Courted by her Cougar (Cougar Creek Mates Shifter Romance Series Book 3) Read online

  Her dark eyebrows knitted and then relaxed, and her nose wrinkled. He stilled right down to his breathing and waited for her to drift off again because he wasn’t ready for her to wake yet, was enjoying the feel of her against him too much.

  She stirred though, sleepily opening her eyes to stare blankly at him. She was tired. He could see it in their dark depths. He could feel it in her.

  A small frown creased her brow.

  Her eyes cleared and she suddenly sat up, smoothing the tangled mess of her black hair in a way that screamed of the awkwardness he could feel in her. She didn’t have to be embarrassed that she had fallen asleep on him. He liked it. Wanted to feel it again. Only next time, he wanted to hold her in his arms as she slumbered.

  “How are you feeling?” Her voice was light, sunshine that bathed his weary soul in warmth and had the last of his pain fading away as his focus narrowed on her.

  “Do you want to know as my doc, or as something else?” Was it too early to tease her? He liked the way she blushed sometimes when he did, wanted to see that hint of colour on her too-pale cheeks.

  Her guard went up. “As your doctor of course.”

  Damn.

  He tore his eyes away from her, settling it on the pitched wooden ceiling, giving her a moment so she could relax again. He had realised quickly that she often turned protective of herself if he stared a little too hard at her, and he didn’t want the cold front today. He wanted the warm female who had been sleeping on his arm, clutching it as if she had feared she was going to lose him.

  He remembered her words, the ones she had uttered when he had passed out.

  She couldn’t lose him.

  She had sounded so afraid, so terrified of that happening, and he wanted to apologise for distressing her like that, but she would only clam up even more if he made it known he had heard her.

  “I feel… different.” He pursed his lips as he frowned at the ceiling, and then slid his gaze towards her. “Something you did?”

  Her dark eyes widened like a deer caught in headlights and he expected her to lie, to cover the truth in order to protect herself and pretend that she didn’t care about him.

  “I used a little of my power to heal you.”

  He had been expecting a lie so strongly that hearing her tell him the truth shocked him, had him turning his head to look at her.

  She averted her gaze to intently check his wounds in a way that made it obvious she was avoiding him. He smiled at that, and the hint of colour on her cheeks.

  She had used a little of her power to heal him.

  Flint had the feeling that it had done more than heal him, because he could feel her more clearly than before, as if it had linked them.

  “How does your power work?” He studied her face as she diligently avoided his gaze, her fingers nimble and sending sparks of electricity and wildfire chasing over his skin as they danced along the stitches on his chest.

  “I avoid using it on people. It’s better to stick with medicine for the most part.” She glanced at him. “To avoid suspicion.”

  He doubted that was the only reason. From where he was laying, it looked as if she avoided using it on people for other reasons, ones she didn’t want to tell him.

  “But you do use your power?” His eyes darted over her face, and his focus locked onto her tremulous heartbeat, monitoring it.

  It went a little wild but then settled into a steady tempo again as she checked on his side. “I use it… I boost the effect of the drugs or whatever I’m using if I feel a patient is in danger.”

  “So… normally you place your power into objects, not directly into people.”

  She nodded.

  “Have you ever used your power directly on a patient?” He focused harder on her as her fingers paused at their work and she went utterly still.

  A tiny shake of her head, followed by a whispered, “Maybe only a little from time to time… but only ever a little.”

  Had she used more than a little on him?

  He wanted to ask, but didn’t want her to leave, and she was likely to lash out at him and then bolt if he pushed too hard. He could see it in her eyes as they gained a nervous edge that matched her heartbeat.

  “Why only a little?” Was that pushing too hard? He hoped not.

  She glanced at him. “I don’t know.”

  She did know. The shadow in her eyes, the touch of wariness that coloured them as she closed up on him said that she knew why she never used her power on people, but she didn’t want to tell him. That only made him want to know even more.

  “Are you in any pain?” The way she said that told him to let it go, that she didn’t want to talk about her power anymore or how much she had used on him, or what that might have done to him.

  Damn, it was hard to do that though.

  His natural curiosity pushed him to keep questioning her until he had all the answers, even when he knew it would only drive her away from him. It would probably make her angry too. He was too tired and sore to have her angry at him when he couldn’t chase after her, was stuck in bed resting. The thought of her leaving tore at him more than his curiosity, the idea that she might encounter the other males making him want to do whatever it took to keep her at his side, locked in his cabin with him.

  “Not really.” The words came easily as he looked at her, because whenever he gazed at her, all he knew was her.

  He could be bleeding out and he wouldn’t care.

  She relaxed again, reaching for the pitcher of water that sat beside her on the wooden floor. “Are you thirsty?”

  He shook his head. It was a lie in a way. He was thirsty, but not for water. He thirsted for another kiss from her, felt like a man starved as he watched her nibble her lower lip in a shy way as she sat back on her heels, her hands resting idly in her lap, still too pale against her dark jeans.

  Flint looked off to his right, to the window that revealed a hint of blue sky beyond the green canopy of the pines, and then back at Yasmin.

  Had she spent all night with him?

  He found he liked the idea that she had, that she had been by his side all night, taking care of him, fussing over him.

  Gods, he liked the idea of her fussing over him.

  Loved it when she rose onto her knees to do it all over again, examining each of his wounds with care that he savoured.

  “They’re healing nicely now.” She lifted her eyes from his side to meet his, and they were warm with concern, and sparkled with relief. “You’ll be up and around in no time.”

  “That’s good.” He tried a stretch and grimaced as something pulled on his left side and his stitches stung.

  Her gaze filled with curiosity.

  And a demand to explain himself.

  “The first challenge will be up soon… presuming I haven’t been playing sleeping beauty for longer than half a day or so?” It was daylight and he wasn’t stupid enough to believe he might have only been out for a couple of hours and not slept through the night.

  “Rath moved it.” She looked beyond him to the window above the head of the bed to his right, her gaze distant as she stared at the trees. “You shouldn’t go through with it.”

  Flint sighed. “We’ve had this conversation, and you know that isn’t going to happen.”

  A flicker of a frown danced across her brow and she lowered her eyes to him again, staring at him with dark eyes that held no concern now. There was only anger in them, and he thought for a moment she might demand that he pull out, but then she turned away from him and started throwing packets of things back into a cardboard box.

  “I’m not patching you up again,” she bit out as she bundled up some clear plastic packs of bandages and shoved them into the box. “If you get yourself killed… I won’t care.”

  She would, because she couldn’t lose him.

  He wasn’t going to let that happen. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  He tried to move onto his left arm and hissed through his teeth as the side of his ch
est burned. He looked down at the wad of gauze taped to it, tempted to rub at it. He brought his right hand around to do it and Yasmin was before him in a flash, her fingers locked around his wrist.

  “Don’t touch that,” she snapped and shoved his arm back, and then pushed at his chest, forcing him to lie back down. “Just rest.”

  “What happened here?” He pointed to the gauze.

  Her dark chocolate eyes gained a glimmer of something and a feeling went through him. Hers. Not his. Fear. Her heart thundered in his ears as she stared at the material taped to his chest, her eyes round and lips parted, and she was silent for a long time before she spoke softly.

  “You had air in your chest. You were dying.”

  Fuck.

  He had been starting to think about the next fight, had been convincing himself that he was good to go, that his wounds might hurt a little but it wouldn’t hold him back.

  He instantly sobered, all thought of fighting fleeing as numbness swept through him and he stared at Yasmin, saw in her eyes and felt in her that she was speaking the truth and he had danced a little too close to death.

  Would have been with his ancestors if it wasn’t for her.

  “You saved me,” he whispered.

  She glanced at his face and then away, her eyes settling on his chest. “I only did what any doctor would have in the situation.”

  True, but she had leaped into action to save him because she felt something for him. He was sure of it. Her need to keep him alive came from more than her Hippocratic Oath.

  He almost smiled at those words, because the oath stemmed from Greece, her homeland in a way. She was probably closer to the gods it was sworn to than anyone else in this world.

  “And on that note, you’re not to move from this bed until the challenge starts.” She stood, and for a heart-stopping moment, he thought she was going to leave, but she lingered looking down at him, the anger and hardness that had been in her eyes when she had been packing up gone now, leaving softness and warmth behind.

  “How long do I have?” He stared up at her, his mind leaping to ways of making use of his time that his body told him weren’t going to happen.

  She leaned over him and pulled the covers on his lower half up, over his chest.

  Her glossy black hair spilled close to touching his skin, and he wanted to lift his hand and sift it through the threads, and bring it to his nose so he could inhale her citrus scent and stamp it on his soul.

  Her eyes darted to his and away again. “Thirty hours maybe. Rath tried to convince everyone to wait longer, but they wouldn’t.”

  “Thirty hours is fine. I’ll be ready then.”

  She lowered her eyes to the gauze on his chest. “Won’t you end this madness?”

  Flint shook his head. “I can’t back down. Not now that I’ve established myself as the leading male.”

  Because he was one step closer to proving to her that he was the only male she needed in her life.

  “Yasmin,” he husked and she looked right into his eyes, bewitching him all over again as he fell into them. “I need to know something… is there any reason I might be weaker?”

  “Why?” Her eyes leaped between his and a crease formed between her eyebrows.

  She wasn’t going to like what he was about to say, so he reached for her hand and was thankful when she didn’t steal it away from him. He brushed his thumb over her fingers, delicate little things but they had put him back together when he had been in danger of falling apart.

  Gods, he had never met a female like her.

  He had never met a female who made him feel the way she did.

  “Because the other males will seek to take me down.”

  Horror danced across her face, her eyes widening again as her eyebrows lifted and lips parted. “They’re going to try to take advantage of your injuries in order to hurt you?”

  Probably in order to get him killed, but she didn’t need to know that. It wasn’t uncommon for cougars to die during a courting. It often got violent. That was part of the reason his kind had moved on to find safer approaches to winning females.

  “They might.” He stared at her hand, watching the way his thumb caressed her fingers, fascinated by how she let him do it, made no move to take her hand away and deny him.

  She shook her head. “You won’t be weakened by what I did.”

  “Good, because I don’t intend to lose.” He tugged on her arm, catching her off guard and causing her to fall onto him.

  She braced her free hand on the bed above his shoulder, stopping them from colliding, and he kept hold of her hand, so she couldn’t pull away from him. Her eyes leaped between his, searching them, searing him.

  He lowered his to her lips. Such sweet lips.

  They called to him.

  His eyelids dropped to half-mast as he tipped his head up.

  Whispered.

  “I’m going to win this courting, and then I’m going to win your heart.”

  She gasped.

  He swallowed it in a kiss.

  CHAPTER 13

  Flint cursed as he stumbled over a rock and slid down the side of another boulder. He gripped the top of it with his free hand and swung himself left, onto a narrow ledge. The sun beat down on him, the first hot day of the year, and he glared at it for a heartbeat before pushing onwards, into another controlled slide down to the base of the mountain.

  His boots finally hit grass again, but he didn’t give himself a moment to appreciate that or muse how glad he was to see it after the arduous ascent to the peak of the mountain, and an equally treacherous descent down the other side.

  He kicked off, clutching the worn disc of metal that had been stamped with a paw print, his legs pumping as hard as they could as his muscles screamed.

  Barely a few metres behind him, Mason grunted as he hit the grass.

  Flint had needed the extra day of healing that Rath had bought him, and the head start he had been given because he had completed his dare. He had figured himself fast, agile for a cougar, and had thought the first real test of the courting would be a cakewalk.

  Turned out Mason was quick for his size, had managed to catch up with Flint shortly before he had hit the summit of the mountain and claimed his token from the small stone pot that had been left up there for centuries, looking like an offering to the mountain when in fact they had been placed there for this purpose.

  If he could reach the finish line with his token first, he would be declared the winner of this round.

  He switched his focus to his main opponent as the male began to close the gap between them and pushed harder. He hadn’t seen Nash or Deacon since the starting line, but they were out there somewhere too. Somewhere beyond his senses though, which meant there was no way of them reaching him before he hit the finish line.

  Which left him with only Mason.

  The bastard.

  Blood dripped from his side as he ran, and he wrapped his arm around his stomach.

  Mason had attacked him at the top of the mountain, coming dangerously close to shoving him off the edge into a several hundred metre drop to his death. Flint had turned the tables on him, managing to get him over the drop as they had grappled, and the male had slammed a fist into his side, reopening the worst of his wounds.

  The pain hadn’t stopped Flint from clawing the brunet male, leaving long grooves on his neck and chest.

  He grinned as he spotted the creek through the trees and smelled home and pushed himself harder, every inch of him burning.

  He was going to win this.

  He grunted as he slammed into the dirt face first and barely kept his grip on his token, his fingers squeezing tight around it as Mason kneed him in the back and rose off him. He snarled as the larger male grabbed his hair, fisting it tightly so it pulled on his scalp, and smashed his face into the dirt and tree roots again.

  “Fucking bastard,” Flint growled through the pain that exploded in his side and across his nose, and grabbed a thick branch fro
m the ground beside him and swung hard over his head.

  It cracked off Mason’s skull with a satisfying thud and the male swayed sideways. The moment his weight lifted, Flint shoved upwards, sending him sprawling onto the dirt.

  He wanted to kick the bastard in the balls but kicked off instead, pushing onto his feet and propelling himself forwards.

  Towards the finish line.

  He made it five metres before Mason attempted to tackle him again. He was ready for him this time, twisted to meet Mason head on the moment he sensed him. Mason growled, flashing fangs as he seized Flint by the throat and lifted him off the dirt. Flint lashed out, kicking hard and striking the male’s knee with enough force that it buckled beneath him. He joined his fists in front of him as Mason’s grip on him slipped and he struggled to get up off his knees, and brought them down hard, slamming them into the back of the male’s head.

  When he hit the forest floor, sprawled out on it, Flint turned to run to the finish line.

  Mason grabbed his ankle, toppling him, and he grunted as his forehead cracked off a root and stars winked across his vision.

  Flint shook off the blow, rolled onto his back and kicked Mason in the face, trying to dislodge him.

  In the distance, Deacon limped towards them, clutching his arm to his side as blood rolled down it from a wound on his shoulder. It streamed from a gash across his forehead too.

  But the male still grinned as he spotted the finish line and Flint brawling with Mason.

  No fucking way Deacon was going to win this by limping over the line while Mason tried to slow Flint down.

  He kicked Mason in the face again, and grinned as he managed to dislodge him.

  He twisted onto his front and started running.

  Mason growled and pursued him, boots thundering as he raced to catch up with him. Not a chance. Flint grinned as the trees thinned and everyone came into view, and that sweet, sweet line of sand that Cobalt had spread on the grass beckoned him.

  Victory was his.

  His senses sparked and he ducked left as Mason tried to tackle him again, almost laughed as the male sailed past him and waited for him to hit the deck.