Tiger Bound

by Doranna Durgin

  Maks braced himself, digging in again, finding purchase—shifting his hold, shifting his body, wrenching—

  A dull, resounding snap of bone resonated through his jaws. The creature shuddered once, made a sound of astonishment, and toppled over, pinning Maks.

  For a moment, he didn’t care. He cared only about catching his breath, feeling his pains, reaching for the internal flows of power that would start healing, hoping it could even be done in time.

  And then he opened his eyes, and found Katie on her knees in the rocks, her attacker’s gun still gripped tightly in both hands and her face strained and determined—the healer turned killer, and stunned by her own actions.

  A lone hunter knelt beside the beast’s dead handler with grim regret—only a moment, before he called out to his friends, hastening to see to them, too, and completely unaware that the dead handler hadn’t been the only human enemy here.

  Up above, a Core posse member lingered on the edge of the outcrop, his hands empty of weapons but his expression meanly satisfied all the same. Not far away, Roger Akins regarded the dead creature with stunned disbelief and resentment, and then turned to Maks—the tiger—with a highly calculating eye.

  And not far from Akins stood the Core rogue.

  Not so imposing at that—a short man, with a complexion paler than most Core, his black hair neatly trimmed instead of caught in a queue, his ears and fingers free of the usual heavy silver. His clothing, however, was black...right down to an old-fashioned morning coat festooned with neat pockets. An amulet specialist. A man who could make silent, subtle amulets and seed them into Katie’s life, who could send targeted workings after Ian. And his features...

  They were far too familiar; they hadn’t aged at all. Not the years they should have, since Maks had escaped, since he’d lived as a fugitive...since he’d been reclaimed by the Sentinels. But recognition hit Maks hard. His curse came out as a snarl, whiskers bristling and ears flattened, his intent obvious.

  If he hadn’t been trapped. If he hadn’t grown even shorter of breath, a rasping sound in his throat and the hard taste of blood on his tongue, an odd sparkling at the edge of his vision. If his body hadn’t been battered into numbness, the pain only now beginning to take hold.

  If he hadn’t been the human when those tusks had pierced him.

  “I want the tiger,” Akins said. “You can have the girl.”

  “Can I?” the Core rogue mused, nursing some secret humor. Neither appeared to notice—or care—that Katie could hear them or that she still had the gun. She froze, there on her knees, her gaze flicking between the two men and settling on Maks, his silent name on her lips. What have you done, Maks? mixed with what should I do?—and her healer’s need to rush to him.

  Her lover’s need to rush to him.

  Maks stared steadily back, ignoring the struggle to think, to breathe, to hang on to the grit of determination. Stay put, he told her, using the only voice he had—the expression in his eyes. Stay separate...stay away. Because for the moment, even if a very short moment, she was safe. And if the hunters moved in again, maybe she wouldn’t even be alone.

  But the lone hunter to witness the outcome of the fight was still with his friends—having obviously absorbed the fact that the creature was dead, that the inexplicable tiger was trapped...that Roger Akins stood there with rifle ready. In the hunter’s world, the tiger had come from nowhere; Maks the man had fled, or already lay dead out of sight.

  “Roger,” Katie said, her voice low and strained, the shielded air shimmering faintly around her—the shields Maks couldn’t drop as long as she stood alone. “Roger, come away from him. You don’t know who he is—you don’t know what he’ll do—”

  Akins sneered at her. “It’s too late to play nice,” he told her. “You lose. And you can damned well bet I’m going to gloat about it.”

  “Later,” the Core rogue murmured, gazing at the creature, brow drawn in concentration.

  “Come on, Eddie. The creature was supposed to be mine. The least you can do is let me kill your fucking tiger.” He propped a rifle in the crook of his arm. “Let me take it down while those pussy hunters are off crying over themselves because something shot back for a change. That was the deal—I get my reputation back.”

  Eddie. Maks’s memory snagged on it. Not quite right. Ed...

  No. It was Eduard...

  Eduard seemed to find humor in Akins’s words. “You were seen fighting the beast,” he said, unconcerned and moving closer. “That should be enough for your reputation.” He moved another step closer to the creature, his hand reaching into a pocket.

  Maks gave him a silent whisker-tipping snarl, anchoring claws in thin soil to haul himself out from beneath the creature—to try. Scrabbling with all his strength, weakened by the shattered collarbone...he sank splayed claws into the nearest small tree and only succeeded in uprooting it.

  He gained an inch, maybe two. His blood splattered the rocks; his breath rasped in his throat. The pain blazed up to rip right through him, telling him for sure what he’d until now only guessed—that only his Sentinel nature still kept him alive at all.

  “Oh, hell,” Akins said with some disgust, as if Maks wasn’t there at all—as if he wouldn’t have torn them apart before he went down for good, had he gotten loose. “Just fighting it isn’t the same. No good, Eddie.”

  Eduard’s eyes glinted, a sudden hard obsidian. “Then, yes. You may shoot the fucking tiger. When I’m done with him.” And Katie’s expression changed, too, the pleading gone, her grip shifting on the gun...her stance shifting to something more balanced, there where her injured ankle kept her on her knees.

  “It’s not the same,” Akins muttered, but even in his obstinacy it was clear that he, too, had seen that look—that he respected it.

  “No,” Eduard said, with such little interest that it was plain how very much he simply didn’t care. “It’s not.”

  Akins stood back slightly at that, not missing the disdain of the words, or—belatedly—the distinct threat threading through Eduard’s manner.

  Eduard pulled an amulet from his pocket, then another. He strode to his creature, barely sparing Maks’s panted snarl of greeting a glance, one of the amulets tucked into the palm of his hand. That the creature dwarfed him didn’t seem to bother him at all, and as Akins looked on in obvious impatience, Eduard upended his hand above the coarse, grizzled hair of the creature’s side, and the amulet snapped to it like a magnet. The creature jerked in response, quivering; the movement tickled a cough up from Maks’s lungs and then instant, blinding pain and suddenly he couldn’t get enough air, just couldn’t—

  Couldn’t get enough—

  “Shee-it,” Akins said. “It’s not dead yet!”

  “It’s thoroughly dead,” Eduard said. “Keep your rifle on Altán, you imbecile. If you think he can’t still kill you, you’re a fool.”

  “Keep my rifle on—what—?” Akins stared stupidly at Maks, at the quivering creature.

  “The tiger,” Eduard said impatiently.

  “It’s all but dead,” Akins said, full of scorn.

  “You are a fool,” Eduard muttered, and under his hand the creature juddered, its skin suddenly crawling with movement. The weight of it eased; Maks shifted slightly, finding purchase with the single back leg that responded. He breathed past the pain, finding a shallow rhythm that sucked in just enough air to tamp down the panic of suffocation.

  He could still reach Akins. He could still reach Eduard. He could still watch them die.

  “Hey,” Akins said, watching the javelina, suddenly understanding. “I mean, what the hell, Eddie—”

  Gone. The javelina was gone. The amulet in Eduard’s hand turned even darker, sucking in the light around it...dimming the very air—the taste of it churning the blood in Maks’s throat into something foul. And yet he gathered himself. Not outwardly, where they could see, but within, steeling himself for the effort. Outwardly, he was the dying tiger, sickened all the more by th
e Core working.

  Akins looked as though he might throw up. “Eddie...”

  “Eduard,” the Core rogue said tightly, his hand closing around the amulet with hard satisfaction. “It’s Eduard.” He tucked the amulet away, pushed the other into his palm, and advanced on Maks.

  “No,” Katie said, her voice just as determined as her expression. “You leave him alone. You’ve done enough, both of you.”

  “Katie Rae,” Akins said, with a patronizing approval. “Who knew you actually had backbone?”

  “Leave him,” she said, “alone.” And she pulled the trigger, over and over.

  Akins flinched, ducking wildly—and Eduard paid her no mind at all. The bullets flew wild, and if Katie realized that Core workings sent them astray, she couldn’t absorb it—not when it had probably taken everything within her to pull that trigger in the first place. In an instant, the semiautomatic’s clip had emptied, and the slide locked back into place.

  Akins straightened. “Why, you little bitch. You would have done it, wouldn’t you? Killed me over an animal!”

  “You’re the animal,” she said, and her chin only quivered once before she lifted it.

  Eduard stepped forward. Akins headed for Katie, steps full of purpose. And Maks rolled to his haunches.

  No more warning than that, and he leaped—not for Eduard, practically within reach, but past him. For Akins. Akins, who headed for Katie—who had invaded her life for his simple, greedy, human reasons.

  Akins, who knew nothing of shields and the Core and larger battles, but everything of cruelty.

  One crippled, agonizing, shortened leap, as he brushed right past Eduard. Another, and Akins would go down. Akins screamed, hoarse and short, as he saw it coming.

  But that final leap never came. In his mind, it did; in his intent it did. In reality he sank down instead of surging forth, his limbs no longer his to command, his wounded flank drawing at him. He tipped his head up, roaring protest; it echoed along the base of the outcrop and out into the trees.

  Eduard stepped away, hardly ruffled, his eerie features full of satisfaction. Maks didn’t understand it at first—not with all his focus on fighting the tug of darkness, the hot strokes of pain radiating down his body. And not with all his intent on reaching Akins—on reaching Katie, who had thrown away the gun and scrambled to her feet, standing on one leg with the other toe barely touching the ground.

  And then he saw Eduard’s empty hands, and understood all too well. Core amulet. The same working that had already sucked the creature dry and gone was now attached to his own flank.

  Akins drew himself up as if he’d already convinced himself that his scream had never happened, and reached for Katie once more. She didn’t seem to care, didn’t even seem to notice—not as she stared in horror at Maks.

  Eduard snapped, “Have a care, Mr. Akins! She is not to be damaged further!”

  Akins snapped, “She would have shot me,” and grabbed for Katie.

  Didn’t grab her.

  Tried again, with both hands, anger rising—grabbed her hard.

  Didn’t grab her at all.

  “What the hell?” he demanded.

  Katie laughed, a sound on the verge of hysteria, and wobbling with fear—but not for herself. “Maks, take them back. Take back the shields. This man won’t hurt me! God knows why, but he wants me. Take back the shields, Maks, please!”

  As if he ever would. Not until the hunters returned, realizing finally that things were not exactly as they’d thought them to be—that not all the humans were on the same side, and not all of them meant well. That Katie needed their protection.

  “Maks,” she said fiercely, “I will never forgive you!”

  It struck deep; he lifted his head to look at her, suddenly aware of how heavy it had gone, and that he’d let it settle to the rocks at all. Her image doubled, reverberating overtones of red...the fugue. He found her gaze anyway, and growled at her...a beseeching sound.

  “No!” she said. “I won’t!”

  His growl turned into a deep groan, driven out by faltering lungs and the world turning inside out, right there on his flank, and Eduard’s inexplicable words at his ear. “There, there,” he said, with no comfort in his voice at all, “it’ll be over soon. Inconsiderate of me, I know—we do this after the source body is already dead, but I simply couldn’t resist a little plundering of your most excellent living energies.”

  “Hey,” Akins said, no more than a distant voice in spite of his proximity—because now, for Maks, there was only Katie, only the graceful slender nature of her, swaying slightly on one leg, one hand reaching out to him. Akins’s voice was only a grating in his ears. “I don’t know what the hell, but you said I could—”

  “Tsk, Mr. Akins. I’ve told you that you’ll have your turn. I’ll leave enough of him for you to put a bullet into, among other things.”

  Maks’s rasping attempt at a snarl nearly obscured Katie’s gasp—he could only imagine her expression. He could no longer see it, not with the whirlpool sucking at his life and returning only darkness. He reached out for the feel of her, knowing he’d find only the slick surface of his own shielding—shields that would fail soon enough.

  Only until the hunters got back...

  That was all the longer the shields had to last.

  Maks let go of the outside world and dug inward, hunting the roots of the shields—so deep, so central...the place where everything clicked hard into place. If he poured of himself into it, everything of himself—

  Everything.

  Maks burrowed deep among his own roots of power—pieces of him trickling out to awareness of Katie: the tension of her body, the strangled cry in her throat, the piercing throb of her ankle. A tiny piece of himself wrapping around her—taking protection there, even as he protected her.

  For as long as it lasted.

  Chapter 21

  “You bastard,” Katie said, glaring at the bizarrely formal little man in his morning tails and supercilious attitude, wishing the gun still filled her hand, replete with bullets. “I don’t even know you.”

  “Don’t you?” He cocked his head as though disappointed in her. “Think back several months, Miss Maddox. The profoundly ugly reservation dog with the liver damage. No doubt it got into something it shouldn’t have eaten, that’s what you said at the time.”

  Thin, scarred, a dull yellow creature with prick ears and an upright curve of a tail. And this man...dressed in jeans and an ugly polo shirt, his hair less styled, his eyes behind outdated glasses, his manner mild. Undercover Core.

  “I see you do remember,” he said, approving. “I was quite impressed with the work you did. I need your assistance in one of my own endeavors.”

  It didn’t make sense. She shot a glance at Akins, who stood in pure frustration—a bully unable to bully, his fist clenched at his side, his rifle in the other hand, his face flushed with emotion.

  The Core rogue interpreted that glance very well, even as he watched Maks’s helpless throes with satisfaction. “A tool,” he said of Akins. “About to complete its usefulness.”

  Akins might not know what that meant. Katie did. The Core rogue would not leave mundane witnesses to his workings.

  In fact, Akins muttered, “About damned time, Eddie. Lady, you’ve been nothing but trouble,” as he raised his rifle to Katie, interpreting those words as wrongly as he possibly could. He looked after the hunters, as if wary of their return—but those who hadn’t been hurt were still caring for their own, not understanding Katie’s peril or Akins’s true nature. Not even beginning to understand the Core, or that the tiger who had come from nowhere was her Maks.

  Maks, who now twisted in agony, a bloody froth at his mouth and a heinous Core amulet over one hip. He needed her healing, and he needed her voice, her caring...the caring touch of a love discovered.

  Katie was tired of being the prey, tired of hiding...tired of taking her cues from a single side of her inescapable deer nature.

  The
deer was swift. The deer was persistent. The deer could fight back when cornered.

  Maybe this time she wouldn’t wait until she was completely cornered.

  She lurched forward, the merest hint of weight on her bad ankle—the one so badly twisted by the Core minion who even now made his long, crashing way back down the outcrop.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Akins snapped at her, bullying for the sake of it. “Sit your ass down and face facts. Your manly friend ran off and left you here. Cowardly sonuvabitch.”

  “Shut up,” Katie told him, her words full of calm, striking intensity. She took another hop toward Maks, who had subsided, no longer even twitching, but simply deflating, there in his twisted posture; urgency drove her. It can’t be too late. It can’t. Not while she still had the shields. “You, Roger Akins, are a mewling, nasty little schoolyard bully, and you’re in over your head. You don’t matter to me, and you don’t matter to him.” She jerked her head in the Core rogue’s direction, her hands busy with her balance.

  Akins snatched at her again, unable to stop himself; his hands slipped away from her, closing on nothing. Katie stopped long enough to give him a bitter smile. “You see? In over your head. You know nothing, and you’re about to die. You won’t have the tiger, you won’t have your reputation, and you won’t have me.”

  He snarled a long string of curses, stepping back, lifting the rifle—not, with a glance at the Core rogue, to aim at Katie.

  To aim at Maks.

  She had no idea how long the shields would last; she had no idea if they would stop a rifle bullet point-blank. But she didn’t throw herself at the rifle, hoping to wrench it aside; she didn’t wait for Akins to heed the rogue’s snapped command. She threw herself at what mattered most, a single bound across rock that wrung the last bit of effort from her ankle, that covered more ground than Akins or the rogue or even Katie herself had thought possible of a one-legged woman. And as the rogue shouted in alarm, warning Akins off, as Akins snapped the rifle to his shoulder to put Maks in his sights and pull the trigger, Katie threw herself over the tiger, covering his body with hers, her face pressed up close to his bleeding flank and to that appalling amulet.