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  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  The Siberian’s Queen

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  About the Author

  Her Christmas Bonus (Intro)

  Her Christmas Bonus (Excerpt)

  Sorority Secrets – Book 1 (Excerpt)

  Connect with A.J.

  Copyright

  Copyright 2017 by AJ Wynter - All rights reserved.

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

  Author's Note:

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third party websites or their content.

  The Siberian’s Queen

  By: A.J. Wynter

  1.

  Katerina tugged the thick arctic fox blanket over her eyes hoping to block out the sun that had so rudely awakened her. She didn’t want to get up because getting up meant facing her parents, and discussing the meeting of her soon to be husband, Sergei.

  She groaned into her pillow; she didn’t want an arranged life! All Kat had ever wanted was to be young and free. She dreamt of roaming the Russian woods and living off the land like a nomad. Or maybe she would head south and be a water nomad, fishing for sustenance on a daily basis. She would live near the sea, lounging in a hammock she had woven with her own hands.

  Her wealthy parents just scoffed at her wild young imagination, seeing no value in Katerina being a strong and self-reliant young woman. They lectured her about preparing for life as a Princess, and how to take care of a husband. Katerina, or Kat as she preferred, was part of the royal Emerald family, also known as the wealthiest family in North Eastern Russia. At least a hundred aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and offspring extended their reach and control all over the country. They traveled in smooth black limousines, had huge entourages, and never went anywhere by foot, save for their expansive courtyards.

  Kat crawled out of bed and let her staff bathe and dress her in a simple cotton shirtdress. She planned to spend the day holed up in the cedar hedges by the pool, reading.

  As a child, growing up in an estate so large, she learned that she could hide in multitudes of places and her mother would never find her. She would spend this stolen time enveloped in books about adventurers and imagining travelling and living a gypsy life.

  After hours of exploring the grounds and reading, Kat stood up and shoved her dirty feet into her shoes and tried to brush the dirt off her dress. When she trudged back into the lavish palace, her mother grilled her, like she always did.

  “Where were you all afternoon? Don’t tell me you were off gallivanting with the next-door neighbors.”

  “Mama, we don’t have next-door neighbors unless you count Francesca and she’s three miles down the road.”

  Her mother shook her head and walked away. Kat watched her Mother’s tiny frame march off irritated, perched atop 4” stilettos. She and her Mother were both exactly five feet tall with long blonde hair. Her mother preferred to have her staff tie her own back in a bun or to keep it in a fancy updo, but Kat always wore hers loose and wild. It pleased her to feel the wind whip her hair around her face as she ran through the gardens in the summer. She loved the ice that would form on her strands from her breath in the winter, like strands of crystals or diamonds. They looked almost like sisters, but that’s where the similarities ended.

  Kat didn’t care about traditional beauty, or learning how to run a vast household. Kat also didn’t care about her arranged marriage.

  Her mind drifted back to her daydream about being a sea nomad. She would meet a tall, dark, handsome prince whom she would fall madly in love with. His name wouldn’t matter, nor would his legacy. Kat imagined him arriving draped in furs, his dark hair flopping lazily into his icy blue eyes. He would have a dark steed to match, or perhaps a pure white one? She was undecided about the minutiae but the main character always remained the same.

  “Who are you?” Kat would ask dismissively. “Leave me be; this is my sacred place.”

  “I’ve been watching you for a long time, Miss Emerald. You are the most beautiful girl and I must have you as mine,” he’d reply dramatically and with flourish.

  She would pause equally dramatically, "why should I go with you, what can you offer a woman like me?” He would leap off his horse, grab her around the waist, snake his gloved hand through her hair and kiss her hard and passionately. She would faint into his arms and he would lift her onto his majestic steed and—

  “Kat? Kat! Hello? I don’t believe it. What is wrong with this child? For years, we prayed for you to turn into a proper heiress and look at what we ended up with. A lazy tomboy that has gotten dirt stains on her dress! Get upstairs and get in the bath! You've ruined your clothes.”

  Kat looked up at her father, who had also just come in from touring the grounds. “Hi Papa,” she said.

  “Hello, darling. I hear your mother is a touch angry with you.”

  Kat felt at ease around her father. He was a kind and reasonable man, and only wanted the best for her.

  His marriage to Natalia had been quite scandalous; he was a poor boy from a farming village out west, whereas her mother was a rich landowner's daughter of the East. They’d met while her Mother’s family were on a trading trip and had fallen in love. Their love story sounded like one out of the movies; one of the cars the Emerald family had been traveling in had driven over a nail in the road, completely deflating the tire. It was fortuitous her father was there; he had been herding cows across a dirt path when he stumbled across the Emerald's crippled entourage and was able to patch the tire with supplies from his wagon. Completely smitten with her beauty and elegance, he vowed to pursue her family’s acceptance for marriage.

  Of course, the Emerald family was not happy with Natalia’s choice. She was practically disowned because of their love affair. His acceptance was hard fought, and Kat thought it was the most romantic story in the world. This was precisely why she didn’t want an arranged marriage. There just wasn’t enough love in it for her; let alone passion.

  She often wondered if her mother regretted her choice as she certainly wasn’t letting Kat choose her own suitor. Kat thought it was extremely hypocritical of her.

  Kat realize that she had forgotten her book in the cedar hedge and stole out into the courtyard in her bare feet to find it. As she ran, something bright flashed in her peripheral vision. It was a swift and fast movement, and when looked back again, she saw the cedar hedge branches had been disturbed, but nothing was there.

  She picked up her speed again, not wanting to make her mother any angrier than she already was. When she rounded the corner, she stopped dead in her tracks. Ahead, staring intently at her, was a huge Si
berian tiger.

  Kat backed gingerly away, heart pumping in her chest. The tiger simply sat down and watched her retreat. She was afraid at first, but something about the tiger’s demeanor made her feel like she could trust it.

  She turned and walked calmly the whole walk back to the manse. If she announced the presence of a tiger, the guards would be alerted. They would take after it with guns blasting, shooting it dead before the poor beast returned to the forest.

  Kat was an ardent animal lover. She had given up eating meat years earlier and felt terribly guilty about the abundance of furs in the palace. She justified using the furs, as the animals had already been killed and didn’t want their death to be totally for naught. Her mother justified their use as a way to keep the economy of the far north thriving.

  Once at the palace stairway, Kat searched the shrubbery and spotted the cat’s golden eyes swiveling back and forth, following her every move. Kat was safe from it, for now. Kat hastened through the massive ornately carved front door.

  2.

  The tiger’s human name was Daman. He had lived in Mongolia for most of his life, but had migrated back to Russia when a forest fire had eradicated his habitat. He’d lost his mother and brother in that fire; the pain of their deaths had left him devastated and alone. He grew cold and calloused as a way to protect his heart, and vowed he would never feel so deeply again. That was until he caught sight of Kat.

  He was an animorph, a man who could change from human to beast without the assistance of a full moon; in his instance, a tiger. He was tall with tanned skin and golden eyes. His hair was thick and black with slight highlights of red and orange. In his Siberian tiger form, Daman was almost four hundred pounds of muscle and meat. He could take down any prey or adversary, and was one of the best hunters around for hundreds of miles. Locally he had befriended a Siberian or two but most of the others avoided him. They knew he was a migrant, but knew little else. It was better this way; letting anyone in was too dangerous. They could hurt you, or worse, die because of you.

  But Kat was different someh...

  No! Daman thought to himself. Did you see all those guards standing around the palace grounds? They would kill you in an instant. All it would take is one bullet to the head, and you would be another rug on their floor. Stop thinking about her! He made a half-hearted effort to dismiss her from his thoughts.

  If only he could. He couldn’t stop thinking about the girl with the emerald eyes and the white sundress, with hair so long and golden that it reached far below her waist. He noticed her porcelain skin was luminescent, opalescent even, and that she enjoyed basking in the sun, making friends with butterflies. Daman had taken to stalking her these past few months. He observed that she ate her veggies on the porch every day, with an enormous book spread out in front of her. Was it a bible? No, it was something else, an atlas! In all his travels, he had never come across such an intriguing young woman.

  It was on bright summer days like these, watching this fascinating young woman, Daman could feel his cold heart beginning to thaw. He turned briskly on his paw and bounded back into the forest. It wasn’t safe to remain after Kat had left. He instinctively knew that she would save him from sudden death if he was discovered. One word from her, and the guards would drop their guns. But with her absence, the guards were a constant looming threat.

  As Daman retreated, he began to recall the ancient tales about a time before humans; a time when Daman had yet been born, and his kind still roamed the earth in large numbers. They populated the molten earth, sabre-toothed and strong, hunting and living in streaks.

  Of course, Daman could travel in a streak if he wanted to. There were other tigers that would surely run and hunt with him. But he loved and craved solitude. He was a rogue tiger, rugged and strong, and he answered to no one. When in human form, he squatted in an abandoned apartment building in the closest town. Daman didn't have any record of his birth, and trying to fit into an ordinary life proved too difficult. But who was he kidding? He enjoyed living like a vagabond. He spent his days hunting and his nights partying at nightclubs and raves. There he could find plenty of eager volunteers to feed his primal sexual hunger; which, because of the tiger blood running through him, were much higher than a normal man. But his heart remained closed.

  Enough. Stop thinking about her and do something else. It’s not worth it, she’s not worth it. She’s just another entitled princess. I bet she eats meat in secret.

  He crawled into his apartment, ready for his midday nap. The moment he reached the top floor, he collapsed onto his mattress on the floor. Daman fell asleep in the light of the mid-afternoon sun beaming through his window, waking hours later to the call of the wild. It had become his pattern.

  By the time he left his apartment the sky was jet black. The heat of high summer had finally broken, the temperature dropping to an easy 73 degrees. Daman raced down the broken apartment steps, his heart pounding in his chest. He was starving for a woman, and if he wasn’t careful, would kill the next living being that crossed his path. Daman slammed out the back door and ran onto the main road. The streets were empty for the most part; the only people outside were a young couple smoking cigarettes.

  Even though this was the richer part of the country, the city’s exterior walls gave off the impression that it was falling apart. While the inside of every building was well furnished, covered in glistening polished floors and thick, dark Oriental rugs, the outsides were crumbling and barred up. There were often crystal chandeliers hidden towards the back, away from the windows and away from the prying eyes of the beggars. If Daman had the money, he would live in secrecy, just like the guilty rich. His carpet would be dark green, like his favorite forest leaves. Maybe the chandelier would also be green, or emerald…

  Emerald.

  Again, his mind went back to Kat: Kat, with her glittering green eyes, and her flowing blonde hair. In another world, if he had money, they could be together.

  But we can never be together. We come from two very different worlds. I need a fucking drink.

  Exasperation quelled his hunger. He smiled to himself and slicked his hair back. It would definitely take his mind off everything to go have a drink at a club, the very place to find a ‘distraction’. His favorite was an underground club in an abandoned railroad site called ‘Broken Glass’. It was accessible through an abandoned subway entrance and kept camouflaged with thick vines throughout the summer.

  Daman rushed down the stairs, excited for the possibility of quenching the slow fire in him, with liquor and a woman. The minute his body was underground, he felt the strong bass pulsing through his body. The neon lights bounced off the walls and an enormous disco ball dangled from the ceiling. The club was packed with people wearing masks. On nights like this, when he found himself stuck thinking about the loss of his family and the impossibility which was Kat, Daman preferred to be around other human beings; it soothed that human part of him. He drew comfort when they pushed up against him, and even smiled when they accidentally stepped on his toes. An innocent physical contact to help fill the hole he had in him. And he had no qualms about taking a woman home and fucking her, without any exchanging of names, for exactly the same reason.

  It was a strange existence, being alone and also a shifter. The differing needs of both sides of him were often in conflict.

  The bar area was tucked inside an abandoned train car. He swayed towards the bartender, and debated between ordering a beer or something harder. He noticed a girl standing in the corner of the bar, wearing an orange and black mask over her eyes. A tigress, aloof and on the hunt. She stood with her back pressed against the wall as any good hunter would. Daman glanced at her, and she flashed her eyes at him from behind the mask.

  “Vodka. Rocks,” he grunted to the bartender, who nodded. He handed Daman a glass filled to the brim; the bartender knew what he expected.

  When he turned to look at the mystery girl, she was gone. Certain that she was equally stunning beneath her tiger
mask, the booze started to relax him and the thought of the woman make him feel a tightness in the groin. He needed to find her. Though it had been easy to navigate the crowd the first time around, the crush of so many others hiding from their real lives impeded his progress. People were no longer moving aside for him; in fact, it felt as if they were moving closer together. He took a deep breath, and felt like he was suffocating. The crowd was closing in on him, pressing into him like the weight of the ocean when he dove too deeply. Too much! Too many! If this kept up, he would surely suffocate out on the dance floor.

  He was having a panic attack. They didn’t happen often, or at least not anymore, but they’d started after the death of his family. It was difficult for him to calm himself down when he was like this. It usually took a lot of deep breaths and a long bath in the arms of a woman, or alternatively, the easy fix of a Xanax. Tonight he had none of that; the enormity of how alone he was hitting him hard

  Earlier that evening one of the palace guards, a young boy named Jaime, had told Kat about the party. He’d propositioned Kat on more than one occasion but she turned him down every time; this party invitation was obviously another attempt. She secretly admired his tenacity, so she agreed to accompany him to the party. It was against the rules to leave the grounds after sundown, but Kat picked and chose which rules she felt like following on any particular day. Besides, the anonymity afforded her by being masked gave her that extra security. She needed the distraction.

  She scanned the room, focusing as hard as she could on the eyes behind the masks for any sign of Jaime or anyone else that she knew. All around her, the music was pumping and the alcohol coursing through her body made her feel dizzy. She liked it. She could feel the tension of her restrictive life leaving her body.

  Across the way, Kat saw the man whose eyes had met hers, crouching against the wall with his head in his hands. Unlike everyone else, had arrived without a mask.