Taken for the Tiger

by Annabelle Winters

“How sweet,” said his mother, sighing and placing a hand on her heart—a hand that was covered in scars . . . scars from old clawmarks, like she’d been clawing at her own skin for years! “Isn’t he sweet? Our baby boy!”

  Everett felt a chill go through him as he looked into his parents' eyes and saw nothing but a void, nothing but darkness, nothing but death. They were both in human form, which puzzled Everett. Wasn’t this the Darkness? A place for Shifters’ animals only? After all, he was in tiger form, Darius was in lion form, and those damned bears were still all brown fur and snouts! Humans couldn’t manifest here! Couldn’t survive here! Couldn’t be here!

  “We aren’t human,” whispered his mother, her eyes blazing with the dark energy of her twisted tiger. “We’re monsters.”

  “Monsters,” growled his father, smiling wide and showing off teeth that were like fangs, yellowed and chipped, biting down on lips that were broken and bleeding, like they’d been bleeding for a hundred years! “Just like you. Come, join us at the dinner table! We’ll read the newspaper together! You still like the comics? Garfield the Cat, right?”

  Everett’s tiger recoiled from his father’s outstretched arm, growling as it prepared to attack its own parents—or whatever these creatures were! They weren’t human, but they weren’t animal either. They were something else. Something deeply unbalanced. Something darker than the Darkness. It reminded him of those strange Shifters he’d seen back at the circus, in fact.

  Everett blinked as he felt his tiger’s vision bring forth a clarity that made him gasp. Suddenly he understood! He didn’t know how he understood, but he did! He could see it in the way his mother and father were standing—close together but also separated! There was no thread linking them! No golden thread, no silver string, not even a gnarled rope that glowed with the dark energy of this place.

  “You aren’t fated mates!” Everett finally blurted out, the answer coming out in words even as the thought formed in his frazzled brain. “You’re both Shifters, but not true mates! You lost faith in your fate! Gave up on your destiny! Mated outside of the fated bond! That’s why you both died so early! You lost what made you special, changed your own fate somehow!”

  His mother sighed again, placing that scarred hand over her heart once more. She looked at Everett’s father and shook her head. “He always was an ungrateful wretch, wasn’t he?”

  “If we hadn’t mated, you wouldn’t have been born!” said his father, crossing his eyebrows and shaking a trembling finger at Everett.

  “I would have been born to someone else,” growled Everett, suddenly certain of his destiny, his fate. “I was born for my fated mate, not for you! You didn’t give me life! I live for her! For Tracy! Our bond would have pulled me to her regardless of whose womb I emerged from, whose seed I arose from! You have no one to blame but your own impatience! Your own lack of faith!”

  “Faith in what? The legend of fated mates?” shrieked his mother, her jaws opening wide to reveal a toothless cavern that stank of death, reeked of shame, oozed with self-hatred. “There’s no such thing! We waited for decades . . . waited for nothing! We died to give you life!”

  “And our reward is a life of pleasure down here,” whispered his father, his eyes shining with a crazed darkness that made Everett want to cry. He’d grieved for his parents as he watched them wither away in the world of flesh and blood, the healing powers of their tigers seemingly lost. He hadn’t understood why it was happening back then—especially since he’d seen how easily his own tiger healed after even the most devastating wounds from its youthful recklessness. But he understood it now. Understood it in a way he wished he didn’t!

  “Why!” he roared in anguish as he watched his parents slowly turn from him and walk away into the Darkness. “Why did I need to see that? Why did I need to know that? Why, Darius?! Why the fuck did I need to see that?!”

  “Because whether you knew it or not, you blamed yourself for their deaths,” said Darius. “And now you know that they are responsible for their own choices. You saw it in a moment of divine insight, buddy. You saw that your soul exists for your fated mate. You are free from the hold your parents had on you. You carried their shame with you, whether you knew it or not. But you aren’t like them, bro. You’re like me! You controlled your need to mate until fate rewarded you with the true one, your true one!”

  “Then where is she!” roared Everett, the dark emotions rising up in him from that encounter with the twisted souls of his parents. “Where is she, Darius?! If the whole point of this was for me to learn the truth about my parents, that they lost faith in the promise of true mates, in the promise of destiny, that they somehow reasoned their way into getting their animals to mate outside of the fated bond, that they’re existing as humans in the Darkness, living some life of carnal pleasure without the balance of human love . . . if that’s supposed to release me from whatever baggage I’ve been carrying, free me to complete my bond with my fated mate, then where is my mate?! Where is my true love?! What good are my own choices if I’ve lost her?! I might as well have mated with every female grad-student who showed up at my office after sunset!”

  Everett paused as he felt his tiger tense up even as he felt the human in him relax. A part of him knew that Darius was right. Everett had controlled his need to mate, his need to take a woman, his need to give in to the animal lust which sometimes drove him close to madness. He hadn’t known what he was holding out for. It was just instinct. An instinct that didn’t come from his tiger alone or his human alone. An instinct that came from the meeting place of his animal and his human. An instinct that came from a place of perfect balance—or perhaps the need to find perfect balance: A balance that could only come from his fated mate.

  He blinked through his tiger’s eyes as he felt a wave of relief pass through him. Then he looked up and gasped as he saw the emotions leave him like they were living, breathing things: Guilt, shame, loneliness. Isolation, anguish, restlessness. He smiled and nodded, blowing air from his tiger’s maws like he was sending those feelings off into the Darkness, where they belonged. Then he turned to Darius, a big smile on his tiger’s face.

  But the smile left him the next moment.

  “Darius,” he whispered, his tiger once again tensing up like it had before, like it knew something was wrong. “Darius . . .”

  “What’s happening,” growled the lion, pacing in restless fury, swinging its mighty maned head from side to side as if it was caught in a trap. “What’s happening? Why do I feel like . . . like . . . oh, God, Lacy! Lacy!”

  Everett stared in disbelief as that golden thread that he knew connected Darius to Lacy turned dark . . . so dark it was shining black like oil in the moonlight, twisting and turning like a serpent! The thread was still there, still strong, still unbroken. But it was shining with a different light. A light that glinted of darkness.

  And then, as Everett watched, that thread tightened, and Lacy exploded into being, still in human form, her body spinning in the air like she’d been sucked up into a twister! She screamed as she spun past the two big cats, and then her body disappeared into what looked like a hole within the dark pit where they stood, the same hole that Everett's parents had faded into!

  That dark thread went taut, and a moment later Darius was pulled after his mate, his lion’s strength useless against the infinite gravity of whatever force was pulling Lacy deeper into the Darkness.

  “Darius!” Everett roared, trying to reach out and grab his buddy, grab both of them, pull them away! But he couldn’t get to them. It was like he was being held back from that place of ultimate Darkness. “Darius, hold on! I’m coming!”

  But Darius just roared, and as Everett watched in shock, the lion Changed back to the man, following his mate deeper into the Darkness.

  “Bloody hell,” Everett growled, stomping his feet as he realized that the only way he was going to be able to follow them into that place, that pl
ace where his own parents existed, was to repossess those dark emotions that he’d just let go! Bring that guilt and shame back into him! Those emotions were the price of entry to this place! Lacy had somehow accessed her own darkest emotions, and she was being pulled into this pit of despair. Darius was being pulled down with her, thanks to the unbreakable bond between fated mates. What the hell was Everett supposed to do?! He wanted to go after his buddy, just like Darius had come for him. But what about Tracy?! Nothing was more important than his own mate!

  And then he saw her come spinning onto the scene, and Everett just grinned like a madman. Somehow he understood exactly what was happening.

  Tracy was going after her sister.

  And Everett was going with her.

  “Bloody hell,” he whispered again, feeling his Change coming, feeling those dark emotions swirl up again in him as he reached out for his mate, preparing to take her hand and follow her into what might in fact be bloody hell . . .

  11

  “Bloody hell,” Tracy heard Everett say as she saw him reach for her, take her hand, and allow himself to be pulled to whatever place this was.

  She landed on her feet with a thud. A hard thud that sent shooting pain throughout her body. She looked down, grimacing at how heavy she felt, how heavy the atmosphere felt. It was like gravity was doubled in this place, and she frowned as she heard three more thuds around her.

  “Tracy! I’m here!” came Everett’s voice, and relief washed through her when she saw her mate standing there, naked and human, his darkly handsome face twisted in a grimace as he stared at his own feet, lifting them one at a time and frowning. “Why do my feet feel so damned heavy?”

  Tracy ran to Everett, throwing herself at him and almost knocking him over with her strangely exaggerated weight down in this place. He grunted as he caught her, smiling wide and leaning in close. “Got you,” he said.

  “Just about,” she said, blinking as she looked down at their bodies squished together. Then she turned her head in the direction where she’d heard Lacy and Darius land. Sure enough, there they were, the two of them embracing in the darkness, smiling in relief that they were back together. “Damn, I feel fat in this place! It really is hell!”

  Everett laughed, and Tracy smiled when she heard her sister laugh too as she approached them. Soon all four of them were laughing, even though Tracy could sense the apprehension in the air. They were all together, yeah. But where?! Would they ever get out of here?!

  “Lacy,” she said, slowly pulling away from Everett and turning to her sister. “Are you all right?”

  “I . . . I think so,” said Lacy, frowning as if she was trying to figure out the answer to Tracy’s question. “What our parents said . . . it really got to me. But I feel all right now.” She cocked her head and looked at Darius. Then she glanced back at Tracy and nodded. “I am all right. Sorry I pulled all you guys down here!”

  “Way to go, sis,” said Tracy, looking around in the heavy darkness. “Pulling us into the basement of hell. Nice job.”

  They all chuckled again, but the big question lingered over them like a dark cloud. They were here. They were together. But they were trapped. They were most certainly not all right! But if they’d been pulled to this sub-basement of the Darkness by accessing their own dark feelings of shame and guilt and everything in between, why didn’t it feel horrible? Why did it feel like they were safe from the horror that surrounded them?!

  And it was horror, Tracy realized as she squinted into the darkness and gasped when she realized that what she’d thought was a wall was in fact moving! At first she wondered if it was the Black Dragon, Murad’s mate. But slowly she made out hands and legs, heads and bodies, butts and boobs, everything entwined like it was all part of one massive body. Then came the sounds: grunts, groans, moans, wails. Howls of ecstasy, but ecstasy that was hollow, pure carnal pleasure without the magic of human love.

  “It’s humans having sex like beasts,” Tracy whispered as she moved close to her mate, feeling the dark energy of this place reaching out to her like invisible fingers. “That’s what it is! And it feels . . . it feels sick! Ohmygod, I can’t look!”

  For a moment Tracy swore she saw their parents’ twisted faces somewhere in the sea of enmeshed bodies, and she screamed and burrowed into her mate, shaking her head as she tried to get that image away from her! Beside her she could feel Lacy hugging Darius, and she instantly understood that the four of them were safe only because they were with their fated mates.

  Slowly Tracy opened her eyes, and then she gasped when she saw that Lacy and Darius were shining with light once again! Desperately she looked up at her own mate, hoping to see the same light enveloping her too. But there was nothing. It didn’t make sense! Wasn’t that one kiss enough to bond them? Everett was her fated mate! What more did the Light need to forge their eternal bond and keep them safe from the Darkness? Did they actually need to have . . .

  “Sex,” came a voice from Tracy’s left, and she whipped her head around toward the sound.

  “Who the hell are you?” Tracy groaned, blinking as the image of a curvy woman with brown hair and the beautiful eyes of a fox shone through the darkness. “Another demon? Another cousin or aunt who did something horrible to get herself trapped in this sick place?”

  “She’s a Fox Shifter!” whispered Everett after a moment. “And her scent . . . I swear it’s familiar, even though I don’t recognize her face.”

  “A Fox Shifter and a Dark Witch,” came Lacy’s voice, her tone tinged with relief. “Magda! You found us!”

  “It wasn’t easy, but yes,” said the Fox Shifter with a smile that seemed oddly hesitant, even though her eyes were beaming. “Thankfully you guys left a lot of blood for me to use as I experimented to find the right spells!”

  “Oh, wow,” said Lacy, touching the side of her head as if checking for a wound. “That’s great! Sorry if we freaked you guys out with that double-suicide thing. But I had faith that your magic was strong enough to bring us back.” She looked up at Darius and smiled, and Tracy could feel the bond her sister had with her mate—a bond that she knew was stronger than what she had with Everett right then.

  Once again the thought swirled through her mind that the kiss had connected them, but their bond wasn’t complete, their union wasn’t sealed, their mating still unfinished. She frowned at the thought, feeling a strange rush of anger go through her. Why wasn’t a kiss enough? Did they really need to actually do the deed to complete their bond?! Couldn’t they unite in pure love without sex?!

  “The Shifter is a union of flesh and spirit, human and animal, pure love and pure lust,” came Magda’s reply as if the witch could see Tracy’s thoughts, understand her anger. “We are driven by a need to balance these basic forces of the universe even as these urges threaten to rip us apart. It’s a curse, and that’s why Shifters are blessed with the promise of fated mates.” Magda sighed, her fox’s eyes narrowing as she glanced around them. “Of course, fate doesn’t come without faith. We are surrounded by the souls of Shifters who lost faith in the promise of their true mate. Shifters who lost the internal battle for balance and gave in to their urges to mate outside the fated bond.” She sighed again, turning those wily fox’s eyes back towards Tracy. “And the key word is mate. The two of you are connected, but the bond has to be completed, sealed, consummated. Without that completed bond, my magic won’t work to bring you back to the world of flesh and blood.”

  “Wait, what?” Lacy snapped, pulling away from Darius and stepping in front of Tracy. “What do you mean, Magda?” She looked down at herself and frowned, her mouth slowly opening in muted shock as her body began to shimmer and then slowly fade. “Magda, no! I’m not leaving here without Tracy! I came here for my sister, and I’m not leaving without her!”

  “There’s nothing more you two can do,” whispered Magda, her fox’s eyes glowing red as magic flowed through her l
ike a river. “The two of you helped Tracy and Everett connect with their pasts, understand who they were as individuals. The rest of their journey has to be completed on their own, as a couple.” She blinked her glowing eyes, glancing down at Lacy’s belly, which Tracy suddenly noticed was popping out in a beautifully pregnant curve! “Now you two have to complete your own journey as a couple. And that has to be done in the world of flesh and blood!”

  “No!” screamed Lacy, trying to clutch at her sister’s arms even as her body faded. “Darius, stop her! We’re not done here! We have to travel to the Light and find the she-Dragon’s human soul! That still has to be done!”

  “Yes, it does,” whispered Magda. “But that is now a task for your sister and her mate. The bobcat and the tiger. Their journey as a couple is tied to the task set before them. You cannot complete the task for them. It is their fate, not yours.”

  “I’m not leaving my sister here alone,” said Lacy firmly, gritting her teeth like she was clamping down with all her will, slowing down Magda’s magic.

  But then Everett stepped forward, shaking his head, his long black hair waving fiercely in the darkness, his skin looking so bronze that even as a human he was blazing orange and black like a tiger. “She isn’t alone,” he said with a quiet confidence that almost shattered Tracy. “She’ll never be alone again.” He glanced over at Darius, and then down at the curve of Lacy’s belly. “The witch is right. The two of you need to return before it’s too late. Before you lose your own bond.”

  Lacy frowned as she followed Everett’s gaze down to her belly. Then she gasped, cradling herself and staring down as her belly seemed to get larger and larger! “What’s happening, Magda? We’ve only been here a few hours! I can’t already be . . .”

  “A few hours?!” said Magda, shaking her head and chuckling. “Lacy, time doesn’t work the same way outside the world of flesh and blood. It might have felt like a few hours to you, but it’s been nine months on Earth, Lacy! If you don’t return now, your children will be born in this place!” The Fox-Shifter blinked, a flash of fear in her red eyes. “And even I don’t know what will happen then. All I know is that I can’t let it happen.”