“Selfish bitch.”

“Back atcha, mighty bro.”

Zach walked up the stairs of the newly installed porch. He looked at Aleksei Vorislav. “You wanna talk to my sister?”

The man’s face lit up as he held his hand out. “Yeah!”

“Oh!” Zach flipped his phone closed. “She just hung up.”

Alek’s eyes narrowed and Zach glared back. He didn’t like the two of them being friends when his sister was in college, and he definitely didn’t like the fact that the man now wouldn’t leave.

Alek reached into the front of his overalls and pulled out his cell. He punched one number and waited, staring up at Zach. “Hey, Nessa darlin’! How y’all doin’?”

Zach growled low, debating whether Angie could ever forgive him for killing her brother-in-law…probably not. He looked at Ban, “Seen Sara?”

“Not since they came back from huntin’ a little while ago.”

“Thanks.” Zach walked into his house, stopping briefly to look into the living room. Miki, at least six months pregnant now, lay comfortably between Conall’s legs, the big man’s body cushioning her from the hard arm of the couch. His long arms looped around her, his big hands resting on her stomach.

“We are not naming any child of mine Eunice!”

“I think it’s a lovely name,” Miki smiled. “There’s something so 1946 about it.”

“Why don’t we tack a big sign on her ass that says ‘my parents hated me so please feel free to mock!’ ”

“No need to get tense. I have a list of other names.”

“Such as?”

“Cerulean Blue.”

Zach shook his head. He knew the evil heifer was just fucking with the man. Last he heard from Sara, they—yes, they—had all decided to name the future Víga-Feilan, Kendrick. Ricki for short. Which Zach knew Conall would be more than happy with. Of course, the evil wench seemed to be having way too much fun torturing his friend to bother telling him that yet.

As Conall let go with a volley of curses, while at the same time tickling Miki’s neck so that she hysterically began to laugh, Zach headed back toward the kitchen. He found it empty, so he went out to the back porch.

The porch now surrounding his house was at the insistence of his mate. She asked him about it once. He said no. And yet the construction guys showed up the very next day.

Zach stood at his backdoor, staring at what now lay across said porch. This keeps getting worse.

He stared down at the seven-hundred-pound tiger sprawled across the wood. Big tiger head resting on enormous paws. Of course he had a tiger on his back porch. Why wouldn’t he? This is what you get when you mate with a nut.

And sprawled face-down on top of the tiger’s back, a beautifulsleeping woman wearing ridiculously expensive four-inch-heeled shoes, denim cut-off short-shorts, and a subtle platinum band on the third finger of her left hand…and not much else.

Gold eyes looked up at him.

He glanced around, “Sara,” he whispered so as not to wake Angie.

The hillbilly motioned toward the kennels with that enormous fucking tiger-head.

He should have known. While the workmen built the porch, they also put together a wickedly nice kennel. Why? Because Sara felt Roscoe needed a girlfriend and she didn’t want to keep them all in the house.

That stupid dog now had six girlfriends.

He came around the corner to find his mate stretched belly-down across the grass. Normally he’d get a hard-on as soon as he saw her, but he became distracted. Distracted by the orange and black striped fur ball in her hands. Since all shifters were born as human and didn’t shift until much older, what she held in her hands could only be one thing…

“Woman, is that a tiger cub?”

Sara cringed, then looked at him over her shoulder. “Oh, your home early.”

“No I’m not. Answer me.”

“Ban needs her to stay here for a little while. Just till he’s ready to move her into a rescue. He found her at a local circus and said that they’d been mean to her and her mother. But the rescue could only handle the mother right now because she’s really sick. I offered to help by keeping the cub away from her until she’s better.”

“It’s a tiger cub, Sara. A real tiger cub. Not a kitten.”

“I know.”

Zach stared at her. For a woman that really didn’t want children…

“Ban said no more than six months.”

“Six months?”

“Don’t yell!”

She held the cub up. So tiny at this point that it comfortably fit in her two hands. But in three months or so, it would be the size of Roscoe. In six months it would be able to bite off Roscoe’s head.

“Look at her, Zach. Look at those blue eyes. Eventually they’ll turn gold, but right now they’re blue. How cool is that? And she’s so sweet. She just needs a little love.”

“And about five hundred pounds of meat a day.”

“Oh, that won’t be for another year or two.”

Zach sighed and rubbed the palms of his hands against his eyes.

When did his life get so out of control? He had hillbillies on his front porch. His best friend was madly in love with a psychopath. There was a half-naked beautiful woman asleep on top of a one of the mightiest predators known to man. And, of course, there were tigers. He had big, hillbilly tigers in his home. And his mate was now rubbing a full-blood tiger cub against his cheek and making cooing sounds.