Page 40 of Tiger Betrayal

“I’m in.”

“I want to go on girl’s day,” Stellan muttered.

“Fine,” Ren said. “You boys can carry all our bags of stuff we buy. You can’t talk about burps or balls or anything gross the entire day though.”

Stellan frowned. “What do you talk about on girl’s day then?”

“You’ll see. You will be a pro before you know it,” Laramie assured him.

He could carry a lot of bags if it meant he got to be around Laramie.

She reached over and pulled up the hem of his shirt, exposing his claw marks. “I think I should clean this up.”

“We don’t get infections,” he told her.

“Oh. Well, that’s awesome. You have a lot of dried blood on you though.”

“So does he,” Stellan said, pointing at his brother.

Mars was taking a healthy sip of his beer. His shirt was stiff from it.

“Is this what you do? You fight and bleed each other and just leave it there?”

Stellan shrugged. “I don’t think about it here.”

Laramie’s eyes softened. “Because this is your safe place?”

He wished he could pull her into his lap again, like he’d done in the doorway of the RV. Even with his arm slung over her bent legs, she still seemed too far away. “It’s just a place where we don’t have to think about what would be strange to humans.”

Laramie nodded. “I can understand that.”

And she could understand. Stellan could tell. Maybe he needed to look into these werewolf books she read.

Usually, he could only force himself to be around the others for a half an hour, tops, but today he found himself relaxing. There was something about Laramie that calmed his entire system down. The tiger inside of him just watched her, watched her surroundings, and as long as she was safe and happy, he stayed quiet. Normally, Stellan was pretending he was normal for short lengths of time and then removing himself to get a breather before he would come back and pretend to be normal for a few minutes again. Like his animal wasn’t looking at everyone around him like prey.

But not now. Not with Laramie. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but inside of him, the tiger had a job to do. Make sure Laramie was good.

He sat there by this little tub of trash with three people for two hours with no urge to get up and take a breather. He tested it too. He talked more and more. He contributed to the conversation, and still…his tiger remained silent.

“You good?” Mars asked.

Stellan looked over at his brother and realized he was talking to him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’ve been staring at that trash bin for five minutes.”

“Do I seem okay to you?” Stellan asked.

“Man, you don’t have to snap at me. I was just checking if you’re good.”

“No, I’m being serious. Do I seem normal?”

Mars frowned and looked from Ren, to Laramie, and back to Stellan. “Yes?”

Stellan ducked his gaze so they couldn’t see the smile that surprised his face. He could feel Laramie watching him. He could feel her attention.

Laramie didn’t say a word, just reached over and pulled his hand to her lips, pressed a kiss there and then intertwined her fingers in his. “You’re doing good.” And then she asked Ren where she was from and directed their attention away from him.

He was doing good He knew it. He was doing good. Fuck, he appreciated her. Inside of him, the tiger shrank back even more and his head was just…quiet.