The Tiger’s Ambush

by Tate James

  “Is there anything else I don’t know?” I asked, keeping my tone even, despite the tremors in my hands.

  “Uh yeah, actually, there is something I need to fill everyone in on,” Wesley spoke up from his seat on the couch behind me. I’d been sitting on the ground while he brushed out my hair for me during the guys’ recount of the evening and hadn’t bothered to move yet.

  Shifting a little now, I craned my head so I could look at him with a frown. It had seemed like he’d told me everything in the tub. Perhaps not, though.

  “Um, so these vision things I’ve been having, at first they seemed really random, like I was either inadvertently spying on Kit or I was witnessing conversations that made no sense. Anyway, I had another one earlier tonight that made a whole lot more sense.” He shifted uncomfortably and reached a hand up to run through his hair, then caught the gesture before it completed. “Kit, was the girl you healed in the training center sort of Asian looking? Long black hair, about five-six or so?”

  “Yeah, that sounds right.” I frowned. “Why?”

  “So, I’m pretty sure that’s the girl I saw in my vision-thing earlier and also a couple of other times, but it didn’t make sense until now.” Wesley sighed heavily. “What I saw was her shifting into wolf form under the supervision of some Omega medics...” He paused. “And Director Pierre.”

  My stomach sank at hearing my fears confirmed, and my fingernails bit into my sides as I clenched my hands and tried not to throw up or something.

  “So it was all a setup then? All the accidents... the car? The bomb in New York?” Bile was rising in my throat as I considered the possibility that Jonathan could be behind those attacks. They could have killed me. He would have no way of knowing I couldn’t die; hell, I hadn’t even known for all that long.

  “I’m not sure.” Wesley shook his head. “I just know that the accidents with the recruits were not accidents.”

  For a really long, tense moment, no one spoke. What the hell could you say to that, anyway? My adoptive dad might have been responsible for nearly killing three of my guardians and me. What the actual fuck did you say to that?

  “I think I need a nap or something,” I finally muttered, standing up from my place on the carpet and making moves toward one of the bedrooms. It had already been decided we would all catch a bit of rest before heading back to Seattle, but now I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go back at all.

  “Wait, Kitty Kat.” Caleb’s voice halted me, and I looked back at him with a groan.

  “What now?” Yes, I did sound like a petulant child, but I’d had a lot of shocks in the past few hours, and my nerves were pretty frayed around the edges.

  “Your ring,” he said, holding out his hand for the sapphire ring I’d slipped on after retrieving it out of Mr. Gray’s soupy remains. “Don’t you want to activate it?”

  My brows shot up in surprise, and a small smile pulled at my mouth. “Activate it?” I repeated. “What is this, Captain Planet?”

  “Really, Kitty? Now is not the time for jokes,” he teased back and gestured me over to him. “I’ve been doing some research with my, um, mentor. Anyway, I found out what you need to do with it.”

  “You have my attention,” I replied, trying not to feel yet another pang of hurt that he was still keeping secrets from me. Crossing back to him where he sat on the floor, I folded my knees and moved to take the ring off.

  “No, keep it on,” he said, just reaching for my hand instead. “It’s actually a really simple spell. I wrote it down for these dickheads who don’t speak Latin. We just place a drop of our blood on the stone and recite the words, then you recite yours and it’s done. Easy as that.”

  “Um, okay.” I chewed at my lip, looking down at the stone on my left ring finger. When I’d put it on, it hadn’t been a conscious decision, so I really hoped it was a mere coincidence that it fit my wedding ring finger perfectly. “What will it do, do you know?”

  Caleb shrugged, tugging a folded piece of paper from his pocket and placing it on the coffee table. “I only know what Vic told Vali, that it would allow you to access the individual powers of your dianoch. Beyond that...” He raised an eyebrow and stroked my palm with a finger. “Beyond that, no one knows. Except the Ban Dia, and they seem to be pretty damn good at keeping themselves hidden.”

  “So, what do you want to do, love?” River asked quietly, perching on the edge of the coffee table and leaning his arms on his knees. “You don’t have to do anything now. If you want to wait and research more...”

  “No,” I said, steeling my spine. “No, I want to try and find out. We didn’t just go to all that trouble for me to wear a pretty ring. Especially now.” I didn’t think anything else needed to be said on the subject. By especially now, what I meant was, especially now that dragons are all over the news and it’s only a matter of time before the entire world found out about the existence of magic. We needed all the strength we could get, even if it did mean taking a risk on ancient magic.

  “But maybe let’s just do one of you for now. Then we can give it a couple of days to see what side effects there are, if any.” I withdrew my hand from Caleb’s in order to wipe nervous, sweaty palms on my robe.

  “That sounds sensible,” Vali commented, folding his huge arms over his chest. “Who do you want first?”

  “Um,” I hadn’t really thought about that. If I chose, was that showing favoritism? Or would it be throwing one of them to the wolves? What if something really bad happened as a result?

  “I’ll do it,” Austin snapped, sounding almost... I don’t even know. Angry?

  “Not necessary, bro,” Caleb replied. “I’m sure I can handle it.”

  “Don’t be a moron, Cal.” Austin rolled his eyes from where he sat further down the couch. “You still don’t have a handle on your Blood. Is that something you want to burden Christina with too?”

  “Oh,” Caleb said, looking crestfallen.

  “Exactly,” Austin retorted in a voice as dry as the fucking Sahara. “Cole and Vali are obviously not viable options either, unless you want to risk Christina spontaneously turning scaly in the middle of a fucking Louboutin store. Probably not the smartest move when the entire fucking world is probably on the lookout for dragons right now. River is still human because he’s a stubborn as fuck control freak who needs to get his shit in line before he jumps on the bandwagon—”

  “What about me?” Wesley asked, frowning.

  “Wes, bro,” Austin sighed. “You don’t even know what you are, yet.”

  “Fair point.” Wesley blushed, then turned a sheepish look at me. “Sorry, sweetheart, he’s right.”

  “So that leaves you, huh?” I narrowed my eyes at Austin, and he met mine unflinchingly.

  “I’m the only one who has full control over what I am and can teach you if any of my magic manifests in you spontaneously. It’s the safest choice, and you know it, Princess.” His eyes sparkled with an unspoken challenge, and I wanted nothing more than to punch him in the smart fucking mouth. Or kiss him again. Ugh, that hate fuck had been a terrible idea.

  “Fine, let’s do this then. After all, curiosity only ever killed the cat, right?” I picked the piece of paper up from the coffee table and unfolded it to read the spell. Wow, how my life had changed that words like “spell” could be dropped so casually like that.

  Caleb sighed and scooted out of the way so Austin could move closer. “Yeah, let’s just hope it doesn’t kill the Kit, too,” Caleb muttered under his breath, and my stomach flipped uncomfortably.

  “Move the table, Cal,” Austin ordered. “Always a good idea to have space when casting random spells with no idea of the outcome.” His lips twitched, and I must have been more tired and in shock than I realized because I could have sworn that was meant to be a joke.

  Caleb did as he was told, clearing a space in the center of the hotel suite’s living room, and Austin and I both sat cross legged and facing each other in the middle.

  “Let’s do this then
,” he murmured, reaching out for the spell in my hand and scanning over the written lines. “Okay, this first part is for me; the second is for you to respond. Got it?”

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded, taking the paper as he handed it back. The second phrase was a lot shorter, so thank fuck for that. I’d taken a couple of Latin classes in school, but none of these words looked familiar in the least. “What does it mean?”

  Austin stared at me for a moment before answering. “It’s just an acceptance of the dianoch position and a promise. Yours is simply acknowledgement and acceptance of my acceptance. Clear?”

  “Not... really.” I frowned. “Wait, so if you don’t accept, then you’re not technically bound to me for all eternity? You can decline and walk away?”

  “Princess,” Austin sighed. “Shut the fuck up and give me your hand.”

  Without giving me another second to protest, he’d already taken my hand that wore the sapphire ring and closed it between his as his voice slid and rolled over the foreign words with ease, then he nodded at me to say my part.

  Glancing down at the paper in my other hand, I stumbled and tripped over the pronunciation. Cheeks flaming, I looked up at Austin nervously, but he gave a short nod, so I mustn’t have botched it too badly.

  He pulled a switchblade from his pocket, pierced his fingertip, and squeezed out a drop of blood. My hand held steady within his grip, he turned his bleeding finger over, allowing a single drop of blood to splash onto the surface of my ring.

  The second his blood met the stone, it disappeared—like the stone had absorbed it instantly—and a burning ring of runes flared to life around us both in an exact replica of the symbols decorating the band of my ring. Heat and magic burst through my body so fast it was almost painful, like my body couldn’t contain the sheer pressure of it all and I was going to explode at any second.

  Right when it reached the point where I expected to see my skin cracking open, Austin tugged me closer and sealed his lips to mine. Instantly, the pressure eased. It didn’t disappear, not by any stretch, but it eased, like my body was adjusting and making room for it all. Meanwhile, my hands had found their way up to the back of Austin’s neck, and I was kissing him back like we were lovers. Our lips touched together and our tongues met in a kiss so full of... I don’t even know how to put a name on it. It made me feel safe, protected, cherished, and it was leaving my mind like a bowl of scrambled eggs.

  An unmeasurable period of time passed, and when we finally parted, it was with reluctance. Our faces froze just inches apart, and our gazes locked. He looked just as damn confused as I was, which made me feel a little better about it all but still no less shaken.

  “Bro,” Caleb whispered from somewhere nearby, and I cleared my throat, sitting back on my feet. Somehow, we’d both ended up on our knees, our bodies flush to one another as we’d melded our magic together.

  “What the fuck?” I exclaimed, seeing for the first time, an enormous fucking Bengal tiger sitting on its haunches beside Austin. It’s tongue lolled out of its mouth, and it seemed to almost be smiling as it looked at me, but all I could focus on were its massive, gleaming teeth.

  “Huh,” Austin murmured, inspecting the huge cat with interest and running a confident hand down its back. “Well, that was unexpected.”

  “No shit!” I halfway screeched, then clapped a hand over my mouth when the cat swung its gaze from Austin back to me.

  “Bro,” Caleb breathed again. “That’s...”

  “My familiar,” Austin finished for him, nodding.

  “But they’re not real,” Caleb insisted, shuffling closer to us for a better look at the tiger. The other guys were still there around the outskirts of the living room, watching wide-eyed with shock. Or rather, most of them were wide-eyed with shock, and River just looked like River. Total man of steel, that one. Unflappable to a fault.

  “Um, the huge ass fucking tiger sitting two feet from me disagrees with that statement, Caleb,” I hissed in a slightly terrified stage whisper, and Austin smirked.

  “He’s not going to eat you, Princess,” the asshole Ink Mage teased. “He’s not a real tiger. He’s a manifestation of my magic. Familiars are the stuff of legends; that’s why Cal is losing his shit right now. The last Mage who was ever said to have had one died around a thousand years ago.”

  No one spoke for the longest time while I looked between Austin and his... familiar. The tiger looked back at me, it’s long pink tongue hanging out of a mouth lined in razor sharp teeth as it panted.

  “He looks like a pretty real tiger to me,” I muttered eventually, scooting back a few feet on my butt before standing up. The circle of runes we’d been surrounded by was slowly fading, but still visible enough for me to see that they were identical to the symbols on my ring. Coincidence? I think not. Then again, it did stand to reason that they would be, given the spell was directly linked to my ring.

  Ugh, all this magical theory is giving me a migraine.

  “What are you going to do with him now?” Wesley asked Austin as the Mage also climbed to his feet and buried a hand in the tiger’s fur. “I’m pretty sure we will have a hard time sneaking a fully grown Bengal onto the Omega Jet this afternoon.”

  “I have no idea.” Austin shrugged. “But I should be able to disappear him when it’s not convenient to have a tiger hanging around. We just need to get to know each other a bit before I start throwing commands at him.”

  “I thought you said he wasn’t a real tiger,” Vali commented, with a small grin playing at his lips.

  “He’s not a real wild tiger,” Austin corrected in an exasperated voice. “Anyway, we will figure it out.”

  “Uh-huh, just a heads up,” Cole said, staring the tiger down. “Dragons aren’t really cat people.”

  Wesley snorted a laugh. “Yeah, uh, neither are crows.”

  “Okay,” I interrupted. “This conversation is just... weird as all hell. I’m going to get some sleep and hope my brain doesn’t decide to finally crack under the stress of tonight. But you know, if I never wake up, then that’s probably what happened.”

  “Sleep well, love,” River murmured, wrapping me in a quick hug as I passed him.

  “Yeah, we’ll see,” I huffed, flapping a hand at the rest of the guys to say good night and letting myself into the master bedroom.

  Despite the nearly overwhelming exhaustion that was causing my whole body to tremble, I knew sleep wasn’t going to come easily. Too many horrible things had happened tonight, as well as the wonderful ones.

  I’d probably only been in bed for a few minutes when the door handle turned. I’d gotten changed into some fresh underwear and pulled on one of Cole’s T-shirts to sleep in but had just been lying there, staring at the ceiling and wishing sleep would take me.

  Sitting up, I expected to see one of the guys come to sleep with me. Probably Caleb or even Cole. What I saw instead was the furry jowls of a huge striped cat as he turned the door handle with his teeth, then pushed the door fully open with a paw the size of a dinner plate.

  “Um, hi,” I greeted the cat, still wary as hell that he might try and claw me or eat me, despite Austin’s certainty that he wouldn’t.

  The cat huffed a little noise, padding across the room and then leaping onto the bed with the grace of a... uh... well, with the grace of a tiger, I guess. The bed dipped under the massive animal’s weight while he pawed at the blankets a couple of times before lying down right in the middle of the bed with his huge head on a pillow.

  “Austin?” I called out, but he was already on his way into the bedroom. He paused, seeing the tiger already seemingly asleep, and a grin pulled his mouth.

  “Come on, tiger, leave Christina alone,” he tried to scold, but it came out with an edge of laughter that I wasn’t totally sure I’d ever heard from him before.

  The tiger cracked one eye, looking at me as if to say tell him to fuck off, we’re sleeping, then closed it tight again.

  “Uh, I don’t think he’s listening to you,�
�� I pointed out, and Austin sighed heavily.

  “Yeah, I’m kind of getting that from him already,” he nudged the bedroom door shut and walked around to the opposite side of the bed.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded, as he unbuckled the belt on his jeans and stripped them off. He’d gotten changed out of his wet, torn tux while Wesley and I had bathed, but I had no idea why he was now taking these clothes off.

  “Sleeping, Princess. It’s been a long ass fucking night for all of us, and I don’t have the energy to try and haul a seven hundred pound tiger out of bed.” He pulled his T-shirt over his head, leaving him in just a tight pair of black boxer briefs, and I tried really hard not to stare. Okay, fine, I stole a few looks, but for the most part I managed to keep the drool inside my mouth.

  “Okay, yeah, but why are you doing that here?” I clarified, more than a little nervous at the idea of actually sleeping with Austin. Of course, I was fully aware we had recently done a whole lot more, but that was under exceptional circumstances. Sleeping in the same bed was intimate.

  “Because he is here,” Austin poked the tiger in the shoulder and got no response except a purring growl. “And the quickest way for him and I to establish our bond is for us to literally spend every second together. So, do me a favor?”

  “What’s that?” I squeaked, watching wide-eyed as he slid under the covers and got comfortable.

  “Don’t snore,” he replied, shutting his eyes and folding his arms under his head.

  “I do not snore,” I grumbled, taking the opportunity while his eyes were closed to get a better look at his ink and the body that it decorated. He’d left the blankets pushed down so they only barely covered him up to the waist, leaving plenty of ink to admire. The perfectly positioned designs that pointed down to his—

  “Sleep, Princess,” he ordered. “Now.”

  Gingerly, I lay back down, tugging my pillow over so that I was on the very edge of the bed and hopefully out of reach of the tiger, if he had a bad dream or something. Last thing I needed was to be mistaken for prey. That was one thing I’d never be again: prey.