Denying Dare by Amber Kell Read Free Book Online Page A

for death before the mutant was finished.
    Once again, his mind went to Dare. He hoped his
    sweet, gentle man passed out before his torture was
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    finished. He regretted not completing their mating bond. If
    they were properly bonded he could read his tiger's mind
    and know how he was doing. The only thing worse than
    dying in this hellhole was dying not knowing what
    happened to his mate.
    A loud roar echoed in the hall as screams filled the
    air.
    "What the hell…?" His torturer turned towards the
    doorway just as an enormous tiger ran into the room. Blood
    coated the fur so completely that if Steven hadn't known
    Dare was a white tiger before, he wouldn't have known
    then.
    The mutant turned towards the sound but it was too
    late for him. A gurgle, a crunch, and a gush of blood ended
    his existence. When it was over, the tiger leaned back on its
    haunches and licked his lips. Green eyes turned towards
    Steven.
    He froze.
    There was no humanity in that expression. His
    beautiful mate had gone feral.
    "Hello, Dare," Steven said in a soothing, singsong
    tone. "Time to come back to me. Come on, babe. Turn
    human." It was dangerous for a shifter to stay in their
    animal form too long. Especially without a mate to ground
    them. A feral shifter could stay an animal forever without
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    someone to pull them out of their wildness. He hoped they
    had enough of a bond that he could pull his lover back.
    The tiger circled Steven as if deciding what to do
    with the dangling temptation.
    "You don't want to eat me. I'm your mate,
    remember?" Maybe, if he kept talking, Dare would find his
    human half. The gorgeous weretiger should identify his
    mate, even in his current condition. Steven's greatest fear
    was that Dare would stay this way. They didn't have
    enough of a bond yet that he could force his mate's shifting.
    Maybe, if he took him back to the pack, Silver could do the
    job. It hurt that he wasn't able to pull Dare away from the
    edge of madness by himself. If he'd been a good mate all
    along, he would've been able to. This was what he got for
    rejecting the wonderful man the gods gave him and trying
    to find a wolf instead.
    Steven's heart pounded against his chest when the
    massive creature stood on its back feet. Paws the size of
    saucers planted on his shoulders. For a moment he hung
    there, face to face with a man-eating tiger. Dare smelled of
    blood and death, but he was still the most beautiful thing
    Steven had ever seen, because he was alive.
    From one breath to another, tiger shifted to man, fur
    sank into skin, and elongated pupils rounded into humanity.
    "Mate," Dare whispered, his eyes dazed from the
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    change.
    "Mate," Steven echoed in an unsteady voice. "Do
    you think you could get me down?"
    Dare looked up at the hook Steven dangled from.
    With a flexing of lean muscles, the weretiger lifted him up,
    flipping the chains off of the hook. A few minutes of
    tugging broke the links binding his wrists.
    Shock and relief coursed through Steven's body as
    he wrapped his newly freed hands around his mate. "I
    thought I'd lost you."
    "Never gonna happen," Dare said, holding him
    tight. "I'll always come back to you." He looked around as
    he released his hold on Steven. "We should see if we can
    find any clues. That is the reason we came here in the first
    place."
    "There's a lab coat." Steven said pointing to a coat
    draped across a chair.
    "Find my nakedness distracting, do you?"
    "Always."
    Despite the blood caked across his face and
    splashed across his body, Dare was still the most beautiful
    thing Steven had ever seen. "Best get dressed or we won't
    find any clues."
    He got a brilliant smile before the man slipped on
    the lab coat and proceeded to help search the warehouse.
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    Like the one where Anthony was shot, there were no clues.
    "Maybe we're going about this the wrong way,"
    Dare mused.
    "Yeah, what