Once Upon a Tiger
Chapter One
     
    “Idiots.” Alexis Tarasova growled low in her throat at the scent of five…no six male tigers invading her territory. She couldn’t tell who they were yet, but in her current state, their presence set off deep instincts.
    Angry instincts.
    This was her space. No males were allowed here without her permission. And she had not given it. She didn’t give a damn she was in estrous or that her body was a raw bundle of need and lust. She didn’t run and wasn’t going to be forced into it by anyone.
    If she had to beat the lot of them into bloody pulps to make her point, she would.
    She stood in her human form on the front porch of her small Catskills cabin and folded her arms across her chest, staring into the trees. Despite the full moon shedding light into the clearing in front of her home, the woods beyond were pitch black. She was surrounded by the orange, gold, and red leaves that made this area of New York so beautiful this time of year, but only shades of grey and black were visible now. If she were an ordinary human, she wouldn’t have been able to see much of anything beneath the trees. In tiger form, she’d see well into that darkness.
    She didn’t bother stripping off her loose jeans and flannel shirt to make shifting easier, though. She would face them in her human form to make a point. After twelve years working as a Tracker—the only female Tracker—she didn’t need to be a tiger to take them on. She’d been trained by her uncle to be the most deadly of the elite enforcers of Tiger Law. She’d dedicated most of her life to upholding her peoples’ rules, hunting down dangerous tigers, killing when necessary. No one forced her to do anything—not even the Mate Run.
    The males were approaching fast, but carefully. She heard them now. They weren’t making any attempt to hide their presence. Her quiet growl drifted out on the still air.
    Alexis wasn’t opposed to the mating ritual on principle. The Run had saved her people from self-destruction. The female birth rates had dropped so significantly two centuries ago it had left them on the brink of extinction. Out of desperation, the males had started fighting too much, and raping—sometimes killing—the females. The situation grew increasingly worse until the elders, the leaders of her people, instigated a new law.
    During estrous, a female ran from a group of males, allowing one to catch her and spend that cycle with her. The couple had as much sex as possible during those three days. If she got pregnant, they were allowed to be mated—either permanently marry or be together for as long as they wanted. If she didn’t get pregnant, she had to run again. The tigress could choose the same male or a different male, but until she got pregnant, she kept running.
    The ritual had saved Alexis’ people. No more gang rapes, no more death-match challenges amongst the males. The female birth rates were still extremely low, her people were still on the very edge of extinction and searching for some way to survive, but at least they weren’t making things worse anymore.
    But she was a Tracker. An enforcer of her peoples’ laws. She required a level of fear and respect from the other tigers in order to do her job. And having to run from any of them was contrary to every instinct she had, even if she got to choose who caught her.
    She didn’t run. She fought. She wasn’t chased. She did the chasing.
    The elders had supported her decision to forgo mating. Why these males thought they could overrule their governing body and force this on her, she didn’t know. She didn’t really care. She had no intention of giving in to the pressure.
    If she got pregnant, the entire point of the Mate Run, she’d be forced to give up her job. Not something she was ready to do, and might never be ready for because the only man she could see having a family with wasn’t allowed to mate.
    She released a soft breath and tried pushing the ridiculous longing she

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