Outlaw Tiger Read online

  It was over.

  And to his amazement, they’d done it together, as a crew. A true family, forged by hard work and trust and care.

  Mel nestled against him, and Dallas’s tiger growled with satisfaction that she was here with him.

  Only the commotion coming from Reno’s direction could interrupt their happy moment.

  “What do you want me to do with this guy?” Reno asked, teeth still clenched down on the man’s jacket as he tried feebly to escape.

  “That’s him. The one who’s running this whole thing,” Mel said, pointing, and Dallas put himself between her and the person who had to be Madsen.

  The leader of the Blackheart Assassins.

  “You damn yokels with your damn dragons and your damn tiger ruining everything!” Madsen’s composure was all but gone, and though he was clearly wounded, probably keeping him from shifting into his cougar form, he still had enough rage to spit obscenities at them.

  Dallas paced forward, growling down at the criminal who’d tried to start a war, who’d allowed children to be tortured into killers, and who’d threatened his mate.

  The last part was the most unforgivable to Dallas.

  “Why?” Dallas had to ask, confronted with the harsh truth of his past in meeting Jasper and now Madsen.

  “Because tigers are rare. Valuable. I knew the second I had that dragon’s blood all those years ago, I wanted to make the ultimate killer to stand by my side, even one day replace me. But you’re just a wasted investment,” he spat.

  Reno shook him roughly, dazing Madsen.

  “He’s not anyone’s investment. Or killer, for that matter!” Mel was suddenly in front of Dallas, pointing an angry finger at Madsen, who had the brains enough to remain silent. “He’s the most wonderful, thoughtful, protective man ever, in spite of what you people tried to do to him. And I’ll count my lucky stars every day I get to just be around him.”

  Everyone was silent except for Clancy, who grinned in amusement at the situation.

  “Damn straight,” Harrison added, and Reno nodded in assent.

  Madsen frowned but remained silent as Harrison stomped away to put out the fire he’d started before it spread, corralling the mercenaries easily with his sheer size.

  Meanwhile, Dallas came up to Mel, who turned to face him, still fuming with anger at Madsen.

  “You really meant all of that?” he asked, nuzzling her again.

  “Of course I do! I’m just so sorry. I know better now than to run from the person I love again. Even if he’s a shifter.”

  “A shifter who will tear anything apart that comes for his mate.”

  “Of course.” She smiled, relaxing.

  To the side, the mysterious basilisk finally reached them, folding his arms and just… standing there.

  Dallas didn’t have time to thank him, though, when there was more flapping of huge wings, beating the air around them. For a moment, Dallas wondered if Beck had shown up, but he looked up and saw two transparent, shimmering masses indistinguishable against the cloudy sky. Cloaked dragons.

  And when they disappeared a short distance away, Dallas saw two unfamiliar men striding toward them, one wearing a Stetson and a cuffed shirt with blue jeans, the other wearing a black shirt and black pants.

  “Aw shit. Double dragons,” Clancy said.

  If they were here for Mel, then Dallas sure as hell wasn’t going to let that happen.

  He and his family turned to face the two mysterious, well-dressed men headed for them and readied themselves for anything.

  23

  Everything had happened so fast that Mel’s mind was still racing to put it all together.

  But the warmth in her heart when she was next to Dallas, the calm and peace and confidence he gave her, were more than enough proof that she knew what she wanted from here on out.

  Dallas.

  It had been awesome seeing them all work together to take on such a big group of bad guys. And even though she’d like to properly get to know everyone in their new forms, she could surmise just based on their features.

  Light wolf fur and bright-blue eyes: Reno. Sapphire eyes and a surly Texas drawl: Harrison (also just based on the way Dallas and Harrison spoke with each other). The other dragon had to be Clancy with those bright-green eyes and laidback attitude, even if the big, scaly green beast was horrifying to look at.

  But that didn’t explain who the two men striding toward them right now were.

  There was a shimmering, sparkling green in the air next to Mel, and Harrison appeared on her left, walking toward the men. Dallas was right in front of her, not entirely blocking her view, while Reno walked beside Harrison in his wolf form, easily dragging Madsen with his teeth. Behind them, Clancy stayed as a dragon, watching all the rounded-up mercenaries to make sure none of them made a run for it.

  “What are double dragons?” Mel whispered to Dallas, too curious to not ask in spite of the pervasive silence right now.

  “Enforcers of the shifter world that operate in pairs,” Dallas whispered back, his voice extra rumbly when speaking low. “They’re in charge of keeping law and order and making sure people don’t discover shifters.”

  Mel’s stomach dropped. Were they here for her?

  One of the men who was about as tall as Harrison, with bright-green eyes and short, bright-blond hair, eyed her for a moment. His companion had black hair that almost seemed to have hints of blue in it and came down around his collar, and he was a bit shorter and leaner, though still muscled.

  “Harrison, good to see you again,” the blond one said.

  Harrison tipped his hat but stopped a few feet from them and folded his arms, the air still tense. “Troy, Jack.” He nodded at the blond, then at the black-haired one next to him.

  “Mighty fine mess you and your boys made here,” Jack said, grinning as he appraised the still-burning wreckage of cars around them and the mounds of upturned earth from the basilisk fight.

  Troy didn’t seem as amused. “You have no idea the kind of trouble you’ve caused.” His eyes narrowed on Dallas. “Especially you, tiger.”

  Mel’s hackles rose instinctively. The ones causing trouble had been the Blackhearts, not Dallas and his family.

  But she kept quiet for now, waiting to see what would happen first.

  “When I told you to keep an eye on the reporter coming into town, I didn’t mean raise hell,” Troy said, frown dimming his otherwise ethereal beauty.

  Harrison squared his posture, calm but resolute. “If you’re looking to take my people into custody, you’ve got another thing coming, friend.”

  Troy cocked his head at Harrison, then chuckled. “As if we even could, Harrison. No, there are much bigger things to worry about right now than what your people are guilty of. Starting with this guy here.” He looked over at Madsen, whose eyes were bulging with worry even as Reno continued to drag him around like a dog with a toy. “With your permission, I’d like to speak to your tiger personally.”

  Harrison seemed slightly mollified by this. “If you come in peace, then you’re among allies. Test us, and you’ll see what Dragonclaw is really capable of.”

  Troy just laughed again. “After all these years, I still can’t get you cowboys to trust us. Well fine, I’ve got big enough problems in the city.”

  With that, Harrison walked alongside Troy and Jack while they came closer.

  Her heart racing, Mel jumped in front of Dallas, scared at the idea of him being caught breaking the number-one shifter rule. “Please don’t take Dallas away!”

  Dallas nudged himself forward, in front of her now. “Don’t you dare touch my mate.”

  Troy stopped, and his expression was unreadable for a moment as he looked between them. “The reporter and the tiger? You’re joking, right?”

  “Love is love. Even dragons know that,” Harrison said.

  “Fate’s funny that way,” Jack chimed in, standing closer to Troy than anyone else.

  Troy raked a big hand ov
er his face and sighed. “I guess I don’t even care at this point. You are aware that humans have video of you shifting right in the middle of fucking Main Street in Parson’s Creek. Do you know how much trouble you’d be in normally? You’d be branded an outlaw by the shifter community, hunted for breaking the rules.”

  Dallas growled. “I don’t care.”

  “Be that as it may, even with the help of our tech specialists, copies of the video are already circulating on the internet. People are going crazy despite most thinking it’s a hoax. There’s evidence of shifters. And not just the blurry videos of wolves or bears caught in the woods or pictures people have snapped of cloaked dragons when they’re flying. No, this shit is real.”

  Everyone was quiet, the gravity of the situation settling on all of them.

  “For now, it’s contained. In a few months, hopefully, it will all just be rumors.” Troy continued.

  “But these guys were trying to start a war between shifters and humans!” Mel exclaimed, the reporter in her unable to keep from spouting the truth regardless of who these guys… er, dragons thought they were.

  Troy and Jack both raised an eyebrow at her. “Spunky enough to talk back to a black dragon. Rare quality in a human,” Jack said, a hint of mirth in his expression.

  Troy scowled. “Spunky and foolhardy. Yes, we were already aware of the Blackheart’s movements through our channels back east. In fact, we’ve been watching all of this. The basilisks. Dragonclaw. Seeing how it would unfold.”

  The basilisk who’d been just standing in human form, making not a single sound, perked up at this.

  “In fact, we’ve been hunting Madsen for years. And I have to hand it to you. This all could’ve gone a lot worse if they’d actually gotten their hands on one of your desert monsters.”

  “The basilisks have always been Dragonclaw’s problem, long before all of this started happenin’. We weren’t going to let that happen,” Clancy said over them, his dragon shaking the ground as he spoke.

  “And as it stands, they’ll be your problem still if we can come to an agreement,” Jack said.

  Everyone listened, and Troy looked straight at Mel, his emerald-green eyes glinting in the sun as it emerged from the clouds above.

  “Do you love this tiger?”

  Mel gasped. That was a sudden turn of events.

  “I do. With all my heart. I’d give up everything for him,” she said

  “Now you, tiger. Same question.”

  Dallas growled. “She’s my mate. I’d die for her.”

  “Clearly,” Troy said unsarcastically as he looked at the destruction around them. “If you two are willing to be mated, then I’m willing to let all of this slide. After all, taking down the Blackhearts and preventing a war between humans and shifters is a much bigger deal. So long as you promise to lay low and avoid any further altercations of this… scale.”

  Mel nodded eagerly while Dallas just huffed in assent.

  “You’ll probably have to move into Dragonclaw as well. Some people connected to the Blackhearts are already looking for the reporter at the center of this controversy. Sorry,” Jack said apologetically.

  That just sounded like all her dreams coming true. Being with Dallas, having all of this wide-open, beautiful space. Like a vacation she never wanted to come back from (minus all the death-defying action, of course).

  She just needed to make sure her mom, who lived way out in the suburbs on the other side of the state, would be safe.

  “Your mom will be completely safe,” Troy said as if he’d read her mind. “I’ll arrange to have your things moved here discretely.”

  “What about the mercenaries? And Madsen?” Dallas said, a hint of a snarl in his voice.

  “We have resources coming to round them up that will be here any minute, so you two go back home and figure out what needs figuring out. In the meantime…” He pointed over at the basilisk. “That is your problem, Harrison.”

  “The basilisk came to help us. He fought off another basilisk,” Mel said, though she wasn’t sure where on earth the other one had gone in all the commotion. Probably back into the ground.

  Troy went silent at that, flabbergasted for the first time since arriving. “I’ll have to look into it. In the meantime, does Dragonclaw have room for one more misfit?”

  Harrison laughed at that and strode over to the basilisk, slapping him on the shoulder while the basilisk seemed confused by what was going on. “We’ll figure it out. Won’t we, son?” he asked the basilisk, who just grimaced in apparent dislike at the touch.

  “Good. I don’t want to hear another thing about basilisks, Blackhearts, shifting in broad daylight, or reporters trying to expose shifters for a long, long time, okay?” Troy said to varying responses. Then he looked over at Reno and motioned for him to follow and to bring Madsen with him. “You, come with me. We have a lot to talk about, rogue alpha wolf. Things that concern you.” Troy’s voice dwindled as Reno joined him.

  But before Mel could turn toward Dallas, Jack came up to the two of them, a much more amicable expression in his gaze. “Just make sure you two make it official. And for what it’s worth, Dallas, I’m glad Harrison found you, even though some of my friends insisted that a tiger with your exceptional talents should be working with us.”

  Dallas was silent.

  “And so you know, my partner’s right. You two have opened up a can of worms that can’t be shut. We can erase memories, we can make sure the Blackhearts are taken care of and nobody knows about the fight that happened out here, but we can’t take back something on the internet once it’s spread. More and more people will know about shifters because of it. The world will never be the same. Though, if you ask me, I’d say it was going to happen sooner or later whether we wanted it to or not.” He winked cryptically and tipped his fancy Stetson, waving at them before jogging away to catch up with Troy.

  Harrison came up to them, his arm still around the confused basilisk. “Looks like we’ll have two more for dinner tonight. I’ll get this scaly bastard home and oversee things with Clancy. You two go on home. You’ve got a lot to work out from the looks of it.”

  “Yes. We do,” Dallas said, the air finally calming enough for Mel to feel her nerves release as she stroked a hand over his big, furry cheek.

  Harrison turned and went in the opposite direction than Reno and the double dragons had gone. “Two questions for you. One, what the hell is your name, and two, have we fought before?”

  The basilisk grunted at Harrison as they strode away, leaving Mel alone with Dallas, finally.

  “How are we going to get back?” Mel asked, seeing nothing but crushed cars and flaming hulks around them.

  “I can give you a ride back,” Dallas said calmly.

  “You sure? I mean, you just fought like… five hundred people.”

  He chuckled, finally starting to relax. “Not that many.” He knelt on the ground, lowering his back enough that she could hop on like before. Only now, thankfully, there weren’t people shooting at them anymore.

  “Hold on tight,” he said once she’d settled in

  And at that, his legs exploded off the ground, speeding over the soft dirt and open prairie that stretched out in every direction forever, taking them back to Dragonclaw Ranch.

  Mel just held on tight and wondered what would come next in their adventure together.

  24

  Dallas’s heart wasn’t fully calm until they strode into the center of Dragonclaw, and they were greeted by Beck, Marian, Sierra, and Billie, who all exclaimed they were glad they were back safe.

  Well, Beck just growled, but that was as good a sign he’d been worried for them as any.

  A minute later, they were at his home at the back of the ranch, and Mel easily slid from atop him, making a cute noise as she hit the ground on steady feet.

  “Um… when I shift, I won’t have clothes on,” Dallas said, realizing that even some of the basics of being a shifter were probably new to her.

&nbs
p; “By all means then!” Mel said with a giggle.

  He quickly shifted back, then pulled Mel into his arms and took her inside.

  Even though he’d been living here a long time, the place was a bit small for what he felt his mate deserved. He’d ask Mel about building a new place on his favorite stretch a couple acres away. See how she responded to that idea.

  But first, to set things straight.

  Once they were upstairs and in his room, Dallas set Mel on the bed and threw on a pair of jeans, amused by the sensual look in her gaze as she watched his every move.

  As a tiger, he’d made it his business to watch everyone else all the time. What they did, what they said.

  It was strange and refreshing to be with someone that noticed him right back.

  He sat on the bed, and Mel leaned against him, their shoulders touching. He ran a hand down her back, just needing to feel her and remind his tiger she was safe and sound.

  “I guess I’ll start…” Dallas said.

  Mel hummed, listening.

  “I guess you already know half of the story. I was raised by the Blackhearts. Well… created, more like. Created to serve their purposes. So when I escaped when I was young, I had to survive on my own for a while. Then Harrison found me as a kid.”

  “Harrison? Like the grumpy, surly Harrison?”

  Dallas chuckled at that. “The same. He found me on the streets, brought me back here to Dragonclaw. I’ve lived here my whole life, afraid I was an outlaw because of what I was. Because I was different from other shifters.”

  “I’m not sure what ‘different’ even entails. It’s all new to me. New and awesome.”

  He nuzzled her closer, calm settling over them. “So when Harrison told me about a certain reporter that was coming into town and told me to keep an eye on her, I felt like my loyalty was to my family and Dragonclaw. I didn’t think I’d fall for you as fast as I did.”

  Mel smiled. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I was doing agreeing to your help in the first place. I should’ve run, screaming, from someone so big and intimidating. But you put me at ease from the first time we met. And every day since, I only think about you more and more.”