Sherry’s bottom hit the top of the low wine refrigerator as Kyter suddenly vaulted the black bar that ran almost the entire length of one wall of Underworld. She quickly set down the cloth she had been using to dry the last of the glasses and rushed forwards, running down the narrow walkway behind the bar and reaching the end just as Kyter hauled the stranger off his knees and onto his feet, and landed a hard right hook across his jaw.
The big guy growled through the thick black beard covering the lower half of his face and hit the wall close to her, slid down it and landed on his butt on the tacky floor.
“Kyter,” Sherry snapped, but her boss wasn’t listening.
His eyes glowed golden in the low light as he stalked towards the man, muscles tense beneath his white dress shirt, coiled in readiness.
She looked down at the newcomer.
The poor bastard wasn’t in any shape to fight, had shocked her when she had seen him dragging himself into the club. At first, she had figured him for a local homeless drunk, with his wild shaggy black hair that brushed his nape, ragged thick beard, and his lack of clothes, but the way her boss had reacted told her he was something else.
Another cat shifter.
Kyter often lost his shit when male shifters came into the club unannounced and uninvited.
Apparently it was a territory thing.
Sherry didn’t think this man was here to fight Kyter for his perceived territory though.
Blood covered his bare chest, outlining some of the hard compact muscles and concealing the rest. It drenched his left arm from the elbow down too, and had stuck his loose black cotton trousers to his left thigh.
The man lifted amber eyes to lock with Kyter’s golden ones and bared his fangs on a snarl.
Kyter didn’t back off.
He grabbed the man by his throat, pulled him up the wall and punched him again, bristling with aggression as he growled right in the man’s face and bared his own emerging fangs.
“Kyter!” She would keep shouting his damned name until she got through to him or her voice gave out. “Kyter!”
He still refused to heed her and she flinched as he went to town on the poor bastard, hitting him with a low blow to his stomach that had fresh blood rolling down his hip and a pained growl leaving his lips. The man sagged but Kyter held him up, shoved harder against his throat.
Something inside Sherry snapped, and she lifted the section of bar in front of her, driven to intervene, but stopped dead when the injured man roared.
A wave of prickles rushed down her spine and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as her heart thundered in response to that feral and wild sound.
In a move she couldn’t track, he launched Kyter across the room, sending her boss slamming into the wall. Kyter hit the deck but was on his feet a heartbeat later, launching back at the newcomer.
What had him so damned intent on killing the bastard?
Was the man a jaguar too?
Normally when Kyter got pissy because another cat shifter had come into the club, he managed to hold himself together and keep his irritation to a series of low growls and death glares, and the odd kicking out.
There had been one time when he had really lost his shit though, had ended up in a brawl that had emptied the busy club.
That time, it had been a fellow jaguar that had rolled in.
The injured man caught Kyter as he tackled him and wrestled with him, his muscles bunching and bulging as he strained against Kyter and fought to subdue him. A low growl curled from his lips as he got the upper hand.
Kyter snarled right back and pushed harder, managed to twist his right arm free and smash his fist into the man’s face.
The man staggered towards Sherry, going down the whole time, and she flinched as his face smacked off the end of the bar and he ended up in a tangled heap on the floor, his left arm hooked through the legs of one of the bar stools.
Kyter was on him in the blink of an eye, pounding his chest and face with hard blows. The man roared and bucked up, closed his fist around the stool and swung it at Kyter’s head.
Her boss grunted as it impacted, fell to his left and rolled onto his feet. Blood trickled down from a gash above his right eyebrow, dripping into his eye and onto his cheek. He growled and swiped his hand across it, and was on the other man before she could even attempt to track his movements.
The man flew past her and crashed into the wall just ten foot from her, leaving a huge dent in the black plaster. He landed on his face and lay there, so still she was sure he was dead.
Kyter prowled towards him, clearly convinced that he wasn’t and determined to finish him off.
He had to be another jaguar.
The man twitched and then he was gone, leaped clear just as Kyter landed where he had been.
Her gaze zipped to the man and her blue eyes widened as beautiful amber fur striped with thick black bands rippled over his bare chest and down his arms.
Not a jaguar.
A tiger.
He growled, bearing huge canines.
Kyter twisted and leaped again, springing across the gap to land on the man’s chest. The man caught him and they went down hard in a tangle of limbs. She winced again as Kyter managed to get on top and landed a solid left hook that snapped the tiger’s head around and made his teeth clack together so hard she heard them.
The big tiger snarled and shook his head, and she had the terrible feeling that he was going to pass out.
Or die.
She couldn’t let him die.
That sensation went through her like a thunderclap, lighting her up inside with a weird sort of energy, a need that drove her to obey it.
Tiger rolled and got the upper hand on Kyter for all of a second.
Her boss pressed his feet into the man’s stomach and kicked, sending him sailing through the air again. She squeezed her eyes shut as he hit the bar, bending backwards over it, and barked out a pained whimper before collapsing on the floor and scattering several bar stools.
Kyter dragged a hand over his wild sandy hair and advanced.
Tiger didn’t move.
She had to do something.
Her boss was going to kill him if she kept standing back and let things continue.
That lightning arced through her again, that dangerous need that demanded she obey it.
She had to protect the tiger.
Aware that she might get hurt, that placing herself between two cat shifters was madness and beyond a risky move, she swiftly rounded the bar, because she was equally as aware she had to save the tiger.
That only she could save him.
Kyter snarled and swung at the male, his claws cutting through the air.
Sherry leaped between them, splaying her arms out at her sides to block his path to the tiger.
She flinched away, heart rocketing, blood pounding and dizziness setting in as she struggled not to pass out from the fear that blasted through her, fear that this was the end and defending the tiger had just got her killed instead of him.
The expected blow didn’t come.
She slowly cracked her eyes open and they widened as she saw Kyter’s extended claws in the corner of her field of vision.
Her boss stood just inches from her, breathing so hard she thought the buttons of his white shirt might pop off at any moment. His golden eyes glowed in the dim light from behind the bar, drilling into her with a question, a demand to know what had possessed her and made her leap between him and the tiger.
She wasn’t sure.
She just hadn’t been able to stand idle any longer, letting him fight when he was wounded, weak from his injuries. It wasn’t fair, and he hadn’t done anything to deserve such a brutal attack from her boss.
Sherry backed off a step, moving one closer to the tiger, but maintained her pose, blocking Kyter’s way to the man.
Kyter huffed and eased back a step too, and raked long fingers through his hair as he breathed hard, clearly fighting the urge to get at the tiger and take him down.
“Reining it in.” He held his hands up at his sides when she continued to watch him, and even went as far as moving back another two steps.
He muttered something under his breath and began pacing. She had seen Kyter do that enough times to know to give him space. He had a habit of working off energy by pacing.
It was a cat thing.
She had seen their resident snow leopard shifter, Cavanaugh, use the same trick when his mate had wound him up or someone had dared to look at her.
Sherry looked over her shoulder at the tiger where he knelt behind her, doubled over and clutching his stomach, his black head bent so she couldn’t see his face.
She had the feeling he hadn’t wandered here by mistake, and hadn’t come looking for a fight.
She had a feeling that he was looking for salvation.
Protection.
He lifted his head and she sucked in a breath as bright amber eyes met hers and heat curled through her, a fire that only grew in intensity as a low growl curled from his bloodstained lips.
The club whooshed past her and she gasped as she flew backwards. She stumbled and grunted as the hand suddenly clamped around her right wrist hauled her upwards again, jerking her forwards and slamming her into a broad masculine back.
Kyter.
He held her behind him, shielding her with his body.
Why?
She hadn’t been in danger.
Not physical danger anyway.
She was no cat shifter but she had the undeniable sensation that growl hadn’t been a show of aggression.
It had been a show of possession.
A sign that even in his weakened state, knocking on Death’s door, this mysterious tiger shifter wanted her.
Sherry eased out of Kyter’s shadow, curiosity seizing control of her, filling her with a need to see the tiger. “What do you want?”
Those stunning amber eyes locked on her again, startling in their intensity. They seemed to brighten, glowing gold in their centres as he studied her. He wanted her. It was right there in his eyes for her to read, unmistakeable and undeniable.
Kyter snagged his attention again by moving a step forwards.
Tiger bristled, growling and snapping huge fangs, and then a flash of regret crossed his handsome rough face when Kyter huffed and folded his arms across his chest. The man shrank back, eased onto his butt on the floor and slumped wearily against the black bar.
When his chin dropped and his shoulders trembled, she lowered her eyes to his chest and the wounds that littered it, and then continued downwards to his stomach. The gash that darted across it was deep, still dripping blood.
“Who did this to you?” she whispered.
