The Tiger’s Ambush

by Tate James

  “Yeah,” I squeaked, then cleared my throat. “Ah huh, keep going. Just... processing.”

  Vic nodded at me. “Righto. So back in the beginning of time, when the Ban Dia discovered they could use human men like this, like battery packs, there was a power struggle. Several of the originals tried to amass as many dionach as they could to gain control of people or land or whatever. Wars are silly. Anyway, it quickly became clear that three was the limit. No Ban Dia was ever able to bind more than three Guardians to her, which kept a balance of power.” He quirked his scarred eyebrow and looked pointedly at my group of six men. Austin had slipped back in silently at some stage and was slouched against the door, looking bored. I knew him better than that though, and the tightness around his mouth told me how tense he was.

  “Since then, the relationship between Ban Dia and dionach has evolved into more of the normal sort of relationship between a man and woman. Or, three men and a woman, as it is.” Vic continued, “You’ll be capable of incredible magic, but you’ll also need to recharge.”

  “And by recharge... you mean...” Wesley blushed in a sexy sort of way as he asked this, and Vic chuckled.

  “What do ye think I mean, lad?” The scarred man grinned as Wesley blushed a little deeper. “I’m just teasing ye; it doesn’t always have to be sexual. Once you get good at what you’re doing, really get a handle on your magic, then you’ll be able to pull with just simple skin to skin contact. Until then, though, intimacy is the easiest way.”

  “So you’re saying that three of us are Kit’s guardians, then? Her dionach?” Caleb spoke up for the first time with a really damn good question. Was I going to have to choose? Or did fate decide for me?

  “No.” Vic shook his head, and my heart plummeted. If not them... then who? “I’m not saying three of you are. I’m saying all of you are. I can feel her magic on all six of ye. Exact same way I feel Bride on Nicky and Lachlan. If I were a betting man, I’d guess it was—” He cut off with a hiss, clutching his hand to his throat.

  “Victor?” I exclaimed. “Are you okay? What’s happening?”

  “Roadblock, I presume?” Wesley murmured, frowning with thought.

  Victor shut his eyes tight and took a few deep breaths before re-opening them and looking over to Austin.

  “Didn’t I send you to fetch Annaliese and Nicky?” he asked, and Austin glared back at him.

  “They were nowhere to be found.”

  “Hmmph, typical. Hiding out until I bear the brunt of this.” Vic’s voice was husky and rough like he’d swallowed acid. “Yes, boy. Roadblock.” He nodded at Wesley.

  “Magic?” Caleb asked, with a strange look on his face.

  “Magic,” Vic spat. “Bride doesn’t want people knowing her business. Her secrets are her secrets, so she placed a geas on us, her dionach, which prevents us speaking them. Over time, mine has worn thinner than the others, but it’s still very much there. Probably why Nicky sent you to me.”

  A rapid pounding at the door interrupted whatever Caleb had been about to say. Probably a good thing too, as Caleb’s hand in mine was clenched tight in an anger I didn’t quite understand. “Sorry to interrupt, Vic,” a young man puffed, letting himself in when Austin moved away from the door. “We heard you were back. We need help. One of the pups isn’t waking up from the tranq dart, and she’s struggling to breathe...”

  “Make yourselves comfortable. I’ll be back.” Vic heaved his huge frame out of the chair and threw his deep hood back over his head.

  “Wait,” I struggled up from my seat. “What are you going to do? Do you have the ability to heal, too?”

  Vic paused on his way out the door, turning back to me. “Aside from being a shifter and a dionach, I’m also a doctor. Between magic and medicine, I’m as close as these pups get to a healer, but no one can heal the way the Ban Dia could before the plague.”

  “But didn’t Bridget heal the three of you? Back at Blood Moon?” I followed him as he strode out of the house and into the street. I knew he’d looked familiar, but the scarring had thrown me off until just then. He was definitely one of the patients from Blood Moon, which meant maybe Lachlan was the other one.

  “Aye, but we’re her chosen dionach. She had to heal us to make us immortal like herself. She didn’t manage to escape the plague unscathed and lost her ability to heal except in the case of her dionach.” He paused in the middle of the road and looked down at me, then glanced to the six men following us. “You think you have what the rest of your people lost?”

  “I think it’s worth a try.” Despite the shock of all I had just learned, a kid’s life was in danger, and I possibly held the power to save her. Surely I needed to at least try?

  Vic squinted at me for a moment, his scarred skin rippling in a peculiar way, before grunting a noise of agreement. “Very well then, let’s try.”

  2

  The little kid lying in her single, princess bed was instantly recognizable as the one Simon had held hostage when we’d spoken in the middle of the battle. My heart clenched with guilt seeing her sobbing mother hovering beside the bed, and I knew without a doubt I needed to help them.

  This whole thing was my fault. They’d lived in this isolated shifter community for who knew how many years, and within hours of my arrival, they were being drugged, abducted, and killed.

  “Well, if you’re going to try, do it quickly,” Vic prompted me, and I stumbled forward a couple of steps to reach the little girl’s bed. “Can you work around me if I check her vitals?”

  “I think so.” I had no idea. The only times I’d ever actually made my magic work had been for Cole and Vali, both of whom had been on the edge of death and, based on the info dump Vic had just provided, probably were also my Guardians.

  “Kerri, it might be good to give us some space?” Vic gently suggested to the girl’s mother, and the stricken look she gave us both made my chest constrict.

  “What? No! I’m not leaving her here with my girl!” The woman spat the words with a venomous glare towards me. I didn’t blame her.

  “Kerri, this girl might be able to save Abby faster than I can. If I even can. If she’s taken a bad reaction to the sedatives, it could verra well kill her.” Vic’s words were gentle but brokered no arguments. “Please, Kerri. Let us try and save your pup.”

  The woman looked at me for a long moment, then burst out in loud sobs and left the room, closing the door behind her. I’d asked the guys to wait outside so that I wasn’t dragging my entourage through this family’s house with me, which left Vic and me alone.

  Sagging to my knees beside the girl’s pink and purple bed, I stroked a gentle hand over her hair, which lay limp on the pillow. She looked so peaceful, like she was sleeping, but her skin was ashen and there was a worrying blue tint to her lips.

  “You okay, girl?” Vic murmured, leaning over me to strap a blood pressure cuff to the girl’s arm.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I whispered. My voice caught, and I choked back tears.

  “Don’t worry about it. Barely anyone escaped that fucking plague unchanged. Even those who retained their memories and magic were altered. Damaged. Weakened. None of the Ban Dia retained their ability to heal others, so there’s no shame in not succeeding here.” He was gruff as he worked, but I got the distinct impression he wasn’t such a bad guy deep down. Just... rough.

  “This whole thing, these kids being drugged, it’s because of me.” I pressed my hand to the girl’s forehead and tried to find that spark within myself, that essence of magic that had brought both Cole and Vali back from the brink of death.

  Nothing.

  Vic heaved a sigh. “Look. Don’t try and force it. I can’t give you much more than that. Your mom only ever healed us, but she always said it just came naturally. Like the magic in her had a life of its own and she just let it do its thing.”

  He made it sound so easy, but I supposed some advice was better than none. Biting my lip, I smoothed my hand back across the girl’s
forehead and closed my eyes. Magic always seemed easier when I closed my eyes. Says me, who to my knowledge, had used magic all of twice in my life.

  For the longest time, nothing happened. Then just as I was about to give up, a small flickering of light ignited within my mind. Still convinced that nothing was happening, I gasped with surprise, and my lids flew open, my mind losing the little light instantly.

  “Shit,” I swore quietly, and Vic raised an eyebrow at me. “Give me another minute.”

  Closing my lids tight once more, I searched for that flickering and found it almost immediately, like it had been waiting for me to come back. Under my hand, the girl’s skin warmed with the phantom feeling of fur, and my lips curved into a smile.

  It was working.

  Vic’s advice about letting the magic do its thing rang true, and I opened my mind to it.

  A tingling rush ran through me and into the unconscious girl, increasing the feeling of fur under my hand to the point where I began stroking her head like you would a puppy.

  In no time at all, the feeling faded and left me a with a sharp sense of loss and emptiness.

  “Holy, shit,” Vic murmured from somewhere close behind my shoulder. “Abby, sweetheart, are you okay?”

  “Doctor Vic?” The little girl’s voice croaked, and I blinked my eyes open.

  “How are you feeling, Abby?” the scarred man asked in a gentle voice, but the girl had her gaze glued to me, her eyes wide with terror.

  “I should go,” I murmured, pushing to my feet. “She saw me during... before she got drugged. I’m probably scaring her.”

  Vic nodded, letting me past him to leave the little girl’s room.

  “You did good, Christina,” he commented, making me pause in the doorway. “Thank you.”

  I nodded but said nothing. No thanks were needed for a mess that I had created.

  Outside the house, six men waited for me. They hadn’t seen me slip through the door, and I took a moment to watch them. Wesley, Caleb, and Austin sat on a low wall talking quietly with their heads bowed, while Cole and River stood together with their backs to me. Only Vali stood alone, leaning against a lamppost, and was the first to look up and spot me.

  “You okay?” he asked, taking a few steps toward me as I descended the porch steps. My head was swimming like I was drunk, but it wasn’t a scratch on the way I’d felt after healing Cole. Or Vali for that matter, but I’d been so pumped with adrenaline from being shot at and seeing Mr. Gray that I hadn’t really noticed it at the time.

  “I healed her.” A smile curved across my face as a sense of accomplishment washed through me, and Vali’s lips twitched in response.

  “Good. But are you okay?” he repeated, his steely gaze intent on my face.

  “Yeah, fine. Just tired.” In direct contradiction to my words, I stumbled my next step and screwed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t see the pavement when my face hit it. My body was too tired to try and save itself, so I was just letting it happen until a pair of strong hands grasped me by the waist and hauled me back upright.

  The rapid direction change barely allowed me a moment to gasp a breath before my lips were met by the lips of whoever had just caught me. His soft mouth caressed mine gently, and when I responded, he teased open my lips with his tongue. A soft whimper escaped me as I melted a little under the touch of a man that was familiar but new all at the same time. Like some sort of clichéd rom-com, butterflies erupted in my belly, overwhelming me with emotion while he slid his soft palm up to cup my cheek and his glasses bumped my eyebrow.

  “Hmm, might be time to switch to contacts,” Wesley whispered with a cheeky grin as he pulled back just an inch and met my shocked gaze.

  “Wes...” I trailed off because I was quite literally at a loss for words.

  “Did you manage to regain some energy?” he asked sheepishly with a light blush staining his cheeks. His palm still cupped my face though, and I leaned into his touch as the magic sparkled through my veins.

  “Yes,” I sighed, relishing the feeling of what I now knew was magic passing between us. “Thank you, Wes.” Rising up on my toes, I planted a soft, lingering kiss on his lips before turning to the other guys.

  “Let’s head back to Vic’s and work out what to do next. I think he’s going to be a while checking on the other kids.” I glanced back at the house I’d just left and saw Abby’s mother watching me from a window with a deep scowl on her face. “I get the feeling we aren’t particularly welcome in this town anymore.”

  Caleb snorted, sliding an arm around my shoulders as we started back to Vic’s house.

  “Yeah, like we ever were.”

  A small smile pulled at my lips; he had a point.

  Between the near fatal fight with Chesca—the metal-clawed werewolf we’d last seen at Blood Moon labs—to the villains from my own past drugging and abducting their children... yeah, we definitely weren’t welcome.

  Back at Vic’s house, Caleb made bacon sandwiches for everyone and I poured myself a glass of wine from Vic’s cellar. After all, I was legal now.

  I was sitting on the couch, squeezed between two massive men, when River’s pocket vibrated several times against my leg, and I raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Get your mind out of the gutter, love.” He chuckled under his breath. “It was my phone and you know it.” Biting back a grin, I shifted to let him fish out his device. Swiping his thumb across the screen, he read for a moment then sighed. “Bugger.” He dropped his phone into his lap and rubbed his face with a tired hand.

  “What’s up, Alpha?” Caleb asked with a tiny edge of teasing in his voice. Ever since they’d realized I had accidentally nicknamed River Alpha, which was coincidentally also his call sign, they’d been using it a whole lot more.

  “Director has sent out a company-wide blast. We’re all being cautioned. Need to report to HQ by Monday morning or we’re suspended from duty.” River delivered the information to his team with zero emotion, his expression back to neutral and closed off.

  “What? How come I—” Wesley patted his pockets, then must have remembered he’d lost his phone at Granny Winter’s place when the shifter Frank had knocked him out. Mine was long gone, before my kidnapping at the paintball park even. “I take it no one has kept Director Pierre informed?”

  The guys all shook their head slightly, and Vali grinned wolfishly. “Oh dear. Don’t tell me Dragă’s daddy is going to bitch slap the lot of you.”

  “Kit asked that we not inform the director about our movements, and since everything last night, time hasn’t permitted an update to be sent,” River clarified, pointedly ignoring Vali’s shit stirring.

  “You’re right; I did ask you not to tell him. I’ll explain it to him, somehow. You all shouldn’t be getting cautioned for this... whatever that means,” I slid my hand onto River’s lap to clasp his, threading our fingers together. More and more when I was around the guys, I had this almost unconscious drive to be touching them all the time—which kind of made sense now.

  “I have a feeling you’ll need to do that, too,” Cole grimaced, reading his own phone. “He sounds pissed.”

  “It’ll be fine,” I smiled at Cole. He was such an imposing figure, sitting on the edge of a dining chair like he was ready to pounce any second. A retired MMA fighter, his physique was out of this world, and the tattoos wrapping his chiselled frame made me want to drag him back to bed and simply spend hours inspecting them all. With my mouth.

  “Seriously, you guys. He is probably just annoyed that we went radio silent on him for a bit. I will explain it all, and you’ll be let off the hook for sure.” I nodded firmly, almost like I was convincing myself. “Vali, you go do what you need to do so your people don’t come hunting us down for, like, abducting you or something.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you sure, dragă? Doesn’t seem fair to leave you to work damage control with Pierre...”

  “Vali, I hardly think the headquarters of a secret intelligence agency is really
the sort of place a known crime lord should be casually visiting.” I rolled my eyes dramatically, and he gave me a half grin.

  “That is a very good point... and I guess these fuckers are capable of looking after you for a few days...” A heavy sigh gusted out of him, and he ran his tanned hand through his shoulder length hair. I’d never normally been a fan of long hair on guys, but fuck me, he pulled it off well.

  Looking back up at me with his granite gray eyes, the exact same shade as Cole’s, he frowned. “I am buying you a new phone before I go, though, so you can call me if you end up in the shit.”

  “Fine by me, but I won’t need to. He’s my sort-of dad remember?” I smiled; their alpha male possessive thing was so hot. “Austin, you can go sort out your thing too. I am sure Jonathan will understand.”

  River made a grunt that sounded like he disagreed with me but then surprised me by agreeing out loud. “Kitten’s right. Austin, I know Master Yoshi is important to you, and the last thing you need is getting stuck with a caution. We can cover for you until you can get back.”

  The look Austin gave his team leader suggested he thought we had lost our minds. “Guys, you are aware that that’s a terrible idea? Remember what happened last time someone ignored a caution?”

  “It will be fine; our team has some very different circumstances.” River’s tone was final, but Austin flicked his gaze to me, holding eye contact for long enough that my palms began sweating.

  “All right, it’s on you,” Austin finally said, shrugging and breaking our stare-off. “Wes, for the record, I am placing a fifty on Princess getting blasted over this.” Wesley snickered, and Caleb stood up to punch his twin in the arm.

  “Jesus, it feels like ages since we’ve placed a good wager,” River muttered with a sly grin. “I’ll take that bet. You clearly misunderstand our girl’s powers of persuasion.” His hand tightened on mine, and my stomach flipped with butterflies at hearing him call me our girl.