Page 9 of Ignited

Cisco’s glance fell on the phone in Boomer’s hand.

“Damn. They got a new fighter at The Wild Side? She’s hot.”

“You’ve been to this place?” Boomer asked.

“A few times. Not when she was fighting, though. She’s new.” He looked admiringly at the photo. “I’d naked wrestle with her anytime. She’s the kind of woman who could just hold you down and suck your dick dry.”

“Fuck, Cisco,” Boomer said, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Did you have to? Now I can’t unsee that in my mind, and it’s fucking disturbing. I’m gonna have to get one of those psychic white wolves to erase my brain.” But he was still staring at the picture.

She was wearing some kind of tank top that left her muscled shoulders bare, and a sparkly jewel was stuck to her skin in the hollow between her collarbones. She had a half-smile on her face that said she would fuck with you if she got the chance, just for fun. And that she was afraid of nothing.

Boomer felt like his insides were frozen. It couldn’t be her. The odds against it were astronomical.

But those eyes…

Boomer’s brother leaned casually on the bar and said to Cisco, “Any shifters in these fights?” Because he knew where Boomer’s mind had gone. In his world, there was only one Siberian tiger.

Cisco shrugged. “Some. Not openly, though. A quarter of them, maybe? The house cleans up on the ignorant humans in the crowd betting against skinny little shifters in the fights and losing.” He cocked his head at Boomer and the flyer in his hand. “You think she’s a real tiger? I’d for sure naked wrestle her then.”

“Jeez, Cisco, stop.” But Boomer wasn’t really paying attention. Something was fizzing up inside him—excitement, anticipation, something else he couldn’t even name. “I’m going to go check it out. Tomorrow night.” He turned to his brother. “You in?”

But it was Cisco who answered, despite the fact he hadn’t been invited. “Hell, yeah. Me and Matéo got nothing to do tomorrow night.”

The Sanchez brothers had been forced to learn to entertain themselves after their cousin got mated with Madison the bunny shifter and stopped telling them what to do all the time. They kind of sucked at it.

Boomer was still looking at his brother. “I’m in,” he said with a sigh. “Superior balls, great responsibility.” Cisco looked confused. Boomer slapped his brother on the back.

“We’re just going to see a fight,” he said. “What could possibly go wrong?”

His brother snorted. “You’ve said that before.”

Chapter 5

The next night, Boomer let his brother drive on the way over to the fight club. Bro liked to be in control, and Boomer’s head was too crazy for him to pay attention on the dark country roads around the Ridge.

Cisco and Matéo drove separately, going ahead so he and Bro could follow, even though they knew his brother would lose them deliberately. Which he had.

Boomer barely noticed. He was stuck in the past—reliving it in a way he hadn’t in years, except sometimes at night in those damn dreams.

He swiped his thumb over his phone for the thousandth time, waking up the screen and staring at the woman’s face. You don’t even know if this is the same person, he reminded himself. Hell, you don’t even know if she’s really a tiger.

His brother thought this was all going to end in a hot mess, one way or another. But then, the Bro thought that about life in general, so there you go. Although he’d been right, the night they met the tiger.

Boomer was sitting next to his brother in the hot dusty carnival tent, his wolf overwhelmed with the smells of sawdust and animals, popcorn and human sweat. Watching the white tiger perform.

There were other animals in the shabby traveling show, and the magician’s assistant in this act had glossy red hair, big boobs and hardly any clothes. Any other time, she would have grabbed all Boomer’s attention—after all, he was a sixteen-year-old guy.

But it was the white tiger who’d brought him back here, three nights in a row. Sleek muscles under a fake jeweled harness, leashed ferocity, and those haunting blue eyes.

He was convinced she was a shifter, like him. How else could she perform such complicated tricks, count things, understand everything the magician said?

How else could she have eyes filled with the same anger and loneliness he felt inside?

Last night he’d hung around after the show, hiding in the shadows by the animal tent long after the carnival closed, watching. Convinced he’d see her walk out of there, human, and head to one of the trailers where the performers stayed.

But she didn’t.

Maybe she couldn’t, he’d thought. Maybe they were stopping her somehow. He’d heard there were things you could do to a shifter, to make it so they couldn’t Change.