Page 57 of Catch a Tiger

“I don’t…” Samuel trailed off, keeping his voice low. “I don’t know if you should be doing this, Mylo.”

“Worried she’ll kill me?” Mylo hoped she would. Violence he understood. Not…this. This need to bury his face in her neck, to rub his cheek against hers and mark her with his scent…to feel her silky hair against his bare skin while those awful eyes of hers stared into his soul.

“The opposite,” Samuel admitted. “What if she reaches for you?”

Unfortunately, he wanted her to.

As if his thoughts had slipped into her dreams, his kitten rolled over and threw her arm around his neck, pulling herself into him with a soft sigh.

Mylo froze as he processed the sensation of her hand on his bare chest, the back of it, like she didn’t want to claw him up even in her sleep. It rested against the scar where they’d cracked open his chest while he was still conscious, and he felt…

Nothing.

Perhaps notnothing, but there was no urge to kill her.

Bloody hell, what was shedoingto him?

Carefully, he slid his arm under her head so she’d have a pillow. Then he wrapped his other arm around her body just to hold her as he rubbed his chin against the silky hair on her head. His little kitten took that as an invitation to throw her leg overboth of his, snuggling even closer and her purr managed to get even louder – enough to wake the dead.

An ache he’d forgotten even existed eased up just a little though.

Then something even more disturbing happened. A little rumble escaped him, and Mylo realized his tiger was purring.

He stiffened, not sure if he could do this.

The thought of leaving her in here alone sickened him though, and Mylo discovered he was well and truly stuck.

Being forced to confront the truth was extremely unpleasant. He didn’t hate when she touched him. Mylo didn’t justlikeit either, he couldn’t get enough of it.

The urge to slide his hand around her throat rose once more, but it wasn’t to choke the life from her. No, he wanted to hold it tight as he pressed her into the bed and fucked her until her body was covered in his scent.

If he fucked her hard enough, would his scent fade or would it become a part of the blood pulsing in her veins? Then his teeth started to ache as he wondered what her blood would taste like. Would it tell him everything her missing scent couldn’t?

“You’re okay, Mylo,” his alpha’s deep voice promised. Familiar strength brushed against the back of his neck and that warm hand eased some of the urges and instincts incessantly pushing and pulling at him. “You’re allowed to want this.”

Holding her tighter, Mylo ignored the strange ache in his throat as he considered those words.

Want what exactly? A normal life? How laughable. There was no normal for him and he wouldn’t want it even if he could have it. But this kitten wasn’t normal, was she? No, she was a soulless killer who had the audacity to lie in his arms and purr.

Who had somehow madehimpurr.

The urge to fuck her didn’t ease, but it became background noise when he found himself sliding his fingers through her longhair again. He couldn’t scent the mate bond at all, but there was still a pull to her he desperately wanted to deny.

His entire center of gravity had changed without his permission.

Mylo fucking hated it—hatedhereven as he held her close to make sure she was warm enough – to make sure she wasn’t alone and scared as she slept in a strange place reeking of humanity.

“I don’t like this,” he confessed into her hair, so quietly he wondered if Samuel could even hear him. “It’s dangerous…too unpredictable.”

Mylo didn’t know how to hold himself together when she kept pulling him apart – giving him a different north and fucking up the compass he’d been using for so long…

He’d tethered his life to Rune’s and had used him as his anchor ever since Mylo had ripped through one of the Collector’s warehouses and found Rune there with a silver collar around his neck and the kind of scar that had told him he’d worn it for most of his life.

Rune was the one who’d managed to bring back enough sanity that Mylo had ended his quest for blood.Runewas the one who’d finally made him give in to the alpha urge they’d forced to take root and bloom.

Taking care of another person had never been a desire of his until he’d found that mistreated and neglected creature in a silver collar much too small for him. Not until now at least.

But this shift within him was happening too fast. It made him feel like he’d never find north again when all the stars in the sky were spinning and spinning until he feltsick.

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