Hidden Passions (Hidden, #7)
by Emma Holly
CHAPTER ONE
CHRIS Savoy, weretiger and fireman, hefted a case of sparkling water at the cost of a pleasant strain to his huge shoulders. He'd tended bar for tonight's rooftop party and was now packing up remains. He didn't mind cleanup duty. Their lupine hosts had cleared the rest of the trash, and Chris was no weak kitten. Never mind his gargantuan size as a tiger, in human form he was six-foot-eight of solid muscle and God knew how many pounds. His hair was shining chestnut with brighter streaks of gold. Despite a recent cut, the strands had a tendency to need brushing back. Underneath, the bones of his face looked carved, his eyes a brown that edged into orange. When his tiger rose within him, glints of demon light danced in them.
He frowned as that thought surfaced. His tiger wasn't a demon, just the animal half of him.
"You got this, Chris? We don't mind staying on to help." The question came from Jonah, his immediate subordinate at the fire station. Jonah was nearly as big as Chris, with skin like teak and dark lustrous eyes. He wasn't someone Chris really knew, except in a work sense, where the cat was reliable. Liam--yet another tiger/fireman--stood beside him, as fair-skinned and golden-haired as his crewmate was brown. The pair made a striking couple . . . not that they'd think of themselves that way.
"I got it," Chris confirmed, mentally shaking his head at himself. He was accustomed to keeping secrets, this one especially. "You two go. We're on shift tomorrow, and it's past your bedtime."
"Old men don't need sleep?" Liam joked. Chris outranked him, but the teasing proved the younger man trusted his temper.
"This 'old man' could swing you by the tail on no sleep at all." Chris set the case of water on a handcart, then reached for a box of wine bottles. There wasn't much to pack compared to the supply he'd started with. Tonight's guests had been mostly shifters, and they could put away liquor.
"That was a good party," Jonah observed, still lingering. "Considering it was thrown by wolves."
Ah, Chris thought. This was what the terrible twosome's delayed departure was about. Jonah was third in the clan, and Liam was their omega. Jonah was one of their later adds, brought into the clan from another station around the same time as Liam. Despite the power differential, the pair was as close as littermates.
Chris wasn't someone either cat normally hung with outside of work.
"It was a good party," he agreed, settling the second case and straightening.
The roof of the converted warehouse was done up to look like a park: beds of grass, flowers, faerie lights strung between newly planted saplings in competition with the stars. Visibly debating whether to open up about what was bothering him, Liam fidgeted with the front of his dark blue T-shirt. The badge for the Resurrection Fire Department was printed in gray on it.
"That wolf really is alpha to us," he blurted. "That Nate Rivera."
"I warned you he was." Chris's tone was calm and not scolding. "When Evina couldn't force me to shift by herself, he joined his power with hers and got it done."
Evina Mohajit wasn't just Chris's closest friend. She was his station chief and their clan alpha. Recently, Chris had been badly burned while trying to rescue a pair of kids. Afterward, too traumatized to change on his own, Evina and Nate had chivvied him through the process so he could heal. His relief that he wouldn't spend his life disfigured was fresh in his consciousness.
Chris liked being an able-bodied, good-looking were more than he'd realized.
"But . . . they're engaged," Liam objected. "That wolf will be her husband."
Tigresses didn't often marry; they were free spirits. Nonetheless, Nate had proposed to Evina at tonight's party, and she'd accepted. The stylish wolf hadn't done the deed half-assed. He'd gone down on one knee and given her a ring, betraying nervousness and dash in equal parts. Privately, Chris found Nate's actions romantic. The chance he'd experience anything similar was astronomically remote.
"Evina loves him," he said with a wisp of dryness. "And he'll make a good father to her cubs. She was bound to get over that idiot ex of hers sometime."
"I get that," Liam said, because no one could argue their alpha's ex hadn't appreciated her. "The problem is, what does him being alpha mean to us?"
"Well, it doesn't mean he'll be our boss at work," Chris assured their junior man. "He's a wolf. A cop. He can't do a fireman's job, and I doubt he'd want to."
"What about the rest of the time? You felt his energy. He's as strong as Evina. Is he going to try to boss us in our personal lives?"
"I don't know," Chris said. "But Nate Rivera doesn't strike me as that sort of man."
"Evina wouldn't let him overstep." Jonah almost sounded sure of it.
"No, she wouldn't," Chris agreed. "She respects our boundaries."
"He's not alpha to the wolves," Liam put in. "He's not even his pack's second."
This was an oddity Chris could not explain. Strictly speaking, a wolf shouldn't be anything to a tiger clan. He shrugged philosophically. "This is Resurrection. Magic works the way magic works."
"Doesn't him hooking up with her bug you?" Jonah's dark eyes were watchful, as if he had a stake in Chris being upset. "You're Evina's beta. We always thought, someday, you'd put the moves on her."