Page 5 of Ignited

“Shut up.” His brother was talking about Madison Fontaine, who’d come to Outlaw Ridge a couple of months ago. Sure, Boomer thought she was pretty, and would have been okay with there being something between them. Nothing serious, because he wasn’t the mating kind, but maybe some good times.

Only, for some unknown reason she’d fallen for Sanchez—primo tracker and asshole. If it wasn’t so funny watching Sanchez the perpetually surly woman-hater going all googly-eyed over a bunny shifter, it would have been really annoying.

Maybe it still was.

“She’s not my type,” he said automatically. “I like them tough.”

His eyes returned to the corkboard, to the white tiger. Sometimes you were a hero, and you still didn’t get the girl. Hell, you never even found out if saving her made a damn bit of difference.

His brother, who knew him so well he could fucking read his mind, said, “Sometimes it’s better not knowing.”

“Maybe it is.” But apparently he still wanted to know. Or else, why would he still be dreaming about her?

Boomer said, “So, you want to go down to the road house tonight? Hunt for townie chicks?”

His brother shook his head. “Not tonight. When I finish here, I’m going running.”

He meant his wolf needed out, needed to roam the forest and hunt and probably kill shit.

“Want some company?”

Bro shook his head again. “Not tonight.”

“You are pissed.”

“Just leave it.”

His brother got that look—the one that meant his head was going to a place even Boomer wasn’t allowed to follow. He was getting it more often lately, and he was having more and more days when his wolf was too wild for him to go on duty—or do anything human.

Turning back to the workbench, Boomer went on sharpening his tools while his brother cleaned weapons. Bro finished first, and left without saying another word.

When Boomer turned around, he saw his own weapons lying on the table with his brother’s, cleaned and oiled.

So Bro wasn’t really pissed at him. But Boomer still had a hollow in the pit of his stomach. His brother was going farther and farther away from him, and he didn’t know how to stop it.

He’d been there Boomer’s whole life, looking out for him. What the hell would he do if he lost his brother for good?

The corkboard full of photos suddenly seemed to be mocking him. All those people—and yet, he couldn’t figure out how to save the ones who mattered the most.

Chapter 3

Karisma, white tiger shifter, stood in the center of the fight ring, the referee holding her hand up in triumph.

The announcer’s voice thundered from the microphone. “The winnah and undefeated cham-peen, Karisma the Siberian Tiger Queen!”

The crowd, a raucous group of bloodthirsty backwoods Adirondack bubbas, roared and whistled in drunken appreciation—or in drunken outrage, if they’d been rooting for her now-unconscious opponent.

She stared them down. No smiling and waving for her—she didn’t fucking care if they loved her or hated her. She didn’t even care if she won.

Okay, yeah, she cared about that a little. Who didn’t like winning? But mostly what she felt was relief.

She didn’t fight because she liked it; she didn’t even fight for the money. She needed these fights. Without them—without the adrenalin, the aggression, the blood and the pain—her tiger would burst through the tiny bit of control Karisma had over her.

And then there they’d be, in the fucking Adirondack wilderness, romping in the snow and killing deer for dinner, for however long her tiger decided it would be fun. Maybe forever.

That thought sent a chill through her whole body. Been there, done that—trapped in her tiger. Never wanted to do it again.

And that meant getting rid of the last of the magic that was poisoning her system, keeping her animal crazy. It meant getting back what had been taken from her all those years ago.