Animalistic (Tiger in Her Bed)

She cleared her throat as her mind tried to register the new information. “What’s a shifter?”

A silent pause. “You know what werewolves are right?”

“Like in the movies?”

“Like in the movies. But instead of a wolf, I shift into a tiger.”

“A t-ti…” She swallowed hard. “A –t-tiger.” So what she saw earlier was real. This was hard to believe; she couldn’t just accept it. How could this even be possible? Questions jumbled in her head, and her brain froze momentarily. “Is your family the same way?”

A muffled growl sounded like, “Yes.”

Then another silence.

“Are there others like you?”

“Yes.”

“I-I don’t know what to say,” she whispered.

“Arielle,” he called urgently. There was heavy pressure on the other side of the door like he was leaning on it. The door handle started turning, then stopped, like he changed his mind. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“I need to go, Trent. I need to take a walk. To clear my head.” For a moment she thought he was going to burst through the door, preventing her from leaving. After all, she’d just discovered that supernatural creatures existed.

This was beyond anything she could have imagined.

“Arielle…” His voice was low, barely a whisper.

She sprinted to her old room and changed clothes. She put on her tracksuit and sneakers and headed out. It was three in the morning. She needed either strong coffee or a strong drink. She could either go to a twenty-four-hour diner or try to make it to last call at a bar. She decided to abandon both ideas.

As she trudged the sidewalks, she felt her chest tighten to the point it hurt and realized she was crying…

~~~

Trent hurled his fist against the door and dented it with a crack.

Damn it!

Now he’d gone and ruined it. All because he couldn’t control his urge to shift. He stole nighttime moments to let his beast roam for a few hours. It was hard to do since he was in the middle of the city. His family had a vast estate in Aspen, just for that purpose, but he couldn’t fly there just when things with Arielle were going so well.

The Alexander clan had one weakness: once a male shifter found his mate, the beastly part of him demanded that he marked and bound her. In order to do that, he must get consent from her. It wouldn’t be a problem if Arielle was a cryptid. Any relationship with an outside species had always been frowned upon by the underground community and considered too difficult. After all, they had survived all these years living in human society by closely guarding their secret. Only a fraction of the human population was aware of their existence and cohabited with them, while the majority had remained blissfully oblivious.

Arielle was the first human female he had dated. The three women from his previous relationship were shifters like him. His first girl was a kitsune. His second and third were weretigers, like him. Who would have thought, he would fall for a human? It wasn’t like he could choose who he’d fall in love with.

Unfortunately, cupid’s arrow was unpredictable.

Go after her, his tiger demanded. Now!

He faltered.

Instinct told him to get her and talk to her. Make her understand. She belonged to him. She had to accept him no matter what. Every male weretiger was driven by his primitive dominant nature. The urge was so overwhelming, he found his feet already turning in the direction where he ditched his clothes.

Then he stopped himself.

He didn’t want her to hate him. She was fragile. She’d just gone through hell. If he pushed her, she’d break and he couldn’t put back together something broken. Not the way it used to be, anyway.

Are you going to let her walk around outside at this ungodl

y hour? His tiger reasoned. This is New York City.