watched the live feed – right up till the moment the video cam crashed to the ground. Thereafter, she could only see everything from a horizontal angle, consistent with
the video cam having fallen onto its side.

Pattering feet.
Someone kicked the video cam, and it spun furiously to land against . . . possibly a wall. But the camera still faced the ongoing carnage.

The tigers . . . both tigers
growling and attacking the men, who were no match for the beasts. So much growling and screaming. So much panic.

Was there blood? She didn’t think she saw a lot of blood. But she didn’t know how far Cole and her sister were willing to go. The difference between shifter tigers and real tigers was the restraint the former showed, as they were governed by human minds. But sometimes
there wasn’t a clear divide, especially when the blood lust took over.

But the tables were turned now. She wasn’t sure if it was the wisest thing to stay in the building just in case the tigers decided to hunt her out.

Terry grabbed her bag and fled.

36

“We must go to the police,” Carter insisted. He was the only one who hadn’t shifted.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Dad. The police here aren’t that friendly to shifters. It’s best we just get the hell out of here and get our own guns to protect ourselves.”

“We’re shifters. We don’t believe in guns.”

“Really? Try telling that to someone who’s shoving the barrel of a gun down your throat the next time. Even our tiger teeth can’t crunch a barrel off.”

They
grabbed as many clothes as they could from the men, including a set of car keys. Carter tied the men up. The men were not seriously injured, although they sported a lot of cuts and scrapes and bite marks.

As a parting shot, Carter ripped off all their ski masks. Ellen thought the gunman bore a resemblance to Mobutu, but she couldn’t be sure.

Cole grabbed the gunman’s wallet.

“
Esai Kuneo. Kuneo . . . are you related to Mobutu?”

For answer,
Esai spat at Cole.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,”
Cole said, wiping off the phlegm. He was not in the least bit perturbed. “I might get overexcited again and choose to eat you.”

There was real fear in
Esai’s eyes.

Cole added,
“But you might have noticed we are too civilized. Besides, you mightn’t taste too good without ketchup.”

“Mobutu had nothing to do with this,”
Esai said. “My actions are mine alone, and my pledge is to rid the world of scum like you.”

“Brave words.
But you didn’t kill any of us. You could have easily done so. My take on it is that none of you are killers. Am I right?’

Esai
didn’t answer.

“Don’t waste your time on him, son. Let’s go,” Carter said.

“Non-killer,” Cole threw at Esai as he left the room.

They found their cellphones and wallets in the next room. All intact except for the money, which had been extracted.

“Never mind about the money,” Cole said. “Let’s hightail it out of here.”

Ellen liked the fact that he was so commanding, and how he completely took charge of the situation.
She was proud of him, just as he was proud of her.

They didn’t stop to explore the building, though Cole took note of the surroundings.
The van was still parked outside, and Ellen had no clue whatsoever where they were.

“We’re just outside
Brazzaville,” Cole said. “No worries. We’ll find our way back.”

Then Ellen saw it.
Something that glinted in the slanting afternoon sunlight. Something on the ground near the van, caught in a groove in the ground left by a car tire.

She picked it up.

“Ellen, let’s go.” Cole was already in the van. He started the engine up.

“No, wait. I know this.” She held up the
single earring. It was an amethyst flower, one that was adorned with little diamantes.

Her face was very pale.

“What is it?” Cole said.

“This is my sister’s.”

“We’ll deal with it later, Ellen.
And together. You won’t be alone in this, OK?”

She nodded nu
mbly. Then she got into the van, still clasping the earring.

They sped off with Cole flooring the gas pedal.

They were belting it on the highway back to the city center when Carter laid a hand on Cole’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, son. I know we’ve had our differences. And I’m sorry.”
His tone was a tad quieter than the usual belligerent one he adopted.

“Thanks, Dad.”

Carter smiled at Ellen, sitting up in front next to Cole. “I’m sorry too, Ellen. I’m sorry I didn’t try to get to know you before I judged you.”

She smiled back at him.
“It’s OK. I understand.

Cole nodded approvingly at her.

“You’re a real class act,” he told her. “A class act all the way.”

Carter said
to Cole, “I didn’t really mean it when I said I would cut you off.”

“Oh, really?
Because I could have sworn you really meant it.” Cole was unable to keep the snarkiness out of his voice.

“It was the only way I could think of to keep you in line.
For the preservation of our dynasty.”

Ellen glanced at his face in the mirror. Carter
did indeed look very guilty and contrite. She felt sorry for him.

“You know what?” Cole said slowly.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this. Way before what happened today.”

He paused.

“
And I’ve decided that I’ve been unfair to you, Dad.”

Both Ell
en and Carter were surprised.

“How
?” Carter said.

Ellen held her breath. She sensed that something momentous was going to happen.

Cole said, “It’s true. I’ve taken your money to fund my own work, something I shouldn’t have done. I had no right to do that. I wanted you to treat me like an adult, and yet, I didn’t behave like an adult when I accepted your money.”

Carter
just stared at the back of his son’s bruised head.

“
It won’t happen again, Dad. I’m going to carve my own path from now on. If I sink or swim, it would be on my own.”

A pause.

“So I’m totally cool with it if you pull out of my dig.”

Ellen stole a glance at Carter through the
van’s mirror. Carter looked like he had been blindsided by a truck.

“You sure, son?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Are you sure, Cole?” she asked him.

He grinned at her quizzically. “Et tu, Brutus?”

This was weird, she decided.
Here they were, the three of them. Narrowly escaped with their lives, and they were maturing psychologically and emotionally even as they traveled back to Brazzaville.

The van reached the city limits without incident.
That was, if you didn’t consider Carter not having an opinion for half an hour as an incident.

“We’ll ditch the van,” Cole said.
“It isn’t ours anyway, and so it could be considered stolen.”

“But what do you think the police would expect us
to do?” Ellen asked. “Walk?”

“You never know in these parts.
Being shifters, the police might expect us to shift and run back into the wild to mate with the wildebeest.”

She gazed at him in astonishment.

“Oh my God, you have a concussion.”

It must have been the blows on his head.

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I do not.”

“Stop the van. Stop it. Go on. I’ll drive
from now on.”

36

The first thing they did was to take Cole to the hospital, and he did indeed have a concussion.

“You’re very lucky,” the doctor s
aid. “It could have been worse. You took quite a lot of beating on your skull.”

“Luckily I have a very thick skull,” Cole said. “My father has been telling me that all my life.”

“I did not,” Carter said.

“Did too.”

“He is very lucky,” Ellen said. “And that’s why he’s getting a second chance in life to
cement his ties with his family
. Isn’t that right, Cole?”

Carter
gave Ellen a grateful glance. He said, “I’ll go outside and settle – ”

“But he’s not discharged yet,” Ellen said.

“We need to keep you here for at least 24 hours,” the doctor said. “The CT scan showed no obvious damage, but we still need to perform the necessary observation. Still, we would be needing a down payment since he doesn’t have insurance.”

“You didn’t get insurance?”

“Dad . . . I barely have enough to keep the dig afloat.”

“Keep him in here for as long as necessary, doctor,” Carter said. “I’ll go outside and put in a down payment.”

Cole held up his hand. “Nope, Dad. My concussion . . . my bill.”

“Y
ou serious, son?”

“Dead serious.”
He thought for a bit. “Wow, I shouldn’t have used the word ‘dead’, considering I almost died."

Carter shepherded Ellen outside.

He said, “The concussion must have been worse than I thought. Do you think he was under the . . . influence . . . ?”

“Influence?”

“You know, concussion influence . . . when he said all the things he said to me in the van?”

“You mean the one
about him not wanting you to fund his dig anymore?”

Ellen thought for a while.

“I think he meant it . . . for real. And if he had offered to pay you back for everything you’ve funded so far, then it would have been a concussion influenced decision.”

Carter
smiled at her. “You know, I’ve decided that I do like you a lot better than Julia Fairchild.”

“
I’ve decided that I do like you after all, even though at first I was intimidated by the very thought of you. I kind of reckoned you would be a cross between Darth Vader and Fidel Castro.”

OK.
Too much information.

“So are you going to marry my son?”

Ellen’s mood sobered again.

Was she going to marry someone who didn’t want to be married?

37

Ellen sat beside Cole at his hospital bed. There was a huge basket of fresh flowers on the stand table at the foot of his bed, courtesy of his mother. Julia Fairchild’s signature was nowhere to be seen. Word was that she was hand-gliding around the Kilimanjaro, courtesy of Carter’s money.

“
How are you feeling?” she said softly.

Cole
looked a little wan, but his cuts and bruises were all cleaned up and plastered.

“On top of the world,
” he said.

“That’s just the drugs talking.”

“I wish they gave me better drugs than Advil and Percodan.” He smiled at her. “Did my father really pay the bill?”

“
It was the only way we could guarantee you a single room.”

“All I’m entitled to on my prof
essor’s salary is a four-bedded.”

“He just likes bein
g a dad.”

“
Nah, it just gives him a sense of power over me. He’s a total dictator, like Hugo Chavez.”

“He isn’t so bad.
And he’s your Dad. When he’s gone, you’ll be sorry.” She thought of her father.

“Hey.” Cole gently touched her cheek. “You OK?”

“Yes, I am.” She wiped a tear away. “It’s just that so much has happened with . . . family. Then there’s my sister’s involvement in the whole thing and all. I don’t know what I’m going to do about that.”

“I wis
h I can say ‘you don’t know your sister is involved’, but knowing your sister . . . ” He let it trail.

Yeah. They were being honest here.

“What do you want to do about her?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll never know.
”

“You’ll have to confront her sooner or later.”

“I know.” She sighed. “So many things to do, and it isn’t even my bucket list, though I came close to having a bucket list.”

“So what are you going to do next?”

“I’m going to make sure you’re OK. You are OK, aren’t you?”

“My dick hurts.”

She mock cuffed him. “Then I’m going to apply for that job I saw online.”

He turned wary. “Where’s the job?”

This was the second time she was mentioning it to him, but this time, there was an actual ad with an actual job. With real people behind the hiring machine. At least, she hoped they were real people and not Human resource robots without hearts.

“
Indiana.”

“That doesn’t sound
like a place in Congo.”

“It isn’t.”

He was silent for a long while.

Then he said, “I don’t want you to go.”

It was a little while before she said, “I don’t really want to go too.”

“Would you consider . . . dating me here . . . for a while?” His eyes were shining as he gazed up at her.
“I could hire you. I really need a research assistant. I’ll make you more than an assistant. I’ll make you a director. A director of the dig.”

“Can you do that?”

“Now that I’ve got my funding, I can do anything I want. Well, not technically anything . . . without the say so of my partner – ”

“Wait, what did you say?” She thought she wasn’t hearing correctly. “You got funding for your dig?”

“Yes, I did. I got a phone call this morning. This guy from Croatia . . . a billionaire. He’s a bear shifter and he has an interest in shifter artifacts.”

“You’re giving away your artifacts to him?”

“Well, the deal was for half of the artifacts to go to a museum in Croatia. But hey, look on the bright side. There are always exhibits on loan all over the world. We can have shifter artifact tours. We American shifters shouldn’t be so possessive about artifacts anyway. They belong to the world.”

She was smiling again.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you. So you see . . . I can pay you. And I can pay you much better than some two-bit mathematics department who won’t even appreciate the way you shift. Because that was so
me really hot shifting going on when you ripped your clothes like that in that hot, sexy manner.”

She had to laugh. “You make it sound
so dirty.”

He clasped her
hand and gazed at her in earnest.

“So what do you say, Ellen? Stay with me, please
? Date me. Be my live-in girlfriend, and don’t think so much about everything else. Just live with me . . . in the present. We’re both young. We’ve got our lives ahead of us. What do you say?”

All she could do was stare at him and smile.