Night of the Tiger

by Doranna Durgin

  She buried her hand under his shirt, her body arching against his with a small and needy cry. The stretchy sports-top zipper defied him only for a moment and then he had his hands on her…rubbing his thumbs over the exquisite handful of her breasts, letting his head fall back as she scraped her teeth over his chest in response, her breath hot on his skin, her body moving against his until damn, there were entirely too many clothes involved.

  “Marlee,” he said, “I’m gonna—”

  “Yes,” she said, and this time it was a demand. They separated just long enough to zip and tug, and if her panties came down with the shorts, his pants fell away to bare skin. She crouched—quickly, gracefully, freeing herself of the shorts and then pulling his pants away.

  On the way back up, she didn’t move nearly as quickly. He sucked in air, caught in dizzying sensation…quick fingers, hot tongue, the brush of her breast against his leg, the streaking tug of rising pleasure. His chest vibrated in a deep and helpless groan; his legs quivered and she cupped him, lightly scratching, tugging—

  No warning this time. He pulled her to her feet, found her waist, hoisted her up until her legs wrapped around him, and still she hadn’t let up, her mouth on his skin, her body moving against his. He steadied her, hands curving around the tightly toned muscle of her bottom as he stepped back…stepped back again, hunting the vaguely remembered chair. It bumped the back of his legs and he sat hard; Marlee rode him down. “I’m gonna—” she said, rising slightly, reaching between them.

  “Hell, yes,” he said, surprised he had the breath for it, and then losing that breath entirely as she brought herself down around him and now he trembled from restraint, wanting to take her and—

  Marlee took him. She took him deep and then, while his hands closed helplessly at her waist, she straddled both him and the chair to move over him. Hot pleasure rose and his skin started to tingle, his body tightened, his breath came ragged. He clutched at her—at her thighs, at her waist, hands seeking, sensations clutching right back at him, her sob of pleasure twisting them together in one interlocking, building—

  “I’m gonna—” he blurted.

  “Hell, yes,” she said, as breathless as he, her eyes bright and then closing, her spine arching, her hips jerking and her body closing around him. Scott closed his eyes and lost himself to sensation, crying out as he rose…and rose…reaching so hard—

  And then he lost himself to Marlee.

  Chapter Seven

  Marlee wasn’t certain when or how they’d made it to the bedroom, falling down on the haphazardly made bed to tangle the covers even further. She wasn’t sure when it had become late evening, the long desert twilight still washing the room with gentle light.

  She remembered clearly the moments she’d stretched out in the bed alongside Scott, her bare leg over his; she savored the clear tactile memories of their intimacy of her hand wandering the planes of his chest, across the muscle strapping his ribs, down the faint hollow of his abdomen and over the gentle rise of his hipbone.

  She certainly remembered being lured to explore him more intimately—seeing what made him twitch, what made him quiver, what made him groan…what made his fingers clench down into the covers and his head tip back with that sometimes startled, sometimes fierce, always exquisite expression of pure, responsive pleasure.

  She remembered very clearly indeed that he seemed to understand her own body quite well.

  “Hmm?” he said, stirring sleepily, his hand skimming her body from her shoulder down through the dip of her waist.

  She somehow understood it to be a question. “You were trying to take the tiger again, weren’t you? And you can’t. That’s why you got hurt again. That’s why you’re still here at brevis.”

  His fingers on her waist stilled, utterly; his body under her hand stilled, not even, for that moment, breathing. And then his chest rose and fell in a silent sigh. “It’s got to go both ways, Marlee.”

  She understood that, too. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I think see things I shouldn’t. Things that mean I’m more Sentinel than I realized, even if I don’t want to be.”

  His arm tightened around her, squeezing briefly. “You’re strong,” he said. “You’re quick. You’ve lived your whole life with your fears right there in your face, and no one knowing…no one understanding. It’ll be easier, now that you realize.”

  Two could play that game. “And you still have your tiger.”

  “I—” He stopped his protest, then shook his head. “You really see it?”

  “Bengal tiger,” she said promptly. “It shines from you.”

  He was quiet another long moment, his stomach gently rising and falling with each breath—and totally giving the lie to his pounding heart, the beat kicked up strong and fast. “I believe you,” he said finally, a curious vulnerability laced with anger. “I’ll work on believing me, too.”

  It took only a turn of her head to nip him, not quite gently. He yelped dramatically and pulled her close in a long, tight hug before they lay in silence another moment.

  “I never thought that it would feel good to be held with such strength,” Marlee finally said. The way he’d hoisted her up to him, the way he’d held her…the way he’d carried her here and then held his weight off her as he covered her, moving inside her…protecting her. “I never thought it would make me feel safe.”

  To judge by his reaction, there was no better thing to say to a Sentinel with a lover in his arms.

  Marlee brushed a hand over the weeping branches of the balcony’s potted paloverde tree and looked out into the Tucson night, savoring the sated feel of her body…that sensation of not being alone.

  Scott clattered around in the kitchen, hunting red meat and finding only what she knew he’d find—a few frozen burgers in her careful three-ounce portions. “No wonder you’re so small,” he muttered.

  She wasn’t. Or she hadn’t been. Not until she’d learned to take her frustrations out in exercise. As a systems support tech and Atrum Core mole, she’d been soft and heading toward plump, her posterior more of an ass than an asset—her emotions turned inward.

  Scott came up behind her, crunching a carrot stick, and made himself at home up against that asset. “Bare?” he said, and offered her the carrot.

  She took an absent bite and he popped the remainder in his mouth, crunching companionably as she chewed and pondered and gave up. “Bare, what?”

  “What you said earlier. Wolf, bobcat, jackal, bear. The first three hang out in the medical lounge, but there’s no bear there. Ruger never did hang out there, and he’s out in the field again anyway. More or less.”

  Oh, the bear. “I was thinking of the guy who works repairs in the sublevels.”

  Scott shifted to face her, reaching out to smooth some imaginary stray piece of her short-cropped hair. He was like that, she’d discovered. Always touching, always a little bit possessive.

  She found she didn’t mind as much as she thought she might.

  He said, “There aren’t any bears in custodials. No one there takes anything but the human.”

  “Sure there is. The sloth bear. Big guy with shaggy black hair and a…well, a nose.” She spread her fingers over her own nose to indicate the broadness of the man’s features. “I talked to him just today, when I was looking for you at the gym.”

  Scott’s hands stilled; he stopped looking as though he was pondering the chance to slip his hands beneath the soft drape of the short-sleeved peasant top she’d pulled on over her cutoffs. “I know him,” he said, and shook his head. “He doesn’t take the bear—he never has. He’s just not strong enough.”

  Marlee crossed her arms; she raised a brow at him.

  Scott closed his eyes. “Oh, hell,” he said. “Hell.” Right there before her eyes, the man who had just loved her body into satiation turned into the man of seething anger she’d first met in the gym. He stalked away from her and into the bedroom, and returned tugging his shirt over his head, struggling briefly with the injur
ed arm before getting it lined up just right.

  Marlee looked into the brimming fury of pale hazel eyes and something within her shrunk with the loss of what she’d so briefly had.

  Except Scott tugged the shirt straight—and then he held out his hand. “Coming?”

  “What do you mean, coming?” But even as she asked it, she reached for his hand. “To do what about what? You know there’s been someone using Core workings on the medical floor—I know that the custodian takes the bear when he lets everyone think he can’t. It doesn’t add up to—”

  “He’s got no reason to lie about not taking the change,” Scott growled. “A lifelong lie, at that. It’s him, you know it’s him—”

  “I know he needs to answer some questions,” she said. “But aren’t you going to call someone? How about those two guys who came up here to—” But she saw the look on his face, and she stopped short, understanding. “It’s because it’s me. They’ll never believe me, and even if they did, they wouldn’t believe it means anything.”

  “Drake has been working those floors as long as anyone can remember,” Scott said, not even trying to deny her words. “He’s a nice guy—people like him.”

  “I’m nice,” Marlee said pointedly. “People liked me, too.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and couldn’t hide a lingering hint of betrayal in his voice. “I bet they did.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is it going to be like this?”

  The flat, implacable strength in her voice made him blink—it made her blink, too. But she held his gaze, and she held her determination. Because she deserved better than what he’d just given her—and thanks to him, she knew it.

  Scott took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He let go of his urgency, too, stepping back to her. “No,” he said, and cupped her head to tip her face up, taking a kiss—hard and long—with the same possessiveness with which he’d touched her earlier. “It isn’t.”

  She heard the unspoken words still lingering; she waited. He gave her regret, and shook his head. “For me, it isn’t. For the others…it is. Maybe it always will be. So for this, we’re on our own. Or I can go by myself if you—”

  “No!” The force of her reaction startled them both; she hunted composure. “No, I’m not going to sit here wondering and worrying and waiting. Let’s go.” She jammed bare feet into her cross-trainers and tucked the apartment key into her front pocket, giving the tracking bracelet a nervous twist. “Not that I have any idea what you think we can do about it.”

  Scott’s grin was nowhere near reassuring. “We’ll see what happens when we poke the bear.”

  Chapter Eight

  After so much time on the medical floor, Scott knew exactly where to find Drake Williams at this time of night: at home.

  That the man was still here meant nothing good.

  That he lingered in the diagnostics and surgery area, a screwdriver and an outlet plate in his hands and a suspicious, tidy little package waiting on the empty gurney beside him, meant nothing good at all.

  The hell of it was, Scott would have passed him right by if Marlee hadn’t stopped short. Scott saw nothing but empty bed stations, clips and cords neatly tucked away, privacy curtains drawn back. It was only at second glance that he saw Williams, and stiffened with surprise.

  No wonder the man had never been seen at his sabotage. No wonder he had triggered Scott’s warding in the stairwell, but nowhere else. He had Core workings to obscure his presence, amulets he could trigger in privacy so he could approach in safety. No doubt they were the new silent amulets…no doubt they were smuggled into the building long before the Sentinels knew they’d have to be on guard for such things.

  The stairwell had probably been private enough, until Scott had warded it. Their failed attempt to stop the man hadn’t deterred him…only driven him to seek more secure privacy for the moment in which he invoked the amulets.

  But Marlee had seen Williams’ bear, she’d seen Scott’s tiger—and she’d seen past this working. Scott squeezed her hand, with no time for words—

  Because, of course, Drake Williams had no problem seeing them—or perceiving that his working had failed him. He stood in awkward hesitation, clearly considering a bluff—a hearty good-evening, and he’d be on his way.

  Scott didn’t think so. “Drake,” he said. “I think we need to talk.”

  Williams took another moment to process the situation, and shook his shaggy head. “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Mr. Williams,” Marlee said, “please listen to me. I know what you’re feeling, but this doesn’t have to go badly for you.” No doubt she did understand how this man could be manipulated. He was a Sentinel without grace, without intensity, without the quickness or personal presence. He’d come late to the change, or he wouldn’t have been able to hide it at all. Like Marlee, he’d probably spent his life feeling less than.

  The Core had given him a way to feel more than.

  Williams snorted, dropping the screwdriver beside what were almost certainly plastic explosives. “You got caught.”

  Marlee’s voice stayed quiet. “So are you.”

  “By you?” He snorted again. “By the man who can’t even take his tiger any longer?”

  Scott took a sharp breath. Direct hit. And no one was supposed to know that, much less one of the custodians. The familiar anger crept in, a hot throb in his chest, up the back of his neck.

  Marlee touched his arm. She said, “Yes. By us.” And she reached past Scott to pick up the desk phone at the healer’s station.

  Williams shoved the gurney aside and lumbered forward, and Scott didn’t need Marlee to warn him about the man’s imminent transition to his bear, not with the energies already flowing a swirling snap of light around him. Williams reared up as the bear, just shy of Scott’s height, a third again heavier, mouth opened wide to brandish both teeth and slobber. Scott pushed Marlee back—out of the way, out of danger—and reached for his tiger, unthinking.

  Hot fire flooded his body, raking out from the center of him, taking his legs out from beneath him as if he’d never been strong enough to stand in the first place. He cried out, as much frustration as pain—shoving the tiger away, lifting his head…staggering back to his feet.

  He looked up just in time to take the mighty backhanded swipe of the enraged bear. He slammed against the healer’s station, ribs giving way—hearing the crack of it but not quite feeling the pain yet, seeing nothing but a blur of black fur, the flick of a massive paw as he took another hit. Marlee cried out with rage, far too close; Scott blinked hard to clear his vision, and looked down to see himself on hands and knees and poised to take another blow. But the bear grunted only in surprise, its squalled protests mixing with a series of strange hollow impacts.

  Marlee. Marlee, leaping upon the bear’s shoulders to cling tight, slamming the animal’s shaggy head with a thick metal clipboard, jabbing at its eyes. “Believe, dammit!” she shouted, and only belatedly did Scott realize she spoke to him.

  Believe!

  She’d been right about Williams’s bear. She’d seen right through the Core working to find him here. She’d been seeing all her life.

  I believe you, he’d told her. I just don’t believe me.

  Once he had. Once he’d reached for the tiger and felt nothing—there, in those days immediately after Core D’oìche, when everyone had been so stunned, when he’d still been so sorely wounded. It hadn’t hurt to try the change, then. Only later, when he’d been bitter and angry and…

  Disbelieving.

  The tiger, called upon and then disbelieved. The tiger, striking back.

  Marlee lost her grip on the bear and tumbled to the floor, awkward and desperately trying to roll away. The bear turned for her, shaking its head and clawing air in a temper taken over by the beast.

  No one had ever known Williams could take the bear. No one had ever trained him to deal with the surge of power, the purity of instinct and reaction.

  Marlee scramble
d away—the bear thumped down to all fours with a ponderous leap, catching Marlee up in one extended paw and flicking her aside…flicking her against the wall, where she crumpled, still and silent as the bear gathered itself again.

  I believe you. Scott launched himself at the bear, reaching—

  Finding. Flashing through the pain to exultation, the tiger’s roar filling his head, the coiled explosion of strength filling his body. He slammed into the bear, digging claws in long enough for a quick grab-hold and two wicked blows from his hind legs before he sprang aside, putting himself between Marlee and the bear.

  “Scott!” Marlee gasped, and he found her tugging futilely at the tough plastic around her wrist. She thrust the arm at him, her gaze on the bear—and Scott had no time for it, turning instead to rise up against the bear, slipping backward as the bear raked him hard, leaving torn flesh in his wake.

  “Scott!” Marlee said, demanding now—she’d made it to her knees, her wrist held out to him. “No one’s coming, Scott—they can’t hear.”

  The Core working, obscuring as much sound as sight—leaving them battling in isolation.

  Scott whirled on her, jaws open, diving for her wrist. She flinched—hell, who wouldn’t flinch?—but held steady, and he hooked a canine through the plastic and flicked his head aside.

  Marlee cried out at the forces wrenching her arm—and then, once the bracelet had been removed, scrambled away. Scott paid for that instant of inattention, claws raking his flank, the raw scent of blood in the air. He spun, a single flowing motion, and clamped down on the bear’s splayed paw, biting hard, releasing, springing aside.

  And then his snarl was for Marlee, darting back in with fire extinguisher in hand, using it to bludgeon the bear from behind—once, twice—before the bear slapped her aside.