Here There Be Tigers Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Tea. I didn’t know how you
took it, so it’s just black.”
    “ Thanks.” She smiled, took the
offered cup, and sipped.
    He had to force himself not to stare as she
licked her lips and sighed. She was in emotional turmoil. He knew
this was all a lot to take in so suddenly. She didn’t need him
gawking at her and considering how she’d look with her hair down,
mussed from his hands, the dark silk fanned out across his
pillow…
    He blinked and took a gulp of his own drink to
wet his dry throat.
    “ You okay?” he asked
quietly.
    “ No. No, I’m not. I keep hoping this
dream will end soon. I don’t even know how or what to think right
now.”
    “ Would you feel better if we sat
down and talked? Or…do you want to be alone? I can show you to the
guest room.”
    “ No,” she said, straightening. “I’d
rather we talked, if that’s okay?”
    “ Of course. Are you cold? I can
start a fire?”
    “ I don’t need a fire, but I wouldn’t
mind sitting.”
    He motioned her inside, watching her as she
looked around the ground floor. He wasn’t sure she’d even noticed
her surroundings before, but he could tell she was taking in
details now—the wide open floor plan, the sunken seating area
surrounding a stone fireplace, the huge kitchen off to the right,
the pool table and large entertainment center to the left. He
couldn’t help wondering what she thought of the place. Did she like
his home? What did she see when she looked around?
    This cabin was the closest thing he had to a
real home. Most tigers lived in cities or towns but eventually
bought second homes in remote, wooded places to serve as their
retreats and territories, places they could shift and run freely in
their animal forms. He was on the road so much for his job, he’d
never bothered settling anywhere. He only had this place—his
territory—and he loved it here so much it never mattered that he
didn’t have a main house anywhere else.
    When she didn’t say anything right away,
curiosity got the better of him. “Well. Will this do?”
    She glanced at him. “Nice. Just
you?”
    He nodded. “As I said, no girlfriend, no wife,
no kids.”
    He motioned to the couch and she settled into
the deep cushions.
    “ I know it’s extremely personal
since we just met, but…” She stared up at him. “But you said you
weren’t likely to have a wife or girlfriend or kids. Why? Is there
anything…wrong?”
    “ No, nothing is wrong with me. I
just don’t think it’s going to happen.”
    “ You don’t want them?”
    “ I’d love kids, it’s just…” Among
his kind, the only way to have children was to win a mate in the
Mate Run and get her pregnant. The stain of his father’s crimes
hung heavily on him and his two older brothers. None of the rare
tiger females were ever likely to take any of them as mates, so
he’d resigned himself to never having kids a long time
ago.
    But before he could even begin to explain all
that, he’d have to tell Nila about the Mate Run, and the serious
trouble the tigers were in. As for the story of his mother’s
suicide and his father’s mental break…
    He frowned. “It’s just that we have other
things to talk about first,” he finished because he wasn’t sure he
even wanted to tell her about his parents. Most of his people
looked down on him, and he was loathe to see that same disgust from
Nila.
    She leaned back against the couch, cradling her
mug in her palms. “I know. I’m just not sure what to ask or where
to start.”
    He sat, keeping to the opposite side of the
couch so he didn’t crowd her—despite what his tiger wanted him to
do. “Do you believe that tiger shifters exist now?”
    “ No. Yes. I don’t know. I guess I
have to, don’t I?”
    “ You’ll be safer if you accept
they’re real. Beyond Petrov’s money and power, he’s physically
dangerous, too.” Mitch had asked Rossa if Nila showed any signs of
being able to shift. She confirmed Nila was as human as a
human-shifter