Worth It - Lisa Oliver Page 0,22

tiger’s eye and caught a load of those huge fangs and did what any self-respecting god would do. He disappeared away from the lot of them, translocating back to his office on his realm.

“Phew.” Leaning one hand on the desk, Zeus stopped to catch his breath. “That could’ve been awkward. Being stuck with a mate for eternity would suck big time. There’s no way I’m letting that happen to me. Ha.” Zeus straightened himself, and then froze as an unfamiliar rumble sounded behind him.

I won’t look. I won’t look. The rumble got closer. Zeus turned, bracing himself against the edge of his desk and found himself face to face with a tiger. Big. White with gold stripes. Eyes the same color as Paulie’s. A long ruby pendant hung from its neck. And fangs – six-inch-long fangs that glistened under the light. Zeus wanted to hunch his shoulders, protect his neck. Maybe the whole ‘no hard-on for anyone else’ won’t work in this case because Paulie’s only half shifter...

He was about to find out, because without invitation, the tiger gave a little half-jump, thumping his giant paws on Zeus’s shoulders. Zeus staggered under the weight, and he wasn’t small in his godly form. He smelled something sweet, something long forgotten that called to every cell in his body, and then the furry head descended, and there was a split second of searing pain where his shoulders met his neck.

“Lightning bolts and fucking thunder.” Zeus roared to the ceiling as the pain from the bite morphed into the most erotic pleasure he’d ever felt in his entire existence, flooding his body. I’m coming! And he was, all over the front of his robe. After a long moment, with Zeus’s body still shuddering from his epic orgasm, the tiger carefully withdrew his fangs, and Zeus felt the sandpaper rasp of a large tongue licking up his neck.

You’re mine, whether you like it or not, his mate’s voice whispered through his brain, and Zeus trembled as his balls pulsed and emptied for a second time.

What a rush.

The tiger didn’t linger, however. He barely made a sound as his front paws dropped down to the ground. There was a look, Zeus would swear it was sadness, that crossed the tiger’s face, but the body started to shimmer. Zeus watched, waiting to see Paulie’s human form appear, but it didn’t. In a spark of particles and light, the tiger disappeared.

“What the hell?” Zeus checked the office, but it was empty. “Was it something I said?”

/~/~/~/~/

“No, no, no, no, no.” Paulie looked around long enough to ensure he was in his apartment, and then buried his head in his arms, horrified, mortified at what they’d just done. And it was ‘they’. Paulie wasn’t the type to blame his animal half for something he was equally responsible for. His tiger had done a few silly things in the past – broken furniture, scared the odd dog – but this, this was far worse.

“We’ve claimed a god,” Paulie wailed. “A living, breathing god who could kill us in a heartbeat. Didn’t you hear him? He didn’t want to be mated to us. He didn’t want…” The pain Paulie felt at Zeus’s callous words spiked his heart again, and he sobbed, knowing his life would never be the same again.

Rejection had always been a part of his life. Paulie never knew why his mother was so insistent on having a child year after year, but she kept on doing it. Once they were born, his mom cared for the newborn for all of five minutes, before she was off on the prowl for the next would-be father. One by one, as the kids got older, they were kicked out of her home, and maybe Paulie had known one day it would be his turn, but it didn’t make the hurt any less.

And now his mate had rejected him too.

Paulie wasn’t sure how long he cried, but as his sobbing finally slowed, his mind started working and the random good fortune he’d gotten when meeting Cass and Wes nine months before suddenly made sense.

Somehow, Zeus had seen him – as a god, Paulie wasn’t sure how that was possible, but it made sense to him that gods could ‘see’ things. Zeus saw him, recognized him as a mate, although Paulie wasn’t sure how that happened either, and then, rather than make himself known to Paulie, had sent Cass and Wes to save him during a rather dark moment, and had ensured