Page 22 of Tiger Born

There was a pause as he put a finger up, like one minute. He made his way into the kitchen and for a few moments, she thought he was getting away from her. Before she could get her feelings hurt though, he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and brought it to her.

Aww. Her heart.

“I asked you first,” he gritted out. “No. I don’t want to know. Mars, I need a favor. I need a car cleaned.”

She could barely hear the gritty voice on the other end. Mars. Marsden? His brother? The non murderous one?

“It’s the one I was in last night. I bled all over the back seat. My truck isn’t here. Can you bring me supplies and help me get it fixed up?” Dame, tensed and then sighed as he looked at the screen of the phone as it faded to black.

“He hung up?” Misty guessed.

“It’s his way. I’ll send him a location and he may show up, maybe not. He’s not exactly reliable.”

“We could ask Stellan.”

His gold eyes darted to her and all of the humor was gone.

“Joke,” she told him.

“Fuck, woman, my heart is beating out of my freaking chest, just imagining him coming here.”

“Maybe he would like me if he met me.”

“He would like you,” Dame agreed. “To eat.”

“Eek.”

She had seen Stellan’s work on Dame’s stomach, and chills rippled up her spine. Okay, it wasn’t fun to joke about him anymore. She liked survival.

“I’m going to do as much as I can. I’ll give Mars half an hour, and if he doesn’t show, we will go get the right stuff to clean it.”

“Why do we need Mars to do it?”

“He details cars for a living. He’s the best at it. He can get out any stain.”

Hmm, she would believe it when she saw it. Blood was a different beast. She was probably going to have to reupholster her car. She had plenty in savings, so it was okay. No use crying over spilled milk, as her Uncle Tim said.

“Hey, Marsden won’t tell Stellan where I live, will he?”

“Hell no. I wouldn’t invite him if I thought it was a risk. They hate each other. Marsden moved away just to get away from Stellan. They don’t talk.”

“And you’re triplets? That lack of communication seems so weird.”

“We were close as humans. Really close. Then the tigers were born right after our twenty-first birthdays and everything got messed up. The animals complicate everything,” he finished quietly. “No one signs up for this shit.”

“It seems lonely?”

“Very,” he said immediately, tossing her a serious glance.

“You can hang out with me,” she said, shrugging up her shoulders.

His face was closed off now. “Yeah,” he said. “We’ll talk about it later, okay?”

Uh oh. That sounded like the beginnings of a breakup speech if ever she’d heard one.

Something inside of her shrank, and she grew protective of her little heart. The joking was done, and now she couldn’t meet his eyes. She didn’t want him to go back to the shadows. She wanted him to stay in the sunrays, with the dust motes and her.

He approached her and gripped her hip with one hand, pressed a fast kiss to her forehead, and told her, “Everything will be all right.”