Chapter 1

Christmas carols. On November first.

What a travesty. As far as Lana Sparks—now Freeman, she reminded herself—was concerned, the holiday season shouldn’t begin until after Thanksgiving.

Then again, everything about this holiday season was ticking her off—starting with her employer’s decision to play Christmas music too early, and leading right out to the River Walk, where every other shopkeeper and restaurant owner had decided to begin their holiday decorating.

With a strained smile, Lana accepted the check folder from the last customers in her section.

As soon as they’re out the door, I’m grabbing a glass of water and getting off my feet. I don’t care what Phil said.

The assistant manager was a dick, though—he’d probably report her to the head manager. And she couldn’t afford to lose this job. She wasn’t ready to leave San Antonio.

Not yet.

As far as she could tell, the tigers who’d kidnapped and killed her father and her mate hadn’t tracked her down here from Montana. She could stay longer.

Yeah. Stay longer. Remember how alone I am at Thanksgiving. At Christmas. Get yelled at by Phil.

She sighed and brushed away the tear that threatened to fall. It was stupid to think about all she had lost. She had to live in the moment, or she would go insane.

And right now, she could stand next to the windows open to outside seating without setting Phil off, though, and catch the air blowing into the building from the River Walk. Closing her eyes, she let the breeze flow over her.

The wind outside shifted, and a scent caught her attention. Human words didn’t exist to describe it.

Spicy? A little. Definitely familiar. Tempting.

It had been a long time since she’d smelled it.

Another tiger.

Terrifying.

But that scent was the whole reason she took a job at the restaurant with the enormous windows in the first place. Being able to smell anyone—or anything—approaching from quite some distance away was the best way she knew to stay safe.

I ought to leave. Now.

Oddly enough, though, the scent didn’t send chills up her spine, as it had in the past. Even though she’d been in hiding for some time, relocating e so often to avoid detection, this particular scent had a calming effect on her. A sense of almost relief washed across her. Might that mean that the nearby tiger was someone loyal to her father? Would that maybe make them loyal to me?

At the thought of her father, her stomach clenched. God, I miss him. Even if he and Ian’s father had manipulated the two of them into falling in love with one another. Within a few weeks, how they’d gotten together hadn’t mattered.

Sometimes she missed her father as much as she missed Ian.

Her father, the alpha of their streak, had treated her like a princess. As a result, the entire streak treated her like a princess. Her childhood was a happy one, spent in a streak that was not only prosperous but at peace. There were no warring factions within, and most of the streak members her age were great friends.

When she was twenty, he’d set her up with Ian, and pretty soon, life seemed perfect.

Then Trevor Cawyer staged a coup in the streak.

Lana never knew how Trevor accomplished it, but the entire Inner Guard had been immobilized. Lana saw it happen like a blur, right before her eyes—she and Ian had been having dinner with her father when Trevor and his cadre attacked.

She and Ian had leaped to his defense, but four large male tigers had grabbed her, held her back as she fought to reach her mate and her alpha. They made her watch as Trevor, in tiger form, slashed her father’s throat, crushed his chest and removed his heart, and tore out his entrails.

Then he turned his attention to Ian.

She heard her own screams as if they came from outside of her, from a long way away. By the time Trevor turned to her, drenched in the blood of the two men she loved most, he’d shifted to a half-tiger form and wore a smile. His eyes gleamed with satisfaction and lust.

“Cage her. Keep her for me,” he ordered the four tigers who held her.

From inside the cage, Lana watched Trevor transform to fully human. She’d never liked him—she knew her father had turned him down for a position in the Inner Guard—and she knew he was reckless and generally lacked discipline. But she’d never thought of him as evil. Not until he killed her mate and her father.

And then things got worse.

Shaking off the memory, she took the last drink from her glass of water in La Encanto. Almost time for her short, surreptitious break to end. She moved away from the window, thanking whatever gods might exist that she’d had the shaman in Arizona work with her to help her mask her own tiger scent. She allowed herself the luxury of feeling that she was safe, undetectable, even though she could no longer tell what became of the tiger’s scent from a few minutes ago.

Time to get back to work. Behind her, a chair slid across the floor. From one of her tables, a handsome, rugged man smiled at her, and unexpectedly, a rush of heat flashed through her. It was the first time since Ian’s death—almost two years ago, now—that she’d reacted to anyone that way and for an instant, she didn’t know if she was glad or angry that this man had chosen her section.

But then the scent of the tiger returned—a scent that came from him—and fear took precedence over anything else.