Chapter One
Five years later…
Misty Antone ran into the door.
She hadn’t been walking very briskly, and in defense of the door, it was trying to slide out of her way, so when she hit it with her phone, it was nothing more than a soft bonk, and a moment of startlement.
Good grief, her shift at the hospital had been eternal, and she’d come back to her phone with a dozen messages she needed to catch up on. Her family drama was on maximum setting lately, and for some stupid reason, they always thought she was the one who needed to patch things up.
She waited for the door to finish sliding open, then gave a smile and a nod to another nurse who was coming in for her shift.
Misty didn’t know her very well, so they were still at the polite smile-and-nod stage of things.
At least this time, Misty bothered to read her nametag.
Brittany. She looked like a Brittany. How did moms do that?
How did they know their kids would look like a Brittany, or a Michael, or a Kevin when they grew up?
She herself had never thought she looked much like a Misty.
Maybe she would change her name. She was sure there was a way.
She would have to do an internet search about it—oof.
She ran directly into a guy in the parking lot.
He was rushing toward the emergency room doors, and she hadn’t even registered him running around the corner.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured, holding her hands out.
Gah, she was really tired. She’d worked three long shifts in a row and now had a couple of days off. Thank goodness. She needed the rest. Tonight’s shift had been rough.
“It’s fine,” the guy ground out, and hurried inside.
He was probably worried over whoever was in that emergency room.
She didn’t take much personally inside the walls of that hospital.
No one was themselves in there. Everyone was running on worry if they were a patient, fear if they were a loved one of a patient, and if you were a nurse like her, well…
you were running on bravado and a patient bedside manner to settle the nerves of patients while sometimes not honestly knowing if you could help them.
She couldn’t wait to transfer out of the emergency room.
Okay, her brain was on a journey right now, and she knew what this was.
It was exhaustion. She needed to go home, peel these scrubs off, shower the hospital germs off her skin, water her plants, and try to put the day away as she heated up a leftover dinner and dressed in her biggest, most comfortable sweats.
And then she needed to veg out in front of a mindless show and do her best not to message Chris back.
Gah, how long was she going to be broken up about him?
She was so ready for her stupid heart to move on already.
The parking lot was quiet, and this part always creeped her out. She’d learned years ago to be aware when walking out to her car, even if it was in her own driveway.
She smiled politely at one of the doctors walking in for a shift and pulled a pocketknife from her purse.
It was enormous, but it wasn’t overdoing it.
She’d learned hard lessons about not carrying weapons.
Sometimes really messed up things happened out of the blue, and for no reason at all.
Things that didn’t make sense, no matter how many times she went over it in her mind.
Misty flicked open the blade and shoved her phone into the open zipper of her purse, so she had both hands free to defend herself if necessary.
Would she ever get over the fear of parking lots? Probably not. Chris used to walk her out of the hospital but now he was busy walking one of the other nurses out of here.
Gah, men were awful.
She gripped the handle of the knife tighter as she made it past the first row of cars to the second.
She could see her Maxima now. She always backed in, so she could get out of the parking lot faster and safer.
She saw her reflection in the newly washed black paint of the front end as she walked around to the driver’s side.
When she rounded her car, she saw him.
She flinched hard and swallowed down a scream as she jammed her knife out.
The man sat hunched over, his black hoodie covering his arms and his head. His face was downcast.
“Get away from my car!” she barked out, backing away a few more paces.
“I need help,” he uttered in this gritty voice that sounded hoarse, like he’d been yelling.
Her years of nursing had made her sensitive to the smell of blood, and she could smell it thick in the air here.
She cast her eyes to the puddle of crimson on the concrete under where he was sitting.
“The hospital is right back there. Walk,” she demanded.
“Can’t,” he said, his voice sounding weak.
“Why not?” she barked out, checking her surroundings. Was he playing bait while someone else readied to attack her?
There was a streak of movement a few rows of cars over, and she jumped and yelped, aiming the knife in that direction.
She knew what this was. She needed to get back to the hospital.
“Don’t run,” the guy said in that strange voice of his.
“Fuck you,” she murmured, backing away from the blur of movement she’d seen.
“They’re not here for you.” He lifted his face and she froze at the molten gold color of his eyes. “They’re here for me.”
“Who…who are you?”
“I can’t keep you safe like this. I need help.” He winced and dropped his gaze. “They won’t give us much more time. It smells like blood. It’ll draw them in.”
“Draw who in?” she yelled.
“You know who.” He lifted those unnaturally glowing eyes to her again.
Rage consumed her. “I spent years trying to convince people of what happened to me, and you just show up like this. Here to finish me off? To tie up loose ends? Here to kill the witness?”
“Lady, I can barely lift my arm. I’m hurt.
It’s bad. I don’t even know if you can save me.
” His voice cracked, and he winced. A gush of blood trickled to the cement.
“I’m going to pass out soon and then we are both sitting ducks.
You want to live? Put me in your car, take me somewhere safe, stitch me the fuck up, and pray they don’t find us before I heal. ”
“And if I don’t?”
“You die. I’m halfway there.”
“I will drive you up to the door of the hospital.”
He rolled his glowing eyes closed and heaved a sigh. “Whatever you want.”
Terror had her shaking so badly, and adrenaline pumped through her veins as she unlocked her car and opened the back door.
The stranger tried to help. She could tell. He was halfway in the car before he passed out and went limp. He dropped like a sack of stones. He was bleeding badly. It was all over her forearms. God, what had happened to him?
She grabbed a towel she kept in her car and in a rush, she spread it out as best she could.
Fear was making her panic. She just knew the monsters were going to get her while she was vulnerable and leaned into this car.
Misty set the knife on the floorboard and half-dragged, half-shoved the limp man in the back of her car.
She was insane! What the hell was she doing? She should call 911 or drive herself to the hospital entrance and ask Chris for help, or any of the doctors, or security! Yeah, she could get security.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she prepared to drag him out of her car. “I want to live.”
But this strange sensation washed through her as he rolled over and she got her first full view of his face.
She froze with recognition.
It was him.
He had more facial scruff on his jaw now, and the angles of his face were sharper, but that was him.
That was the man from that day five years ago.
The day she’d been attacked.
He’d saved her.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” she chanted mindlessly and began shoving him bodily into her car again.
What the hell was happening? She hadn’t imagined him! He was here, bleeding in her arms!
“Come on,” she gritted out, using all of her nurse strength to shove him in. Damn he was heavy. He was huge, six foot four at least with muscle packed on his body. It was like shoving a boat into her back seat.
She hadn’t imagined it. She hadn’t imagined it!
And that meant the blurred motion outside was coming for her. Again!
She bent his legs, muttered, “Sorry, bro,” and grabbed the knife, then shoved the door closed. It was hard because his body wasn’t in there well, but the panic was heightening.
She knew what was after him, or her, or whatever was happening. They existed. The tiger men.
Everyone in her life was wrong. She hadn’t made it up or had a mental snap.
Tiger shifters existed.
And they were here.
Struggling to drag air into her tight lungs, she swallowed down a scream as the air felt heavy and her instincts told her that the monster was close.
She yanked her door open and slammed it, only the door didn’t close. To Misty’s absolute horror, a huge paw had slipped in and was reaching for her.
With a scream, she dropped the knife and grabbed the door handle with both hands, trying to pull it closed, and pinning the tiger’s arm there as she struggled to stay out of its swiping reach.
Outside the window, the face of her nightmares was there.
Big dark orange head with the black stripes.
He didn’t even look like a wild tiger. There were too many stripes, and his round, gold eyes held a human understanding that was terrifying.
She was screaming, and her hands were slipping from the handle, and then there was a weight over her shoulder. It was heavy. A blur of motion blasted in front of her face and the knife she’d dropped slammed into the paw.
The stranger was awake. Fire in his eyes, he told her, “Drive!” as he dragged that blade straight through the tiger’s paw.
A roar sounded and the arm of the tiger flinched back, giving her room to close the door.
She hit the lock and fumbled to turn on the automatic start button as something hit the side of the car hard.
“Fucking drive, lady,” the man said, his weight half on her.
“Give me space!” she yelled as she struggled to reach under him to switch the gears to drive.
He didn’t respond though because he was freaking passed out again.
“Shit!” she yelled as she maneuvered the gear shift to drive and hit the gas. The back end of her car spun out as she cranked the steering wheel hard.
There was no stopping at the front of the hospital and asking for help for this guy.
He wasn’t even human. What could they do for him?
It would be a spectacle, and he would pass away before they figured out what the hell to do.
She could just imagine the news, the reporting, the misinformation.
The statements they would want from her, and she’d only just recovered her life.
He’d saved her and she owed him. Just this once, she owed him.
“Hold on, mister,” she gritted out as she blasted out of the parking lot.
She looked in the rearview mirror, but the tiger wasn’t following them.
This stranger had maimed its paw. She’d seen what he’d done with that knife. It would be a gruesome injury and hard to walk on, much less run.
She’d always known she wasn’t safe. Not really. She’d just had this feeling all these years that the hunt wasn’t over.
She’d felt hunted the entire time, and now she was realizing that her instincts had all been right.
She glanced at the guy laying over the console, taking up her whole damn car, and knew her time was so limited. She needed to work on him quickly, and she knew just the place.
Misty needed to save him so he could answer her questions.
She needed to know everything.