Chase, Zara - Tigers' Temptation [Impulse 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Zara Chase

glamorous job as a reporter. Mating’s for life, you know that. I won’t have her agree to it out of a sense of obligation.”
    “She really likes us, is all I know,” Philo pheromoned stubbornly. “We could make her love us.”
    “Love can’t be dialed up to order.”
    “Guys,” Layla said. “You’re staring at each other.”
    “Are you gonna tell her?” Philo pheromoned.
    “I guess. We can always wipe her mind later if it doesn’t work out.”
    “Okay, Layla,” Mikael said, taking a deep breath. “Here’s the deal. What I’m about to tell you is absolutely not for publication anywhere and doesn’t leave this room. Do I have your word on that?”
    She set her feet on the ground and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, staring at him intently once again. “Absolutely!”
    “Impulse is different because…shit, there’s no easy way to tell you this. You’re never gonna believe it anyway, so I might just as well come right out and say it.” He paused, looking her straight in the eye. “We’re a colony of feline shape-shifters.”
    Mikael and Philo watched her closely, waiting for the laughter, the exclamations of disbelief, the anger for making up lies when she’d just opened her heart to them and told them all about her daughter. To their astonishment, her eyes widened, but apart from that she took the revelation entirely in her stride.
    “So they do exist,” she said softly.
    “You’ve heard of shifters, outside of Hollywood?” Philo asked.
    “There have been one or two supposed sightings, a few intelligent papers written on the subject.” She spread her hands. “It’s right up there with UFOs and proof of previous lives. There are a lot of questions that haven’t been satisfactorily answered, and people are fascinated by the possibilities. But because they don’t see the evidence with their own eyes, they can’t or won’t accept that there’s anything in it.”
    “I’ll be darned,” Philo said, grinning. “A lady with an open mind. I’m definitely in lurve. ”
    “Philo!” Mikael barked.
    “Just sayin’.” Philo blew Mikael a kiss. “Don’t worry, big boy. She won’t come between us.”
    A smile blossomed beneath Layla’s drying tears. “I’m a reporter, and I learned a long time ago never to take anything at face value. Besides, the clues here in Impulse were already stacking up. The way you all move with…well, with feline grace, I guess, is the only way to describe it. The way Vadim and Zayd leapt from that boat yesterday. The way you all seem to communicate without words.” She paused. “That paw print on the window ledge.”
    “So you believe us,” Mikael said.
    “Let’s just say that I don’t disbelieve you.” She cupped her chin in her hand. “Tell me more.”
    “Eons ago all of Florida was a haven for shifters,” Mikael said. “Lots still live in the state and all over America, blending in with their human counterparts. But only Impulse and one or two other small places have the special atmosphere necessary—”
    “The thin air?” she asked slowly.
    “Right. The reason you couldn’t find my name on the honor roll at Yale is because I graduated sixty human years ago.”
    “You what!”
    Mikael smiled. “Finally, I’ve surprised you. Here in Impulse, the ions in the atmosphere mean that shifters—”
    “And their human mates,” Philo put in.
    “Right, and them, age one year to a human’s three.”
    “So you’re—”
    “In human years, pushing eighty.”
    “Incredible!” She shook her head. “Go on.”
    “We’re alpha tigers. I’m a Bengal. This freak is a Bengal, too, but he’s white.”
    “And very rare,” Philo added, preening. “The stripy kind are a dime a dozen.”
    “Your hair, your eyes—”
    “Exactly. But going back to the age thing, outside of Impulse we’d age at the same rate as humans.”
    “And the age extension thing only applies when shifters reach adolescence. Our kids age normally until then,”