So she paced. And she waited.

Vic's scent reached her first. Still distant, the masculine smell of tiger sent waves of pleasure rolling through her body. Her nipples tightened in response and she crossed her arms over her chest, shivering at the sensation. Her toes wiggled in the inch-deep snow, but she forced herself to remain where she was.

He needed to come and find her.

Of course, just waiting made her nervous. She chewed on her lip, thinking as she studied the naked trees nearby. Maybe a sexy pose? She could lean up against a tree trunk, cock a leg, maybe thrust out her breasts...

Vic crashed into the clearing in full tiger form.

Estrella yelped in surprise, flying backward automatically, her claws coming out. She could feel her cat under her skin, an automatic defense mechanism, and forced herself to calm, shoving away her shifter form. The last thing she wanted was to transform right now.

Vic's gaze moved to her, studied her for a moment, and then he opened his mouth and roared so loud that her eardrums vibrated.

Boy, he was furious. Estrella backed up to the nearest tree, automatically feeling that awful mental heaviness that came with disobeying your alpha. She leaned against it, forcing herself not to cringe away from his anger, and thrust her breasts out in the skimpy bra. "I'm so glad you're here, Vic," she murmured huskily. "I'm in trouble."

The tiger paced around her, nostrils flaring and scenting the clearing. His tail lashed wildly.

She patiently waited for him to finish checking out their surroundings, knowing that he'd find no other scents but hers. Once that was done, he leveled her another pissed off gaze and then hunched in the snow-covered grass, shoulders flexing as he began to change back to human form.

A few rather long minutes later, and he was in human form. She eyed him appreciatively, noticing for the first time that his chest was sprinkled with dark hair and he had the tightest buttocks she'd ever seen. God, she wanted to wrap her legs around them right about now.

She forced herself to meet his gaze as he approached her, his dark, damp hair steaming in the bitter cold. "What is it?" Vic growled. "What trouble?"

Here we go, she told herself mentally. Now or never. "This kind of trouble," she said in a throaty voice, and reached behind her to unhook her bra.

He growled again, the low rumble managing to come through despite his human form. The wild, furious look returned to his eyes. "What the fuck is this, Estrella?"

She stopped, humiliated.

She wanted to clutch the now-slipping bra to her breasts and run into the woods. Shame made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. "A mistake, apparently."

Vic was still breathing hard, still furious. "This is a set-up, isn't it?" His shoulders heaved with each angry breath.

She remained silent.

"Fuck, Estrella!" Vic turned and stomped away, snarling. "Do you have any idea of how fucking worried I've been? Here I thought that you - one of our females and near a dangerous mating heat - was hurt and in trouble. I've been mentally figuring out what the fuck to do if you need medical help, and you're just trying to seduce me?"

Bitter disappointment mixed with the shame. She reached behind her back and tried to resnap her bra, blinking back humiliated tears. "I didn't think--"

"No, you didn't," he roared again. "What if you were in tiger form and you were injured? What am I supposed to do? The Alliance doc can only do so much. Do I fucking call an animal hospital and hope they don't try to put you down? A fucking ambulance? What?" He continued pacing furiously, his hands clenched into fists that were so tight she could see white at his knuckles. "Never, ever fucking do this to me again, do you understand?"

"I understand," she whispered. God, she felt like a bug. An ant.

A really, really horny ant.

She closed her eyes, determined not to stare lasciviously at his naked muscles any longer. It was clear that she and Jayde had been all wrong about this -- Vic was just thinking of her like an alpha thought of everyone in his clan. There was nothing more to it, and she'd embarrassed herself and jeopardized her place in the clan.

This was officially going down as the worst heat ever. Maybe she'd get lucky and never go into heat ever again.

"I'm your alpha," he snarled, pushing toward her. "Your safety and well-being are always at the front of my mind. You can't fucking jerk my chain and expect me to come running. Do you understand?"

"Yes," she said meekly.

"Look at me, Estrella."

She squeezed a cautious eye open.

His jaw was clenched harder than she'd ever seen it, and his eyes were so dark with anger they were almost black. As if to take the edge off of that, snow was falling in big, fat flakes now and dotted his hair and eyebrows.

"Never do that to me again," he rasped.

Yeah. She got it. She'd alarmed him. She yanked on the back clasp of her bra, determined to re-snap it, but her fingers were trembling from a mixture of the heat, nerves, and shame, and she couldn't quite do it. She gave up, crossing her arms over her breasts instead. "I'm sorry, Vic. I wasn't trying to scare you. I just wanted..."

Her voice trailed off with embarrassment. Now was not the time to confess her crush on him.

"The heat's clearly affecting you," he said after a moment, dark eyes glittering as he studied her face. "I'll forgive this lapse of judgment. It's clear you're desperate right now."

"Desperate?" She echoed. Did he just call her...desperate? Ouch.

"Approaching me for your heat. I must be your only option left. I just don't understand why you didn't pick one of the men I brought for you."

Well, it was a good thing she had no pride left after this debacle. Estrella shook her head, tamping down her own irritation. "Which one? The asshole? Or the chauvinist?"

His lips twitched with amusement, some of his anger receding. His arms crossed over his chest, echoing her own protective stance. She tried not to notice that he was really, really naked…and that it was incredibly arousing.

And not just to her, if the wood he was sporting was any indication.

But he was still talking, still arguing. "So you didn't like Nelson or Montgomery? I admit they're not my favorites, but they're both good candidates for a female in heat. Young, relatively attractive, tiger clan." He shrugged. “What more do you need?”

"Yeah, well thanks for that stunning criteria list, but I am not having the baby of either of those douchebags, much less sleeping with one of them."

"What about Cory? He seemed like a nice guy."

"His last name is Janitor, Vic," she cried plaintively. "If I'm picking men for ridiculous reasons, I don't want my baby to have a toilet bowl last name."

His brows furrowed. "Ridiculous reasons? Your heat's not ridiculous."

"But me picking men based on their looks and the fact that they can grow the same kind of tail as you? That's not ridiculous?" She sighed heavily, staring off into the woods. "It doesn't matter. They're not the ones I want."

"So who do you want?" The question was low, husky.

The words froze in her mouth. Vic had made it quite obvious that she'd made a bad call in inviting him out here. Like hell she was going to blabber about how much she wanted him. Her mouth remained mutinously shut.

"It's me, isn't it?"

Estrella remained silent, but she could feel the blush rising on her face.