Carlos couldn’t have agreed more.
Together, the three men walked into the forest, and when Nate nodded, judging them far enough, they shifted.
A tiger, a panther, and a lion padded forward together. Carlos remembered this feeling of invincibility from long ago—not even from their time overseas, because then there was always the awareness that a bomb could go off, a hail of bullets could appear.
But earlier, during training, when they were all cocky young idiots, a whole unit of shifters—the four of them, with Ty alongside, had been the largest, most dangerous animals in the unit. And when they all shifted together, it felt like they could take on the world and no one could stand in their way.
Well, they weren’t cocky young idiots anymore. But there was still a hint of that feeling as they flowed silently deeper into the forest, higher up the mountai
n.
The scents were mind-blowing. Animals that didn’t live out east, forest smells, decomposition and growth and rich life all around him. The masculine musk of a lion to his left, a panther to his right.
Carlos broke into a run, finally letting his tiger out to play. The built-up energy in his muscles seemed to explode into motion. Stealth was no longer a consideration as speed took over; he bounded through the trees until he reached a rocky outcropping. Without pausing to think, he crouched and leapt straight up to the top. Surveying the terrain, he took off once again.
He could hear the swift movement of the lion and the panther behind him, but his tiger only had eyes for what was ahead. Miles and miles of unexplored territory, of exciting prey and new things to smell—it was like waking up from a dream, and finding reality waiting for him.
Carlos felt like he could’ve run like this for hours, but tigers were sprinters rather than marathon runners. Eventually he slowed down, and Nate and Ken came up alongside him. Ken nudged Carlos’ shoulder and set off to the west, so Carlos followed along until they came to a series of wide, flat rocks in a high, open area where the setting sun slanted down, illuminating everything in warm orange light.
Ken flopped down on a rock, and Carlos followed suit. This was another thing he missed—lying out in his cat form, absorbing the sunlight and warmth as only felines really could. The fast-paced businessman’s life didn’t leave a lot of room for relaxed sunning.
They lazed for a while, and then, as the sun finally dipped down below the horizon, Nate stretched, yawned, and shifted back to human. Ken and Carlos followed suit.
“So what do you think of our forests?” Nate asked Carlos with a grin.
Ken snorted. “Our forests, he says. He’s lived here for all of a couple of months.”
“You haven’t been here much longer,” Nate answered mildly, “and you talk about these woods like you’ve lived here your entire life, and your grandparents before you.”
Ken waved a hand, acknowledging the point. Then he glanced at Carlos. “Well?”
“This place is something else,” Carlos said, heartfelt. “I can see why you guys like it here.”
“Well, it’s more than just the forest that keeps me here,” Ken said with a grin. “The fact that Lynn would hunt me down and kidnap me home if I left—”
“You love it.” Nate aimed a kick at Ken’s leg.
Ken kicked back. “Sure I do. Go for a woman who knows what she wants and doesn’t take any bullshit,” he advised Carlos. “It improves your life like you wouldn’t believe.”
“You don’t feel—held down?” Carlos asked tentatively.
He’d never pursued any kind of serious relationship, because he’d never wanted anything to get in the way of his goals. And he’d known that he wouldn’t be good for any woman, not with the way he’d always thrown himself into his work.
First deployed with the Marines, then working sixty-to-eighty-hour weeks in the cutthroat business world—he wouldn’t have made a good partner for anyone, and he’d never wanted to have to sacrifice his professional life for anything.
Ken, though, had a demanding job as an environmental scientist, a job that put him out in the field for days or even weeks at a time, and seemed like he was happy with his relationships.
Although they were mates. That must mean something—that Lynn was the right person to be in the situation with him. Didn’t it?
Ken shook his head decisively. “Lynn has her own life, her own job, and her own self. She doesn’t need to waste any time holding me down.” He grinned. “Unless I ask her to.”
Nate rolled his eyes. “I never thought I wanted a mate,” he told Carlos, his tone serious. “But what I didn’t realize was that having someone else to take care of, to think of, all the time—it opened my life up. Made it richer, rather than shrinking it down. Stella and Eva are my family, now, and that means that I’m ten times the man that I used to be—I’m a mate and a stepfather, a provider, a protector. I had no idea the change it was going to bring, but I’m grateful as hell for it all.”
“Same,” Ken said, in much more sober tones.
Opened my life up, made it richer.
Richer. That was a word that Carlos was extremely familiar with. But he’d never used it the way Nate was using it.