Chapter 7
Ifound a quiet place to change back into my teenage-boy disguise, but even that didn’t seem to help with the heat much. I was on edge, hungry, aching, my fangs and claws elongating beneath my illusion despite my efforts to stay in human form. I needed to take the edge off. I needed release.
I needed Iannis.
Leaning my head against the alley wall, I laughed softly to myself.
Iannis? Even if he weren’t too busy fighting and governing to see to my needs, I couldn’t let him if he wasn’t prepared to commit.
If I did, then he was no better than the string of other guys I’d used in the past when the need had taken me.
Was this what I’d been reduced to? Skulking in alleys and pining for a guy I couldn’t have?
Angry now, I straightened up. I was better than this.
Maybe I was in hiding, but I was still Sunaya Baine, and I’d never had a problem getting a guy into my bed when I needed one.
If Iannis couldn’t help me, I’d find someone else who could.
Even just once a day would be enough to take the edge off so I could focus and get some real work done.
It’s for the greater good, a voice whispered in my head, and I nearly laughed out loud.
How absurd, the idea of having sex ‘for the greater good’.
But there was no denying that something needed to be done, and it needed to be done with someone else.
Masturbation didn’t work – it was that living, human connection that the heat sought, and the heat responded to.
After all, self-pleasure didn’t result in procreation, now did it?
I hopped on my bike and headed to The Cat’s Meow, a diner run by the Tiger Clan.
After parking my ride in the back alley, I changed my illusion to that of the blonde tiger shifter female I’d used the last time I came here.
But instead of a sweater and jeans, I put on a skin-tight leather corset beneath a black blazer, leather pants, and boots.
No, it wasn’t the kind of attire one usually wore to a diner, but I wanted to make my intentions clear to the males inside.
It was mid-afternoon, so I didn’t expect the place to be packed, but it was still a lot emptier than it should have been.
Over two thirds of the tables and booths were empty.
But as soon as I stepped in, every single male’s gaze swung my way.
Yellow, orange, and blue shifter eyes glowed with hunger as their nostrils flared, catching the scent of my heat.
Other eyes, female ones, flared with jealousy, and several females bared their fangs in my direction as I walked past, swinging my hips a little as I headed for the bar in the back.
The mated males all hastily averted their eyes as I sauntered past, but several gazes remained glued on my back.
The single male seated at the bar, a handsome tiger shifter with orange eyes and shaggy dark hair that I remembered meeting here the last time, licked his lips, showing a hint of fang as he looked me up and down.
“Hey,” he greeted me as I sat down on the barstool next to him, his deep voice rougher than I remembered. He leaned in, nostrils flaring as he inhaled my scent. It would be nearly irresistible to him. “Visiting from Parabas again?”
I pretended to look sheepish at the reproach in his eyes – I’d lied to him the last time about where I was from, and had given him a false phone number to call. Because I’d used my magic to disguise my scent, he hadn’t been able to tell, a fact that no doubt confused him.
“Sorry about that, but I was involved with someone else at the time.” I didn’t even really have to lie about that – I was involved with someone else.
Just not the level of involvement that I wanted it to be.
“I’m alone now, though,” I added with a feline smile. “You could buy me a drink if you like.”
“How do I know that’s actually true?” he asked, arching a brow as he picked up his glass of teca – one of the few substances that could intoxicate a shifter, and that would kill a human if served to them. “You seem to be extraordinarily good at lying.”
I shrugged a little. “You don’t.” Pretending to ignore him, I turned away and ordered five cheeseburgers and a boatload of fries from the man behind the counter.
I was famished from the constant use of illusion magic, and besides, I had no intention of working for tiger-boy’s affections.
There was plenty of interest around here – in fact, two other males were approaching the bar already.
One of them tried to sit down next to me, but tiger-boy bared his teeth and let out a ferocious snarl, and the other male backed off.
I pretended not to notice, but inwardly, I sighed in relief.
If the other male had been more dominant, a fight would have broken out, and I had come here for sex, not bloodshed.
“So, is this your spot?” I asked as the first two burgers arrived.
“Huh?” he asked as I bit into the food.
“Mmm,” I moaned, closing my eyes as I savored the juicy burger. The reaction was genuine, but I played it up a little for him. And then I made him wait until I’d finished the burger.
“That barstool you’re sitting in.” I pointed a greasy finger at it. “You were sitting in the same one the last time I was here. Does it have your name on it or something?”
He grinned. “If you can actually remember which stool I was sitting in, then I must have made a big impression.”
“You’re cute,” I said with a shrug as I picked up burger number two.
“The stool doesn’t have my name on it, but it’s a little more comfortable than the others, so I always use it.” He smiled a little. “My father owns this diner, so I’m in here a lot.”
I nearly choked on my burger at that. So much for picking a random guy, I scolded myself. If he were telling the truth – and my nose told me he was – then he would be well known in the community.
Suddenly, I had a flash of an earlier memory, from six years ago.
It was one of the times I’d been in here with Roanas, and a gangly teen with shaggy brown hair had been serving us.
He was probably no more than nineteen at the time, his face still thin, his shoulders too wide for his still-growing body, but there was no mistaking him.
He’d always been our server, and he had been one of the few shifters to go out of his way to make me feel welcome.
“You’re Nimos Barakan?” I asked, putting my burger down.
His eyes widened in surprise. “You know my name?”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah, I do.” No longer hungry, I slapped some coin on the counter, then slid off the barstool. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Just one second,” Nimos growled, grabbing me by the upper arm. “You’ve already walked out on me once. I’ll be damned if I let you do it again.”
“You’re making a scene,” I hissed, mostly because of the pain. His claws were digging into my flesh, something I couldn’t fault him for – I’d exposed him to my heat and brought out his territorial instincts. “Let me go. You don’t even know my name.”
“No, but you know mine.” His eyes bored into mine. “I want to know why.”
I sighed a little, then forced myself into a submissive pose – shoulders relaxed, eyes downcast. “Fine. But can we go somewhere else? Please?”
“Sure,” he said easily, sounding satisfied. He thought he’d won. “Let’s head to the back.”
The entire room watched us as I followed him down a hall and up a staircase that led to a hall lined with three doorways.
Upper-floor apartments, I guessed. My breath quickened as I tried to resist the heat – my body knew I was being led in the direction of sex, and it was clouding my judgment, making me forget the reason I’d decided to leave the diner.
Nimos opened the second door, and I followed him into a small apartment with dark, masculine furnishings. Nothing expensive, but well built. His scent was everywhere in this place, and it only made the ache between my legs worse.
He shut the door behind me, chest heaving, eyes glowing, and I braced myself to fend him off. But instead of pouncing on me, he leaned back against the door and crossed his arms.
“So. How do you know me, and what are you really doing in my family’s diner?”
I had to applaud him for remembering the important questions in the face of raging hormones. If he, a full-blooded shifter, could do it, then so could I.
“Because I used to come here with my foster father every Sunday,” I said quietly allowing my illusion to fade.
Nimos went slack-jawed, his eyes widening as he took in the real me. “Su…Sunaya Baine?”
“Yep.” I mirrored his pose, crossing my arms against my chest to fend off the scathing insults and criticism I knew were coming.
“By Magorah, you really did make it back!” The next thing I knew, he’d swept me up into a big hug.
I squeaked as he lifted me off the ground, more because he was crushing my ribs with his powerful arms than because I was surprised.
“I wanted to thank you for what you did, but you’d left before I had the chance to contact you. ”
“Thank me?” I pushed against his shoulders so that I could look at his face, bewildered now. “Thank me for what?”
“For rescuing all those shifters.” He set me down, but his hands remained on my hips. “My cousin’s son Sapian was among them.”
“Oh.” There had been so many victims of the Shifter Royale that I couldn’t remember them all, but I vaguely recalled there had been at least two tiger shifters in that dark basement. “Well, you’re welcome. I was just doing my job.”
He shook his head, “You did a hell of a lot more for the shifter community that day than the Enforcers Guild has done in the last century,” he insisted.
Tilting his head, he sniffed, and the hunger in his gaze deepened.
“You’re in heat. Let me help you.” He brushed his lips against mine.
“That’s what you came here for, isn’t it? ”
I clenched my jaw against a whimper of need, resisting the urge to lean into him. “It was a mistake,” I said hoarsely.
“Why, because you thought I would reject you?” His lips moved to my jawline, trailing fire across my too-sensitive skin.
“I won’t deny that a lot of the shifters here dislike you, Sunaya, but there are others who are grateful for what you’ve done.
Most have fled Solantha or are still imprisoned, but they exist. And I’m one of them. Let me help you.”
Oh, how I wanted him to. His words were exactly what I needed to hear, his touch a balm on my overheated skin. It would be so easy to give in.
But I would never forgive myself.
“No,” I growled. Placing my palms against his chest, I shoved him, hard. He stumbled back, hitting the door, shock stamped across his handsome face. “I can’t, Nimos. I…there’s someone else.”
His expression darkened. “I thought you said there wasn’t.”
I smiled sadly at him. “I lied. And the way my life is going right now, I’m just going to keep lying to you. Stay away from me, Nimos. You’re better off without me.”
Whirling away from him, I grabbed the latch of the back window and tore it open. And before he could say anything more, I was gone.