Page 36 of Catch a Tiger

Oh, the second was going to challenge the alpha? Mylo actually could too, which was why these arguments were always so entertaining.

“You’re the one who left her up there in the bathroom alone,” Sammy growled, his eyes flashing gold. “What makes you think she won’t come down here to kill us all?”

“Because she’sdesperateto have you wash her hair.” Mylo actually rolled his eyes and crossed the study to sit at his desk. “She asked me if she did something wrong when I snarled at her.I highly doubt she’s going to do anything that might make you angry, Samuel. At least not intentionally.”

Something had happened between the second and their mate. Rune could sense it no matter how tightly Mylo tried to lock it down tight. His scent was almost sterile again and Rune fucking hated when he did that, even if it was handy.

He wished he could do that.

“I don’t think she will either,” Sammy muttered, flopping down in one of the armchairs scattered across the room to give them a nice view of the forest all around them.

Three walls of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and the fourth was nothing but glass, which gave them enough soft, winter light to see by without turning on any of the lamps.

Rune watched the trees, twirling his hair-tie like she had that feather and wondered what their little mate was up to…

The sound of water splashing made him lick his lips as he wondered what she looked like under those tight, white clothes.

Clothes that told him she wasn’t as feral as his human brain wanted him to believe.

“It was like her personality did a one-eighty the second she saw me,” Sammy said, interrupting Rune’s thoughts. “It was disarming how easily she read me. She always kept her head or eyes lower than mine, and every fucking thing she did pleased my tiger.”

Rune’s tiger wasn’t just pleased, he wasecstatic.

This mate was their missing piece and it looked like she might fit in better with them than he could have ever hoped.

“She’s very good at that,” Mylo agreed, pulling his new tablet toward him and staring at the screen.

Rune focused his attention on the second and pulled his hair up into a ponytail, ignoring the pieces that fell out and got into his eyes as he listened to Mylo’s pulse, his breathing, and eventhe way his eyes stayed on the tablet despite not actually reading what was on there.

Their psychotic little mate had done something to halt Mylo’s spiral into chaos and death.

What could have made him settle so much in such a short amount of time?

“What we saw in that forest could be situational,” Sammy mused as he slowly spun the ring on his thumb around and around. “Angels could trigger her. It’s not a foreign concept considering we all have our own triggers.”

Unfortunately, Rune’s didn’t have to be as specific as Sammy’s, or even Mylo’s. If no one touched Mylo aside from them, he’d be fine. Well, fine as long as Rune was fine. He lost whatever semblance of sanity he had the moment Rune did.

Sammy’s trigger wasn’t just incredibly specific, but it was also rare.

Though hearing their mate go on and on about the value of names made him wonder if she’d been put on this earth just to torture his alpha.

Rune liked torture though…he was almost as good at taking it as he was at giving it.

“Why do you think she assumed I was going to steal from her?” Sammy asked, eyeing him and Mylo like he could sense their attention was upstairs.

“Does it matter?” Mylo asked, pushing his glasses up his nose to focus on their alpha. “I doubt it’s actually that significant.”

“Disagree.” Rune crossed his arms over his chest when both of them looked at him in surprise. “Was I the only one listening to her talk to that angel?”

Sammy narrowed his eyes, the wordless command to explain obvious even to him, and Rune rolled his eyes. It really wasn’t that hard to just fucking ask.

“She told the angel his brother took her which implies there is another angel, but a higher rank considering how disappointed she was by his regiment,” Rune reminded them.

It was second nature to file interesting and useful information away, especially on a species no one really knew anything about. Not even the Collector had ever been able to get his hands on an angel.

“Then she said she was going to steal everything from him, just like he stoleeverythingfrom her.” He eyed the violent black lines swirling up his forearms as he considered what that could mean. “I think what we should actually be worried about isn’t a raven assassin with golden eyes who hunts angels, but the fact that she believes this angel will eventually come looking for her.”

Maybe if he asked super, super nice, she’d give him one of those special blades and he could take apart an angel. Would she let him help her? Rune rocked back on his heels so he didn’t run right up those stairs to ask her.

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