The Tiger's Mate: (Book 12, Grey Wolf Pack Romance Novellas) by E A Price Read Free Book Online Page A

made the cupcake; she has a bakery in town, and Esther made the stew.”
    “The she-bear?  She seems nice.  Is she part of your pack?” she asked with undisguised curiosity.
    “She is.  She’s mated to my second, Felicity.  I’m the chief enforcer of the pack.”
    Simone’s brow creased.  “Felicity, but that’s a female name.”
    Acksel leaned back in his seat and regarded her cautiously.  There were a lot of shifters even now who couldn’t accept same-sex matings.  Thankfully, his Alpha wasn’t one of them.  “She’s a female.”
    “Oh.”
    “You don’t have a problem with that?”
    “Of course not!” she said, quickly and with a little embarrassment.
    “But I take it that it’s not really accepted where you’re from.”
    He could almost feel the heat from her cheeks. In fact, he could probably warm his hands over them.  “It’s just where I’m from, there are so few female tigers that it wouldn’t be allowed.”
    Acksel grunted.  He didn’t agree with that, but he wasn’t going to argue, and she didn’t exactly say it with a lot of conviction.  Plus, she hadn’t said it, but he was now certain that she lived in a tiger pride.  Which was interesting.  There weren’t that many tiger prides around.  In nature, tigers tended to be solitary creatures.  But tiger shifters over the years have banded together more because their human sides crave companionship, and also for safety.  However, due to their animal natures, tiger prides could be quite unstable without good alphas, and were just powder kegs waiting to blow.
    Simone smiled at him.  “Tell me about you, I want to hear all about your pack,” she said, shyly.
    His wolf softened.  Talking about her pride would have to wait.
    *
    They talked for hours.  Acksel told her about his pack, the good, the bad, and the downright hilarious.  He spoke with such pride about his family and pack mates that Simone felt ashamed for the dark feelings she felt about her own pride mates.  Of course, it wasn’t true of all of them.  She had her mother, and she cared about Parker – although not in the way she was supposed to, and there were some nice females in the pride like Lauren, who weren’t cheap carbon copies of Nita.  It’s just she wasn’t proud to be part of her pride.  Which was why she was making plans to get away from there.
    Her tiger chuffed and told her that Rose seemed to be like a nice place to live.  She ignored her and instead focussed on telling Acksel about happier times with her pride.  Such as learning to hunt with Parker, Parker sitting on an anthill in his tiger form, Parker sitting on a cactus in his tiger form and Parker accidentally batting a bees’ nest in his tiger form - none of the incidents ended well.  Yes, she did have a lot of good memories growing up, particularly with Parker, even after she realized that things weren’t quite fair in her pride.  It's just that the good couldn't outweigh the bad.
    Acksel, on the other hand, was devoted to his pack and his family, even to his older brother who sounded like a nightmare.
    “You’re lucky to have such an Alpha,” she commented before she could stop herself.  Thinking such things was bad but saying them out loud was disloyal, not to mention dangerous.
    “Yeah, we weren’t so lucky with our old Alpha, he tried to kick my mom out of the pack after my dad died.”
    “Why?”
    He smiled, but it was forced.  “My mom’s human.  The old Alpha never wanted her in the pack in the first place, but she mated my dad, and my dad was the chief enforcer, and he wouldn’t back down.  The Alpha didn’t want to lose my dad, so he had to put up with my mom.”
    “But she stayed even after he… uh…” 
    “Yeah, my mom is pretty determined.  She managed to get Hans all the way through high school even though he came close to expulsion about eight times.  The last time was because he shifted into his wolf and… well, he left some steaming presents