The Tiger King (Paladin Shifters Book 1)

by Patricia Logan

  They boldly stepped out into the hall and then began to run. Within moments, they’d reached the servant’s stairs and Paget sent up a prayer that no one would be on the staircase as they began to ascend. Miraculously, they reached the top of the stairs without spotting a single servant and in the next breath, they were in the main corridor on the first floor.

  Paget held his breath as they stepped into full view of whomever they’d find out in the common areas of the palace but once again, they were all alone. The king rushed down the corridor and stopped in front of a broom closet. As the king reached for the handle to the closet door, Paget opened his mouth to say something, only to shut it within seconds as the king’s hand deftly twisted the knob. He opened the door and stepped inside, turning only long enough to motion for Paget to follow. Paget was about to join the king inside when he heard a voice behind him… a voice he recognized very well. His heart nearly burst in his chest. He hadn’t even heard her approach.

  “Paget, where on earth have you been, cat?” Miruna Grey stood behind him, sending him a withering glare. “King Fain has been waiting for you.”

  Paget swallowed. This is it. I am caught. Chain me now. Drag me off to the pit and put me to death there. I don’t want to live without my Damiano.

  “Did you hear me, you idiot? Or are you deaf? Where the fuck have you been? The king’s bed is only half-made and you never finished cleaning his chamber. Now, get your ass up there and do it, Subaltern, or I’ll have you marked by claw. King Fain is in a horrible mood and I just know he’d do a number on your pretty face today.”

  “I-I’m so… sorry… Miruna… I ran out of cleaning supp…”

  “Stop making excuses, cat. Grab whatever you need and go!”

  Paget nodded at her, feeling how wide his eyes must be and turned back to the closet where Pasha Raab stood in shadows only five feet away. He could only assume that there was a passage somewhere at the back of the closet but the king had waited for him. Paget did his best to calm his racing heart. He pulled some sort of random cleaning products out of the closet, throwing towelettes and a handful of rags into a bucket before meeting Pasha Raab’s golden gaze. He winked at Paget and nodded for him to go. Pasha Raab must have known Paget wasn’t in any real danger or he wouldn’t have left him with Miruna. With a final glance, he did as the king bade him and when he turned back to Miruna, she was eyeballing him suspiciously.

  “Ready?” she said, sounding utterly exasperated.

  Paget gave one last glance over his shoulder, pretending to be doing mental inventory, and then shut the door in Pasha Raab’s face before turning to follow King Fain’s councilor down the hallway. All he could do was hope for the best.

  ****

  “Satriale… up, lazy ass.” Damiano groaned. “Come on, brother. Open your pretty eyes and show me what a wildcat you really are.”

  Damiano came awake at the sound of Chino’s voice coming from somewhere nearby.

  “That’s it, Dami. Come on. Shake yourself out of it. I need you, brother.”

  Damiano tried to focus as he tried to decide where he was and why Chino was forcing himself to wake up when all he wanted to do was keep his eyes shut and sink back into sleep. Something was dragging him down… back into unconsciousness and he fought against the pull to just let go and relax back into sleep.

  “They’ve got you in silver, Dami. Fight your way out of it. Come on. Just open your eyes.”

  “Silver…,” he heard himself groan. “They put me in silver.” He tried again to open his eyes but gave up when the heaviness of his lids was too hard to fight.

  “Dami! Come on, man. I almost had you there. Wake the hell up.”

  Damiano groaned again and tried to move his limbs. They felt like someone had tied lead weights to them but he managed to roll to his side. It took great effort but when he rolled, he felt the hard surface of a cold floor beneath him. He blindly reached for the floor as his head spun. It felt like his head had been soaked in cotton, worse than any hangover he’d ever had in his life. His fingers touched something cold and gritty and he realized he was lying on a concrete floor. It was cold to the touch. It took tremendous effort but Damiano forced his eyes open. Fortunately for him, wherever he’d ended up, was dark. He heard water dripping in the distance and as he moved his head to try and get a look around, he realized he was wearing a metal collar.

  “Dami. You awake?” Chino asked.

  Damiano could tell he was behind him so he forced himself to roll to his back and glanced over. The bars of a cell were blurry so Damiano focused all he could to make his vision clear. He knew the silhouette of the man on the other side of the bars. They’d known each other since childhood.

  “Chino,” he groaned. Chino’s handsome face finally came into focus. He was grinning at him through the bars of a cell, wearing a heavy iron collar around his neck. It was attached to a thick iron chain which had been bolted onto a ring imbedded in the cement wall behind him.

  Damiano tried to sit up but groaned as he realized he was still shackled at the wrists and ankles. The chains felt like they weighed a hundred pounds and just the effort of keeping his eyes open was a challenge but one he was determined to do.

  “How long have I been here?” His voice was scratchy and he glanced around the cell for water. He desperately needed to shift but knew even if he were out of the silver, in his weakened state, he would barely have the strength to do so.

  “They brought you to the cell about four hours ago.”

  “Where the hell are we?”

  “We’re in a holding cell just outside the palace. We’re near the stables. Smell the horses?”

  “Still on palace grounds then?” Damiano lifted his nose to the air and sniffed. There were definitely horses nearby so Chino was right.

  “Yeah, somewhere deep in the forest, though this isn’t exactly how you described the palace, I gotta say,” Chino said.

  Damiano stared at his best friend, smiling at his attitude. The reason he loved him and had kept him around all these years was because Chino always saw the positive side of things, even when their circumstances were as dire as they were. He glanced around the cell again. A set of bars separated him and Chino and there were two solid rock walls to each of their cells, one on the back, and on one side of each of their cells. Bars also fronted both cells and there was a hallway which passed in front of both locked cages.

  There were no mattresses so they laid directly on the ground which was surprisingly clean and free of the offal he and Chino had been subjected to in previous incarcerations on various continents. With the exception of the silver weighing him down and weakening him, all in all, the accommodations weren’t so terrible. It was what they planned on doing with him that bothered him. Him and Paget. Shit.

  “Have you seen Paget?” He watched Chino’s face closely.

  “Your mate?” Chino shook his head before Damiano could answer. “No, haven’t seen him.”

  “I hope that’s a good thing.”

  “Okay, tell me what the fuck happened, Satriale. How’d they catch on?”

  “To the vibration? I don’t know for sure. Miruna Grey, Fain’s councilor, picked up on it when I let my cloak down, but the king may have felt it beforehand. I did my best to mask it but depending on how much royal blood a ruler has, he might be able to pick it up as well. As it turns out, Fain doesn’t have as much royal blood as I do.”

  “No shit. But how do you even know that?” Chino asked.

  Damiano smiled sadly at his best friend. “I forget we’ve been separated for so long. I haven’t told you anything.”

  “Well, I guess you have some explaining to do, Satriale.”

  Dami shifted until he could sit with his back to the wall. It felt cool against his skin, even through the clothes he wore.

  “I might as well get comfortable. There’s a hell of a lot to say.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  B y the time Damiano finished telling Chino all about Pasha Raab survi
ving the pit and living beneath the palace for the last five years, Chino was blown away. When Damiano explained what he’d learned from Theo’s visions about King Fain’s parentage and even Chino’s own fiasco in the control room, his friend was sitting back in his cell, stunned. He’d ached when he told Chino of Paget’s beauty and bravery and he realized part of the reason he was in so much pain was because of the physical distance between him and his mate. That ache was one he could bear with ease. The farther away from him and this cell, the better Damiano felt. At least he hoped it meant that he and Paget hadn’t been discovered. He prayed that his kitten would remain safe and wondered how Paget would fare if he died.

  “I can’t believe Pasha Raab is still alive,” Chino said for the tenth time. “And, you’re absolutely sure Christos Fain knows nothing about him surviving the pit?”

  “Paget’s positive and think about it. If he had known, wouldn’t he have been dragged out of the palace basement and slaughtered along with Paget, Cook, and whoever else has been feeding the king and taking care of his needs all these years? No, Paget’s not lying to me.”

  “I’m not suggesting he is, Dami. He’s your mate so you want to believe him and I suppose his story makes sense. Pasha Raab must have known his day would come. Didn’t you tell me that his imprisonment was voluntary?”

  Damiano nodded, hissing as the heavy silver collar dug into his already raw and bleeding wounds. “Yeah. Paget says he’s been waiting for me to come.”

  “You?”

  “His champion. He was apparently certain Fain would choose me and that I would be incorruptible.”

  Chino sighed. “Well, he has that part right.”

  “He has all of it right. I saw the visions when Theo showed me.”

  “I gotta meet this kid.”

  Damiano cracked a smirk. “You really do. He’s pretty special.”

  “And…” Chino hesitated. “Your mate—Paget—is he…”

  Damiano felt his smile widen as he nodded painfully. “I’m in love with him, Cortez.” He’d never told Paget and he didn’t know when it had happened but he really was in love with him.

  Chino grinned. “That’s good, brother. That’s the way it should be.”

  The scrape of boots sounded in the small space of their cells and both of them straightened. Whoever it was, this couldn’t be good. The rattle of a key ring and then the turn of a lock came next and an outer door down the hall from their cells scraped open. Christos Fain’s strong scent hit Damiano’s nostrils followed by Miruna Grey’s cloying perfume a second later as a retinue of paladin appeared in front of their cells. King Fain was the next to appear and he smiled an oily self-satisfied smile down at Damiano.

  “I do hope you are enjoying your accommodations, Primero.”

  “Who me? Yeah, they’re awesome. Thanks so much,” Damiano replied with as much venom as his exhausted voice could manage.

  “Open his cell,” Fain ordered.

  “Your Majesty, do you think that’s wise?” Miruna Grey asked, stepping into view wearing a clinging skin-tight dress and high heels. She’d taken the time to do her long black hair into some sort of elaborate pile on the top of her head. It was woven through with black ribbons and stray curls framed her beautiful face. “He might still be a danger to you, Sire.”

  “Nonsense. Look at him,” Fain said. He chuckled. “The silver has him as weak as a kitten.” The false king stepped into the cell and he squatted in front of Damiano, holding out a shifted paw. His claws gleamed black in the darkness of the room as he reached for the chain attached to the collar at Damiano’s neck. Clasping it, he hissed and then pulled back, immediately holding it up to his face where he licked the pads of the paw. It shifted back to human and then back to tiger twice in the blink of an eye and Damiano realized he’d healed the wound he’d given himself just that fast. Had he had his strength, Fain’s neck would have already been in his own claws but the shackles prevented even a partial shift like he’d just witnessed.

  “So, you’ve brought me here for some reason, Fain,” Damiano said. “You planning on telling me or are you just gathering jack off material?”

  Fain’s shifted claw shot out and in an instant, he’d swiped deep grooves into the skin of Damiano’s torso just above his liver. He felt the blood pour down the skin beneath his clothes. The three-inch claws had done major damage as if he needed more to add to what the silver was doing to him.

  “Fuck you!” he shouted. One of the paladin Damiano didn’t recognize stepped forward and kicked out with a steel-toed boot, catching him under the jaw and sending him sprawling backward until he was flat on his back staring up at the dank ceiling of the cell.

  “Don’t address His Majesty that way, cur.”

  Damiano reached up a shackled hand and tried to stem the flow of blood from his jaw where the boot had opened a cut on his chin. He covered the grooves in his belly with the other hand. “Yeah? Fuck you too, asshole.”

  The paladin lifted his boot to deliver another blow but the king stopped him.

  “Stop. Leave him be.” He stood to his full height. “He’ll pay for his insolence in the pit when I watch him die. It will be a slow death. That is certain.” He glared down at Damiano. “Now, Satriale. Tell me how we’re related. I confess I’ve been desperately curious since sensing your vibration at the hunt this morning.”

  That explained a lot. Sometimes in shifted form, Damiano had a hard time cloaking his vibrations but it hadn’t happened in years. Perhaps Fain had been able to pick up on it because of their shared blood.

  “Don’t know how we’re related,” Dami lied. “All I do know is that I am ashamed it’s so. You’re the last cat on earth whose blood I need running through my veins. It’s the curse of my life,” Damiano spit out.

  “How dare you!” Miruna shouted. “I hope you suffer when your opponent flays the last strip of fur off your sorry bones.”

  Damiano snorted bitterly, narrowing his eyes at them both. “Yeah? Who’s going to do that? You, bitch?”

  Fain burst out into laughter. “Miruna? Oh, no, Satriale. I intend on having the best show of my life.” He glanced aside at Chino who’d been sitting silently in the cage beside Damiano’s. “Your best friend, Chino Cortez, will be providing me the entertainment I require.”

  “The fuck you say,” Chino said. “I’m not lifting a claw against Satriale.”

  “Oh, you will, Cortez,” Fain said.

  “How do you figure that, asshole?”

  Fain ran up to Cortez’s bars and swiped a clawed hand through them like a cat in the zoo. Chino only had to step back a few feet to miss the swipe completely. The tiger’s snarl that came out of him surprised Damiano.

  “Oh, you’ll do as you’re asked because if you don’t, this one will die in excruciating agony… unless… that’s what you want?” He looked to the paladin guards standing outside the cell and nodded.

  The rasp of chains was heard but even before the prisoner they were dragging came into view, Damiano felt his knees go weak. If he’d not been sitting he would have fallen to the ground as a beaten and bloody Paget was dragged into view. He was being held onto by Stevens and another paladin Damiano didn’t recognize. Stevens didn’t look happy, in fact, he looked even more grim than the last time Damiano had seen him. Paget was restrained by the same silver chains that Damiano wore but they looked even more cruel on him because they’d stripped his shirt off. Blood had run down his skin in rivulets, pooling in his bellybutton from the long streaks beginning at the line of his collar as they ran down his chest.

  Damiano yanked at the shackles that held him fast as he sat up, climbing to a crouch. Fain saw what he was attempting so he turned tail and ran back toward the cell door. He was through it and standing behind it as Damiano got to his feet. One of the paladin slammed the door just in time.

  “You leave him alone you fucking bastard!” Damiano shouted, lunging for the door of the cell. His feet tangled in the silver shackles around his ankles and he fel
l against the door.

  Fain laughed as the paladin who’d kicked him came forward and pushed him back with a long stick through the bars.

  Damiano fell back onto the cement floor as he watched Paget, trying to see his face as he hung weakly between the two paladin guards. His beautiful golden hair fell limply from his head, obscuring his sweet face. Damiano couldn’t see his beautiful countenance but he knew Paget was unconscious. He was secretly grateful that he couldn’t feel the pain the silver must be causing his smaller mate. He would have done anything to have been able to prevent this from happening to Paget.

  “How did you find out?” Damiano asked weakly, keeping an eye on Paget, not his captors.

  “I scented your mating on him when I went to fetch him to clean King Fain’s chambers this afternoon. I had him beaten, chained, and brought to the king,” Miruna Grey said proudly. “It was His Majesty’s idea to have him watch your best friend flay you alive, Primero.”

  “Tis true,” King Fain said. “I thought it would be great sport to watch your mate see you taken apart piece by bloody piece before I finish him off.”

  Damiano renewed his struggle to rise to his feet. He was only able to get onto his knees where it took more effort than he had ever spent in his life to crawl to the bars. He pulled himself up until he was face to face with Fain who stood smugly outside the bars.

  “I swear to God, I’ll cut your heart out, Fain,” Dami growled.

  The tiger snorted, sneering back at him. “It is I who will be cutting out your heart, Paladin. And I can promise that I will enjoy doing the same thing to your precious little mate.”

  “Fuck you!” Damiano screamed at him, shaking the bars of the cell.

  Fain turned to Paladin Stevens. “Take Paget to the dungeon. Cut him up a bit more. The rats down there can get a start on him before the match. We want to make it fun for everyone.”

  Damiano felt his world implode as he began to snarl. Fain and Miruna both flinched as they and the paladin moved quickly down the hall from them.