A Twitch of Tail Read Online Free

who hadn’t said anything, stood from the chair he’d been seated in.  “Come sit in the kitchen, and I’ll make you some coffee, Tera.”
    He offered Tera his arm, and she took it, smiling up into his handsome face.  Midas had a reputation as a ladies’ man.  She hadn’t met him before, but she’d seen him at a full moon celebration.  He was well built, with chocolate eyes surrounded by thick lashes, and dark blond hair that dusted his collar.
    He pulled out a bar stool for her and placed her bag on the counter.  After asking Tera how she took her coffee, he filled a mug and brought it over.
    “That was very impressive, Tera.”
    “Thanks.  It’s a gift.”
    He hummed in his throat.  “It costs you to heal, doesn’t it?  That’s why you’re weak right now.”
    She nodded.
    Silence settled between them for several moments.  She had the distinct feeling that Midas was going to ask her something, but he mumbled thank you and walked out of the kitchen quickly.
    She took a sip of coffee, thinking it would be ironic if he asked her out, considering she didn’t think he was either of the men in her dreams.  How does one go about turning down the tiger king?  Probably very, very carefully and from a great distance.
    Making a face because he didn’t put enough creamer into the coffee, she stood and went to the large stainless steel refrigerator and pulled the door open.  The shelves were stuffed full of containers and jars, and she bent over, trying to figure out where a tiger king puts his creamer.  She heard a door open and shut somewhere behind her, but she was too preoccupied pushing containers around to see who it was.
    “Success!” she said, grinning triumphantly as she pulled the small container of creamer from the fridge and shut the door.
    She heard twin growls, low and deep, and turned quickly to see two large men stalk into the kitchen towards her.  Despite their size, their bulky bodies moved gracefully towards her, and she straightened against the fridge door.  One man had long, curly blond hair, and the other had the same color hair but cut short.  They were without shirts and shoes, wearing only jeans that showcased muscular legs.  Her mouth went dry as her eyes roamed over them quickly.  Part of her thought she was gathering details to give to a police sketch artist, and the other part of her felt like she already knew who they were.
    They closed in on her, towering over her with just feet between them, and she looked up, up, up their bodies to their handsome faces.  She tried to calm her flying pulse and take in slower breaths, but her body had a mind of its own.  Her heart insisted on pounding in her chest like a trapped bird, and she couldn’t stop panting for air that smelled suddenly wild and sweet.
    They reached their hands out to her at the same time, and the moment their hands wrapped around her upper arms, everything clicked into place in her mind and her heart.  Overwhelmed with sensations, her eyes rolled back in her head and everything went dark, as one word rolled through her mind:  mates.

 
     
     
     
    Chapter 3
     
    Tahlon leaned on the railing of the back porch of Melo’s house and looked into the backyard.  The neatly manicured lawn spread back for two hundred feet before reaching the woods that edged the property.  The whole territory belonged to the tiger ambush Melo belonged to, but Melo had built the house himself, with the help of his ambush.  Jealousy poked at Tahlon, and not for the first time.
    A few years ago, Melo had gotten fed up with how life in their Florida ambush had been run.  Genevieve, the tiger queen, had what was commonly known as a harem, which she used for her annual heat-spell.  Tiger queens were unique in the were-tiger world, because their bodies would slip into a sexual frenzy for seven days in the fall.  The queen would go with little sleep during her heat, in a constant state of arousal.  One male couldn’t hope to keep