Free ALIEN SHIFTER ROMANCE: Alien Tigers - The Complete Series (Alien Invasion Abduction Shapeshifter Romance) (Paranormal Science Fiction Fantasy Anthologies & Short reads) by Tanya Jolie Page A

bent slightly over himself.
    He stopped short, his eyes darting from woman to woman. Anita watched his gaze harden for a short second before he nodded at the other woman. “Can I speak to you?”
    She shrugged. “I’m all ears.”
    He glowered at her, his lips barely moving as he said, “Outside.”
    Although Anita was not the subject of his apparent frustration, she couldn’t help but to feel at least slightly worried for this unknown woman, and for herself.
    However, the woman didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned. She let out a groan as she stood up and followed him back down the front hallway.
    “What the fuck, Lexus!”
    It was all Anita heard before the front door slammed behind them. She sat, not-so-patiently waiting for them to come back inside for almost two minutes before she started to pick out the sounds. They were yelling so loud that she could hear them through the exterior walls and down the hallway. She listened to their incoherent voices for a few seconds before she decided she couldn’t take it anymore.
    She stood up and tiptoed down the hallway, driven by a reckless curiosity and a complete disregard for what might happen to her if they found her listening.
    “… to sit here and wait for me until I came back!” Anita caught the last bits of Bruce’s words.
    “Do you have any idea how boring it is just sitting around?” the woman yelled back.
    “Lower your voice.”
    Anita’s eyes went wide at the severity of his tone.
    But, nevertheless, Lexus seemed unfazed. “You think you can just do whatever you want, don’t you? Even fall in love with a human.”
    There it was again: human. It was odd the way Lexus said that, as if she herself wasn’t human… and neither was Bruce. The thought made her stomach churn.
    “She’s not just a human. And I’m not in love with her.”
    “You entertain her curiosity. You let her in—” 
    “ You let her in!”
    “She wouldn’t have come here if you hadn’t done something to make her believe that you would even listen to her questions.”
    There was a pause, a brief silence on the other side of the wall.
    “What did you do, Bruce?”
    “My mistake was not trusting Anita, nor was it even beginning to feel anything for a human. My mistake was letting you into my house. You could have turned her away. You could have lied to her, anything to cover me, but you refused. You don’t want to cover me. You don’t want to protect me. You want me reduced to nothing so that you can swoop in and manipulate me.”
    “Ha! What are you, a child? It is not my job to protect you.”
    “Then why are you here, you useless piece of shit?”
    “Useless piece of shit? I detest the habits you have picked up, especially Anita.”
    “She’s not a habit. She’s a person.”
    “Exactly.”
    There was a shuffling of feet as Anita heard someone go for the door. She scurried into a small room just off the main hallway, which she quickly learned was a guest bathroom, and shut the door behind her.
    “Get out of my house. I don’t care where you go. I don’t care if you ever return to Hugo. I just don’t ever want to see you again.”
    As she dropped onto the toilet, Anita’s jaw fell open. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what Lexus was feeling right then. There was more shuffling of feet, then a “Fuck you Bruce!” right before the front door opened and closed for the last time.
    Anita tiptoed out of the bathroom to find Bruce standing in his small kitchen, his hands resting on the counter, his head bowed. “I’m sorry,” she said.
    “If you were, you wouldn’t have come,” he said without even looking at her.
    Anita came to stand next to him. She couldn’t help but notice how hurt, how lonely, he looked, with his tired eyes, his tense muscles, his set jaw… His empty house. “I suppose now is not the time—”
    “Why can’t you just let it be?” He stepped away from the counter, turning his gaze on her.
    Anita didn’t have an answer to that