He frowned when Xias’s gaze darted to the far corner of the cave. When he glanced over, he didn’t immediately see anything, but he knew something had to be there. Xias kept looking in that direction when he thought Zhuang wasn’t watching.
Zhuang sniffed the air. The room was saturated with the smell of sex and cum, not to mention Xias’s pheromones, which smelled delicious. But there were underlying scents, three of them, that took him a moment to figure out.
His gaze snapped back to Xias. “You have cubs?”
Xias zipped across the cave faster than Zhuang would have thought the little man could move. He shifted back to his leopard form and crouched down, a low growl rolling across the room.
Zhuang’s eyes narrowed. “You think I would hurt a cub?”
He didn’t know whether to be angry or insulted. He had done a lot of things in this life that he wished he hadn’t, but harming a cub wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t a good man by any stretch of the imagination, but there were some lines not even he would cross. Harming a cub might actually be at the top of things he wouldn’t do.
Xias was still crouched on the floor of the cave when he shifted back. “I don’t know you.”
Okay, he had a point.
Zhuang squatted down until he was eye level with Xias. He was still reeling from the fact that he had claimed a mate. That had never been a part of his life plan, not that there really was any sort of plan. He usually just kind of played things by ear. Granted, he had always wanted a mate. He just never thought he’d have one.
“I would never harm a cub.” He held up his hand when Xias opened his mouth. “I know you have no reason to believe me, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”
“Why should I believe you?” Xias asked. “Even their sire wants them dead. You’re an alpha just like him. Why should you be any different?”
Zhuang growled as a rolling anger swept over him. “Their sire wants to kill them?”
Xias’s beautiful green eyes flooded with tears. “He wants to kill two of them, the girls. He says they are useless because they are girls. He only wants the boy.”
“I’ll kill him before I allow him to harm a hair on their heads.” Zhuang fisted his hands. “Those are my cubs now.”
Xias tilted his head curiously.
Zhuang sighed. “I am a Siberian tiger.”
“I know.”
“Siberian tigers, once they find their mate, claim them during sex.”
Xias just sat there as if waiting for Zhuang to say more.
Zhuang felt the need to growl.
He didn’t.
“When we claim our mate, it causes us to knot them. We only ever knot our true mates.”
Zhuang frowned as he watched the blood drain out of Xias’s face. The terror that filled his beautiful green eyes concerned him greatly. This should be a time of great celebration, not fear.
What was going on here?
“Xias?”
“He’ll kill you,” Xias whispered. Tears started to trickle down his pale cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to… I’d never… I didn’t know.”
“Snow leopards don’t mate that way?”
“Snow leopards don’t have true mates.”
Zhuang reared back. “Of course they do. Every shifter does.”
Xias shook his head. “Our alpha decides who mates with who.”
