“Yes, and they found him, curled up in a naked ball with blood all over him. They took him back to the orphanage, thanking God that they had managed to save him from the horrendous tiger that had taken him into the woods.”
“Didn’t it occur to them that it was odd for a tiger to be roaming the streets and making its way into an orphanage?” Josh asked.
Glancing at the Higgins brothers, Kara could tell that they were just as uncertain about why they were being told this story as she was. Khalib continued as if nothing he was saying was out of the ordinary to himself or anyone else. Barb was speechless, studying his face as she was want to do when she was trying to figure someone out.
“Yes, but they assumed it was escaped from a zoo or a traveling circus. Of course, even if it had, no one would have laid claim to missing one that had committed such a horrible atrocity.”
“I imagine not.”
“He left the orphanage after that. He was frightened to be around people who couldn’t protect themselves from an animal like what he had become. He lied about his age and joined the military. In the course of his military career, he learned that his abilities came in quite handy, though he was careful not to reveal them to anyone. After a while, he got tired of running from who he was and decided to try to find out what he could about his origins.”
“And that led him back here,” Thomas said.
“Yes. Him and others. Eventually, he learned that he was not alone, and those that remained rebuilt their family here. We are a very close-knit pride. We are kind to everyone unless they give us reason not to be, but we can be fierce if we are attacked in some way by people from the outside.”
“Do I detect some sort of threat in there?” Thomas asked, squinting at him as he sat his plate aside.
“Just a warning,” Khalib said, taking another bite of his food as if there was nothing out of the ordinary in this conversation.
“Why are you telling us this?” Barb asked suddenly. It was evident from the look on her face that she had reached some sort of conclusion ahead of everyone else, and it alarmed her. She wasn’t psychic, merely human, but her skills in anthropology had taught her to understand social interactions far better than any animal instinct could ever guide them.
“Don’t you think we should all stop playing games?” he replied to Barb, but turning toward Kara as he finished the question.
“Games?” she replied, noting that both Thomas and Josh had already set their plates aside and were on the edge of their seats. Khalib turned back toward them.
“Take it easy, boys. At a bit of a disadvantage, aren’t you? Confined space and all?” he said evenly.
Everyone was quiet, waiting for what might come next, but they didn’t have to wait for long.
Chapter Ten
Without warning, the door burst open, and the room filled with tigers. They were the largest she had ever seen, no doubt shifters rather than the ordinary Bengal tigers they had crossed paths with earlier in the journey. Then, a man walked in through their center, approaching Thomas and Josh, who had shot up from their seats and instinctively pushed Kara and Barb behind them protectively.
“Why are you here?” the man demanded.
“We came for a safari. What exactly is the problem here?” Thomas replied.
“The problem is that you don’t belong here,” the man replied.
“We are merely tourists. I thought this little outfit of yours was set up to do tours. Do you treat all of your guests this way, or are we just lucky?”
“I wouldn’t get too snarky with the attitude if I were you,” the man told him. “We know what you are. Khalib could smell it on you from the first day, but we wanted to give you time to reveal your intentions.”
“You mean you were waiting for an advantage to present itself. You brought us out here to the middle of nowhere and into a confined space where you could surround us. So, I guess the real question here is: what are your intentions?”
“You don’t get to ask questions. You’d be wise to just answer mine.”
“I don’t think we have to do anything.”
“Did you really think we wouldn’t know what you are? We have no problem with the human, other than the fact that she shouldn’t be with someone who is not her kind, but dragon shifters are not welcome here, and that one,” he said, pointing around him toward Kara, “I can’t imagine what bred such a creature or what sort of creatures she carries in her womb. It’s an affront to nature.”
For a moment, Thomas looked stricken as he looked down at Kara who had slipped out from behind him a bit and stood by his side. He pushed her back behind him without a word, redirecting his attention toward the man in front of him.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m Omar, the leader of this pride, and you have no business here. We don’t want trouble, but we also don’t want you here. So, what we are going to do is send you on your way. I think you would do us all a favor by not showing yourselves in the daylight, but I’d advise you to find your way out of this place as quickly as your wings will take you once the night falls. You wouldn’t want to be out there at night with the wildlife, and you certainly wouldn’t want to be out here with us if you’re still around come morning.”
“Do you really think you and your little band of kittens are any match for a dragon?” Josh spat back at him.
“Within these walls and with a human and an expectant mother to protect? I most certainly do,” the man said.
Kara’s eyes opened wide. She had assumed the comment before was just a reference to a future child, but now he was insinuating that she was already with child. Could that be possible? She was momentarily taken aback as she tried to grasp how that could have happened when they had taken all precautions, and then she was curious as to whether he was just guessing or could really tell.
“Ah, you didn’t know,” he replied, smiling down at her. “That’s right. You’re going to have a…something. I don’t know what that thing will be,” he said as if he found the possibility distasteful.
“I am a dragon shifter. Thomas is a dragon shifter. If I am with child, then it will also be a dragon shifter,” she said angrily.
“Is that what you think? You believe your impurity doesn’t show itself to us? You don’t think it affects the unborn you carry? I pity you. Your future will only bring you pain.”
“That’s enough. We’ve heard enough. You want us to go? Fine. We will go. You could have left us where we were last night. Instead, you brought us further in only to leave us. I’d say you were hoping we’d fight. Is that what you want? A fight?”
“We had our reasons for waiting.”
“I’m sure you did,” Thomas replied, nodding for the others to move toward the door.
Outside the building, the four of them whispered back and forth as they made their way back toward the grove of trees they had passed through to get here.
“What about our things?” Barb asked.
“It’s all just survival gear, nothing important. Just leave it. We’ll retrieve the rest of our belongings once we get back to our rooms at the hotel,” he said.
“We should go back there and clean them all out,” Josh growled.
“No. We will not. We have Barb to consider, and we can’t risk Kara getting injured if what he says is true,” he told him angrily.
“No matter what they are doing, they are still my kin,” Kara added, though she wasn’t feeling very much like family at the moment.
“I don’t understand any of this. Why not just turn us away at the airport before they ever brought us out here?” Josh asked. “Apparently, that was why Khalib was acting like such an ass early on. He knew we were shifters and even that Kara is some sort of hybrid.”
“I don’t know, but I don’t care anymore. All I want is to get us out of here in one piece. We need to stay together and put as much distance between us as possible until nightfall, and then we’ll fly out of here,” Thomas told him.
“W
e should have grabbed some water or something,” Kara groaned, realizing they weren’t very prepared for even the few hours that remained until darkness would fall. At least they had gotten part of a meal before everything had fallen apart.
“Just hold tight right here for a moment,” Thomas said, turning to run back toward the camp.
“Thomas, don’t…” Kara began, but it was too late. She wished she had kept her mouth shut. It was a relief when he returned just a short time later with one of their packs that had a full water bladder and some snacks in one side.
“All right, let’s go,” he told them. They headed toward the opening in the woods and along the trail that led back to the river.
“Do you know where we are going?” Barb asked him.
“Not really, but we came down this river, so if we can get back to it, we can follow it back to where we came from,” he told her.
“If we don’t get eaten by something first,” she mumbled.
“Worst case scenario, Josh and I will shift and fight while Kara shifts and takes you up and out of danger,” he told her.
They all fell into silence as they made their way toward the water, but not too close to it. There would still be some daylight left once they arrived, so they would get within sight of the river, but out of sight of reptiles that might view them as a snack. They’d then follow along on foot until the dark unfolded enough for them to take flight.
“What was that?” Josh asked suddenly, stopping in his tracks and turning back toward the direction from which they had come.
“I don’t know, but it isn’t our problem,” Thomas replied.
“I hope you are right about that,” Josh told him before they continued along.
Chapter Eleven
“There it is again,” Josh said a bit later as they reached the river and turned to hike along its edge.
The terrain was rough. It was clearer if you walked further down the embankment, but they couldn’t afford to get so close to the water that they would be at a disadvantage against anything that slipped from its depths. Instead, they were forced to make their way along the edge of the grasslands amid sharp blades of grass and brambles that scraped against their skin, having left in only light clothing rather than the more durable khaki garments they had purchased.
“It sounds like vehicles,” Thomas said this time. “Someone is up ahead.”
“Do you think it’s them?” Josh asked.
“No, I don’t think so. I think they probably came in on foot, in shifted form. I didn’t see any evidence that there were vehicles nearby, and I doubt they would have gotten up here without us already having heard them pass by.”
“Maybe that is what I heard earlier,” Josh observed.
“Maybe, but I have a feeling it wasn’t,” Thomas told him. “Let’s just be really quiet and see if we can get closer. Maybe it will be park rangers, and we can get a lift in without having to risk shifting and being seen once we get closer to illuminated areas of the city.”
They eased quietly up the bank, the sun slowly sinking in the sky above them. By the time they approached the source of the noise, twilight had fallen all around them and made it hard to see what was happening just ahead. All they could hear were voices shouting back and forth to one another.
“Hurry up, get them in the truck before they wake up. Last thing we need is angry cats on our hands before they get in a cage.”
“We’re trying. These things are heavy. And I can barely see anything in front of me.”
“Hold on. There ain’t no one out here for miles. I’ll turn on some lights.”
A moment later, the clearing ahead of them was suddenly flooded with light from a spotlight atop one of the two trucks parked there. It took a moment for their eyes to adjust, but when they did, horror sank in. They were poachers!
The man who had turned on the lights stepped around the truck and picked something up from the ground. Kara noted in disgust that it was the severed horn of a rhino. He picked up two more and tossed them onto the back of the truck, alongside a series of cages that flanked the back opening. Two were filled with the still forms of tigers, and the other man was struggling to get another into the remaining cage. The truck parked beside it contained a larger cage that held a baby elephant who paced in the tiny space it was given and made sad noises, no doubt trying to call out to its mother.
“Someone needs to get a muzzle on Dumbo before we head back through town. He is going to wake everyone in the city with that incessant mewing,” the man said, walking over to help with getting the tiger on the truck. “Come on, let’s get this one on the truck and get back out there. We need two more of these.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to shoot them than to just tranquilize?” the other man groaned.
“We can cap the other two, but these have to go in alive. They are going to a collector. I hear he is staging exotic animal fights with them.”
“Shit. I’d pay good money to see that.”
“With what he’s paying us for them, you could afford the show, my man.”
“I’ll look forward to my cut of that,” he grunted as they hefted up the sleeping tiger and locked it into the cage.
Kara was horrified. These men were monsters. They were taking these incredible creatures from their homes and sending them on to a fate that was undignified and cruel. And the elephant? She could only assume it would be sent off to some two-bit circus or zoo that had purchased it for a fraction of what they would have paid a reputable source.
“They are going to kill more tigers once they secure those. We have to stop them, Thomas,” she whispered.
“It’s not our place. We have to get ourselves home safely,” he told her quietly.
“No. We have to help them,” she insisted, starting to step out into the clearing.
Thomas grabbed her by the arm, pulling her back with a fierce hiss. “No, Kara! If what that shifter said is true, you are in no condition to be fighting. Josh and I will handle it.”
“Barb, stay back here with Kara. I want both of you out of sight while this goes down.”
“Fine by me,” Barb replied. “Be careful. They obviously have guns if they are planning to kill more tigers.”
“Always,” Josh replied, kissing her on the cheek.
“Okay. Let them finish what they are doing. Wait until they get a little further away and then we’ll go in for them. I don’t want to risk Barb or Kara getting caught up in any of this,” Thomas told him.
“We’ll be right back,” Josh told the two women before heading off behind the two men, who had already started walking back out onto the plains with high-powered flashlights.
Moments later, a shot rang out. Kara felt her blood run cold as a man began to scream and the sound of flapping wings filled the night air. She didn’t want to imagine what was going on in the distance.
“Oh, God. Oh, God,” Barb moaned, obviously terrified.
“It’s going to be okay. It’s stopped now. They are probably on their way back. Let’s go open those cages so the animals can get free when they wake up,” she told her, hoping that doing something would help quell her own fear.
“Yeah. Okay,” Barb said uncertainly, following her as she walked toward the vehicles.
They were busy trying to open the heavy latches on the cages when they heard the sound of movement behind them. Whirling around, they found themselves surrounded by tigers. They weren’t the Bengals they had encountered the night before. Instead, they were the larger ones, obviously the shifters from the shelter.
“Barb, get in the truck. Lock the door,” Kara told her.
“What about you?” Barb said, her voice trembling.
“Just do it,” Kara told her firmly.
Barb slipped slowly around the truck, walking backward without taking her eyes off the tigers. When one of them took a step forward, she turned and ran just as Kara shifted and bore down heavily on it, knocking it off its feet. She whirled around, coming up in preparation for a
fight and saw both Thomas and Josh swooping in from overhead. They dropped the lifeless bodies of the poachers on top of the tigers and landed.
Thomas resumed his human form, leaving Josh to stand protectively in front of him. Josh spread his wings and let out a whoosh of fire into the sky rather than directly at them. They retreated to a safer distance and paused, one of them beginning to shift back into human form. Kara could see that it was the leader as she and Josh stood side by side, ready to attack if necessary.
“You need to back off. These two men were poaching tigers, and we stopped them. Isn’t that something you should have been doing?”
The man stood looking at him wordlessly for a moment. Then he motioned toward the other tigers, who began to shift back into their human forms.
“Okay. Call off your birds of prey there,” he told Thomas.
Thomas motioned behind him for Josh and Kara to shift. Barb tried to look away from the bodies that lay contorted on the ground in front of them. She was glad that she hadn’t been there to see what had befallen them first hand. It was a part of who they were that she hoped to never truly experience.
“We caught these men caging these tigers and this elephant. They were going after more tigers, but they didn’t plan on taking the rest alive. The ones in the cages were for some sort of collector that intended to use them for fighting. I don’t know where the elephant was going. I’m assuming the ones they were going to find when we followed them were for pelts.”
“Son of a bitch,” the man muttered, motioning to the men behind him to help the elephant down out of the cage. “Don’t worry with the tigers. They’ll climb out if you just get the doors open for them, but it is too far a drop for the little gray fellow. I’m guessing they walked him up some sort of ramp. Find it and get it back up to help him down.”
The men immediately did as he asked. Kara noted that one of them was Khalib as he stepped out of the shadows and into the light. Thomas scowled at him and stepped in front of her, covering her nakedness from her shifting, while Barb came around from where she had been in the truck. She held a blanket in her hands and wrapped it around Kara.
Journey to India (Exiled Dragons Book 7) Page 6