Page 4 of Bria and the Tiger
“Why would you do that?” Bria said.
“Because you’re drinking too much tonight, and you’re sad,” Porter said.
Bria opened her mouth to argue and then stared into her whiskey instead as Porter set the beer in front of Kat and walked away. Kat put her arm around her and leaned her head against hers. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“Nothing. Everything.” Bria blinked back tears as she stared at Kat. “I’m a loser.”
“What? You’re not a loser.” Kat scowled. “I mean, you are, but you’re my loser and that makes you cool.”
Bria smiled a little. “Yeah, okay.”
“Are you feeling sad about Raden?”
“No. Embarrassed, but not sad.”
“You don’t need to be embarrassed. Raden was a fool for breaking up with you. You’re amazing, honey, and he’s going to regret letting you go.”
“I’m embarrassed because I didn’t have the guts to break up with him first.” Bria took another sip of whiskey. “I knew it wasn’t working, but I refused to admit it to myself.”
“Sometimes couples go through rough patches,” Kat said. “It doesn’t mean that -”
“He was a lion shifter who couldn’t satisfy me during my heat. Either there’s something wrong with him, or there’s something wrong with me. Raden said he’d been with other cat shifters and there wasn’t an issue.”
“You believed him just like that?” Kat asked.
“Why would he lie about it?”
“Why?” Kat gave her a look of disbelief. “Bria, honey, I love you, but get your damn head out of the clouds. Why wouldn’t he lie about it? You think any shifter alive wants to admit that he can’t satisfy his partner during her heat cycle?”
“He said I got really aggressive near the end of my cycle,” Bria whispered.
“So what? That’s normal. I told you how much I bite and scratch Ronin. Hell, I’m lucky he’s a phoenix shifter and heals abnormally fast even for a shifter, or he’d have to take a few days off after my heat cycle, just to heal.”
Bria shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. Raden said that I became freakishly aggressive, but I was so frustrated by that point, you know? He’d start off strong the first day but even by the end of the day he’d be almost useless. So, I would get upset, and I could feel myself getting upset, but it’s not like I could control it. The need would just take over and I wanted more than he could give me.”
“Honey, he knew what he was getting into when he started dating a cat shifter,” Kat said.
Bria stared at the liquid in her glass. “My last heat cycle was so bad, I thought that I -”
“Hello, Kitten.”
Bria stopped talking and stared into her glass of whiskey as Ronin sat down beside Kat. He pressed a kiss against Kat’s mouth before grinning at Bria. “Hey, Stripes, how’s it going?”
“Super, you?” Bria replied before sipping at her whiskey.
“Can’t complain.” Ronin took a swig of Kat’s beer.
“Honey, could you give us a minute to finish our conversation?” Kat asked.
“It’s fine,” Bria said before Ronin could reply. “You don’t need to leave, Ronin.”
“Bria -”
“It’s fine,” she repeated before sliding off the stool. “I should go, Kat. It’s getting late and you have work in the morning.”
She weaved unsteadily as she fumbled her phone out of her purse. It slipped from her hand, but Ronin snatched it from the air before it could shatter on the ground.
“Holy shit, you’re fast,” Bria said.
