by RJ Blain
While I doubted I could afford them, I’d cross that bridge when I reached it. Couriers weren’t paid nearly as well as mercenaries or assassins.
At least I had learned something; the pain in my hands and feet didn’t hold a candle to the agony of shifting. I could deal with bruises, broken bones, and an assortment of other horrible injuries. Dealing with all those sensations at once, however, was more than I could handle.
Anatoly laughed, and I became aware of his gaze on me. I sprawled at his feet, my front paws splayed out with my head resting on his shoe. He didn’t seem concerned my teeth were in range of his ankles. “You get full marks for determination but no marks for execution. There’s no point in shifting if you faint before you maul your target. We’ll have to work on that. We’ll also have to work on your control. It’s bad form to succumb to an uncontrolled shift, Runs Against Wind.”
I huffed and twisted my ears back. To bite or not to bite? That was the question.
A little taste couldn’t hurt, could it? I licked my fangs and concentrated on my target. If I bit his shin below the calf and above the ankle, I could get a good hold on him. Would hitting closer to the bone hurt more than somewhere more muscular?
Anatoly leaned towards me, oblivious to the danger of losing part of his leg to my teeth—or he simply didn’t care if I bit him. “Let me see your paws.”
I weighed my options and decided biting wasn’t an appropriate way to thank one of the men responsible for me still having hands or feet—or paws—at all. Rising to a seated position hurt, teaching me shifting wasn’t a miracle cure for injuries. I held up my right paw, the pads exposed for Anatoly’s inspection.
“Can you spread your toes?”
I did, unsheathing my claws so he could get a very close look at them. The motion hurt, and I found my paws didn’t respond nearly as well as I expected, although Anatoly didn’t seem bothered by the limited motion. Taking hold of my paw, he pressed his thumbs to the roughened pads.
His touch hurt enough I growled.
“Under normal circumstances, shifting would help accelerate your healing. That’s dependent on a few factors, including general health. You weren’t in very good shape by the time we found you, which is why you’re not healing very fast. A few meals, a few more shifts, and a lot of rest will help. Once you’ve healed, I’ll take you on a proper hunt.”
While my memories were fragmented, I remembered how often I’d smacked into trees trying to hunt. I flattened my ears and turned my head.
“Tried to hunt, did you?”
Was the man a telepath, too? I hissed.
“You won’t be the first or last late-age shifter who has trouble. Younger shifters have the advantage; their beasts haven’t picked up bad human habits. The longer it takes someone to reach their first shift, the harder it is for them to call on their bestial instincts. Younger shifters have to meld with their beasts but benefit from their intact instincts. Older shifters, like you, meld while human, which makes them far more human than others of our kind. You and your beast are likely one entity already, which means you need to learn how to be a tiger from scratch.” Anatoly ran his fingers over each pad before releasing me. “Other paw, please.”
I shifted my weight to my right side and lifted my left paw for him.
“Minimal visible injury, which is good. Let’s try a walk and see how far you can manage. Henry’s probably getting anxious since you haven’t eaten enough for his satisfaction. Not a single one of his patients has taken a nip out of him, yet he’s always so worried he’ll be breakfast. Mystics.”
My stomach chose that moment to growl.
Straightening, Anatoly stepped over me and headed for the door, holding it open. I braced for the inevitable pain and got my paws under me. It hurt, but I lurched upright, something I viewed as an accomplishment.
Anatoly held the door open for me, and I poked my head out of the room. Wood-paneled walls stretched in both directions, dotted with closed doors. Sheathing my claws so I wouldn’t gouge the polished hardwood floors, I stepped into the hallway.
I doubted I’d ever get used to the odd sensation of tasting what I smelled. The crispness of lemon overwhelmed me, but I was aware of Anatoly as he joined me, his scent a gentle blend of male and feline.
“This way.” Anatoly strolled down the hall, and I followed, taking care placing my paws to minimize pressure on my aching pads. Although one step at a time hurt less, I opted for a faster, more painful stride to reach the four-way intersection sooner.
The scent of cooking meat hit me hard, and I inhaled, following my nose.
Anatoly chuckled and fell into step beside me. “In a way, we’re fortunate. This isn’t my home, but I’m rather close friends with the owner of this estate. He uses it as a wintering property, and I have an open invitation to use it if he isn’t in residence. I had to hunt down a mystic to send word to Charlotte, but that’s a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. Once you’ve recovered enough to travel, Henry and I will escort you back to North Carolina.”
Where were we? I twisted around and stared at the other shifter.
“We’re in Virginia. They managed to take you a fair distance before we caught up with them, and even then, finding you was more luck than anything else. I really wish we had captured one of them alive. One managed to escape, the bastard.” Anatoly snarled, showing his teeth. “We’ll talk more about it later. First, you need something to eat. After, Henry needs to have a look at you and see what he can do about speeding up the healing process. If possible, I’d like to be on the road no later than tomorrow, but we’ll see.”
I gave my paw a doubtful look but kept quiet. It wasn’t like I had an easy way to burst the man’s optimistic bubble. I’d need a miracle to tolerate stirrups within a day, and I’d be grateful if I could in weeks. I’d injured my feet before.
Healing took time, and I wouldn’t risk rushing it and losing everything. I’d lost enough already.
I ate until I couldn’t move, which was when Henry went to work with his magic. Too full to care what he was doing, I lounged in a nice warm sunlit spot I’d found on the floor. Anatoly kept a close watch while the mystic examined my paws. His magic left me shivering, my fur doing nothing to protect me from his chill touch.
“What do you think?”
I thought Anatoly hovered too much, talked too much, and couldn’t mind his own business, bothering Henry rather than letting the mystic work in peace. Who knew being able to shift into an animal could be so inconvenient?
Telling one of the most influential shifters in America to find something—anything—else to do with himself wouldn’t endear me to him or show proper gratitude. Biting his ankle, which was within range of my teeth, wouldn’t endear me to him, either.
I did it anyway.
I had to give credit where credit was due; he didn’t scream. Instead, he gave a deep-throated, growl, a sound blending pain and annoyance. My teeth dug in, but I didn’t break the skin—yet. To ensure he understood I controlled the situation, I wrapped my paws around his leg and unsheathed my claws, pressing carefully to avoid slicing into him.
Henry laughed. “You’re hovering worse than a grizzly over a kill—or worse, his mate. I think you’re annoying her.”
“Me? Annoy her? Why would you think that?”
I appreciated Anatoly’s wry tone enough I eased my grip with my claws, although I did hook them in his pants so he wouldn’t be able to escape without fighting me. Most cats I knew could purr, but if I could, I had no idea how to make the sound.
Instead, I blew air in short, throaty chuffs with his ankle still in my mouth.
“Because I’m a mystic with a passing talent for empathy?”
“Too bad you’re not a telepath; we’d be able to talk to her without forcing her to shift back to human.”
“Soon enough. Her hands are going to be a mess, but she’ll be able to wear shoes without screaming once I finish here. That’ll be good enough for the moment.”
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“Enough to ride out tonight?”
“Depends on how good a rider she is.”
“Her horses are named Dipshit and Devil Spawn.”
“The blacks I heard she had sitting on the street like they were oversized dogs? The same ones who busted out of Dawnfire’s stables and caused a stir across the entirety of Charlotte? The ones who did more mauling than the crazed tigress fresh from her first shift?” Henry’s laughter filled the room. “How refreshing. I hope you realize she’s one bite away from separating your foot from your body.”
“You fed her enough. She won’t eat my foot. That means you can put me back together again, right? I’m always hearing about how you’re such an amazing, perfect mystic. You should be able to reattach my foot if she bites it off.”
Anatoly either had a death wish or a complete lack of common sense, which I shouldn’t have found so amusing yet did. Another chuff escaped me, and I tightened my hold on his leg with my paws, careful to keep my claws sheathed.
“For some reason, she finds you amusing, Nate.”
The years had blurred my memories of the man I’d tattooed, but they hadn’t stolen his name from me. Nate. I remembered Nate.
Nate and Anatoly were tall and dark. Both were handsome, which is what had gotten me in trouble in the first place. Both were shifters.
Nate was a common enough name. Nathan and Nathaniel were popular. I’d never met an Anatoly before.
I released Anatoly’s leg, lowered my paws, and stared up at him, determined to force my memory to cooperate. It refused.
No matter how bizarre, there had to be an explanation. There were a lot of tall, dark, and handsome men in the world with sinfully sexy mouths. I always spotted them, and I cursed myself when it happened, well aware of how much trouble I’d endured as a result of one really, really bad decision.
Unfortunately, the more I thought about it, the more likely it was Nate and Anatoly were one and the same. Anatoly, whose last name I’d never learned during any of my research, ruled as the leader of the tigers and, arguably, the top cat over all other cats, much to the disgust of every lion alive.
As a member of the Clan Council, he had to have money—a lot of it. Five hundred thousand dollars wouldn’t do much damage to his wealth. It’d be a small price to pay to hunt down the woman who’d drugged him, left her mark on his abdomen, and run away.
He’d probably been at Blossom’s wedding banquet and had witnessed everything that had happened, too. He would have recognized me with Todd.
Why would he have waived the bounty long enough for me to escape if he’d been at the banquet and seen me? How had that served him?
I had so many questions and no answers; unsettled, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know. I wanted to put the past behind me so I could move forward with my life.
“And now I think she’s trying to figure out the nuances of turning Anatoly into Nate. It’s one of the great mysteries of the universe.” Henry rose to his feet, giving my side a nudge with his foot. “I haven’t figured it out, either. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because he doesn’t want anyone calling him Ana.”
A chuff of laughter escaped me, and I filed ‘Ana’ away for later use.
I made a decision, one I hoped I wouldn’t regret: as long as Anatoly—Nate—didn’t recognize me, it didn’t matter if I recognized him. It didn’t even matter if he was the same person. All I had to do was remain relaxed, play along, and when the time came, make my escape.
“I liked you better when you were too frightened of me to talk back.”
“There is a very limited pool of mystics who are good enough for your standards and are willing to deal with a brooding tiger. You roar, Nate. You roar more often than the average lion, and that’s saying something. You’ve numbed me to your roaring. God. I have Stockholm syndrome. Fantastic. I’ve gotten to like living with the devil.”
Anatoly scowled. “What did I do this time?”
“You’re rushing my schedule. I’m pretty sure I told you a week last night.”
“Tonight’s better.”
Heaving a sigh, Henry rose to his feet. “See if you can help her through some shifts, then. As many as you can over the next two hours. I’ll take care of the other preparations in the meantime.”
Something passed between the two men, unspoken words exchanged on a long stare. Henry dipped his head in a nod, turned, and left me alone with Anatoly. For a long moment, the man’s expression remained neutral. When he smiled, there was no warmth in it, and his eyes were cold and hard. “It seems Henry has decided to pull out all the stops. This will be unpleasant, but I think you’ll appreciate the results.”
I had a very bad feeling about what the tiger and mystic were planning, and like the fool I was, I agreed with a nod. A smart woman would have run as far and fast as she could.
One day I’d learn.
Anatoly did something to me, something that gave him control over my body. When he touched me, every bone in my body snapped and burned at the same time. What started as a roar ended in a shrill scream torn from my throat. My fur fell away and dissolved, leaving me shaking and naked on the hardwood floor.
My mind shrieked for me to escape, but Anatoly kept a firm hold on me. I struggled to catch my breath, and when I had recovered enough to try to speak, a tug deep within warned me I was about to shift again. I became aware of it—of the beast within my skin—roaring at being forced to do anything at all.
The world, like my body, dissolved and bled away into cascading waves of agony. I screamed until I couldn’t anymore, my whimpers quieted to nothing as exhaustion numbed me. The entire time, Anatoly stayed crouched beside me, his hand on my shoulder, binding me to his will.
His will was for me to shift, and I did, over and over again in a blurred parade of fur and flesh. When it ended, he left me human, with my skin as raw as my throat and my breaths sweeping in and out of me in wheezed pants.
“Two hours,” Anatoly announced, and his voice sounded as weary as my tortured body felt. “Look at your hands.”
I couldn’t remember how to move my arms. As though sensing I lacked the energy to do anything at all, Anatoly took hold of my wrist, lifting my limp hand. The tan of my skin, the mark of too many days spent beneath Wyoming’s burning sky, seemed normal enough. Staring in wonder, I opened my mouth but remained silent.
“Henry’s a gentle soul. He’s one of the best mystics I’ve ever seen for healing trauma, but he has a weakness. He simply can’t stand hurting someone to hasten their recovery. He could probably reattach my foot if you bit it off, but I’d spend months hopping on one leg while he gently coaxed my body to do what he wanted without any pain.” Anatoly sighed, worked his hands under me, and lifted me, rising to his feet in one smooth motion. “I’m far more practical. So, I take care of the unpleasant work, and he deals with the aftermath. You probably feel like you’ve been through a wringer.”
I jerked my head in a nod. Not only had I been wrung out, I wasn’t sure I’d been put back together quite right. “Yeah.”
My voice sounded broken, so raspy I barely understood myself.
“Rest. No one is going to do anything to you on my watch.”
It was foolish of me, but I believed him.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Anatoly had his way, and we left the manor at sunset. If I hadn’t been so exhausted, I would’ve told them exactly what I thought about riding a swaybacked nag unwilling to plod along any faster than a jarring walk. After several minutes, I decided I didn’t want to know what her trot felt like.
At least I had my beads and feathers back in my hair where they belonged, although I had needed Anatoly’s help to restore them to their proper order. I had my cuffs, too, although they were in one of the saddlebags at Henry’s insistence.
He didn’t want anything around my wrists or forearms for another few days.
“This is a terrible idea,” the mystic announced.
“Seventy-two.” There hadn’t been
much improvement to my voice, but I could speak above a whisper, which I counted as a victory.
“I think she’s keeping count, Henry.”
The mystic grunted. “If you kill him, I’ll look the other way.”
I considered Henry’s offer. “I didn’t think they let Clan Council members run off on their own. Won’t they miss him if I kill him?”
“You won’t kill me. You like me too much. You just don’t realize it yet. Anyway, most Clan Council members don’t run off on their own. I’m an exception. I’m a tiger. Once I start hunting something, I don’t stop until I’ve won. You’re my responsibility, so it’s my privilege and pleasure. Once you’re safely back in Charlotte, I’ll track down those who were behind this and tear them into very small pieces. I’ll enjoy it. No one is stupid enough to try to stop me. It’s nice being a tiger. They know I’ll kill them if they come between me and a tigress in my care.”
While his presumption I liked him annoyed me, I otherwise appreciated Anatoly’s blunt honesty. Leaving behind my tattoo kit and poisons hadn’t changed me; I still killed. As a courier, I only killed in self-defense, but it didn’t change the fact I left bodies in my wake. I remembered how to kill. Every little skill and trick I needed to assassinate someone lingered in my memories, ready and waiting for me to pick up where I left off.
Despite the exhaustion weighing me down, I straightened in the saddle, adjusting my grip on the reins. “I want them.”
“You want them,” Anatoly echoed, his tone chilling in its neutrality.
“That’s what I said.”
Henry laughed and brought his horse alongside mine. “You’d have better luck moving a mountain.”
“I’m named Runs Against Wind for a reason,” I countered.
“Those who took you were professionals. You’re a courier. Being a tiger shifter doesn’t give you that much of an edge in combat. It helps, but it takes years of training. Anatoly is one of the best.” Reaching over, the mystic grabbed my wrist, pressing to check my pulse or do something with his magic. I wasn’t sure which, but he made my skin tingle. “If he needs a good rider, I’m sure he’ll come calling for your help.”