Book excerpt: Sold into slavery as a child to a cruel taskmaster, tiger-shifter Aiden Shrader trusts no one. Not even his own kind. Yet as a member of the Watchmen--the organization of shape-shifters who keep watch over the ancient nonhuman races--Aiden is fiercely protective of the helpless. Never more so than when he's asked to guard a little girl with witches' blood--and her beautiful human aunt. A woman who arouses all of Aiden's primal urges...urges he must resist. To small-town schoolteacher Olivia Harcourt, the massive tigershifter with the glowing amber eyes is as much a dark mystery as the enemy stalking her. Yet Aiden is her only hope of surviving. Until their intense passion unleashes her own inner tigress with a ferocity that will make the evil Casus rue the day they messed with her family...and will take Aiden by seductive surprise.