Tiger's Dream (Tiger's Curse Book 5)

by Colleen Houck

  I took a step forward, intending to confront the man openly, but Ana touched my arm and did that soothing thing. She curled her hand around my bicep to hold me in place, and when I turned to question her, I was surprised to see her mouth drawn in a tight line and her face so pale.

  As the girl’s shoulders shook, the dastardly man continued, “I can only assume that he came to assassinate me. How fortunate you are that your husband-to-be is safe.”

  The girl clenched her fists and cried, “He didn’t come to assassinate you!”

  I grimaced. The girl was totally without guile. She couldn’t see that the man was baiting her.

  “Didn’t he? Are you sure? You do know him better than anyone else here. Perhaps he came here for a completely different reason. Why do you think he came, my dear?”

  Don’t answer, I thought. Just be quiet. Sadly, the girl couldn’t seem to keep her mouth shut. In a way, she and the silk maker were perfect for each other.

  The girl fumbled to fashion a story. “I…I’m sure he was only bringing me more thread. Perhaps he was set upon by a warlock and he needed some help.”

  This pathetic back-and-forth went on for a while, and I was hoping the guy would finish soon so we could grab the girl and get out and reunite her with her silk maker. But then, he took her to the balcony. Was he going to throw her over?

  I heard the snap of a whip and my blood went cold. The emperor shoved the scarf he held into the girl’s face. His own face was purple with rage. “Did you think I wouldn’t recognize your handiwork, my dear?” he said. “You have bestowed your favor on this man.”

  The girl begged for the life of the young man but I knew it was futile. I looked over at Ana, who seemed traumatized by the whole spectacle. “Maybe we should go save the boy first,” I said.

  She shook her head numbly. I looked up and locked eyes with the emperor. He was a canny one. My voice had been low enough that he shouldn’t have heard me, and yet he scanned the room suspiciously before finally turning back to the girl and humiliating her further by making her deny the young man.

  Of course, she did, though it would accomplish nothing. I edged closer and looked out over the balcony. The young man was visibly shaken by her renunciation and I rolled my eyes. If ever a couple deserved each other, it was these two. How could he think that she didn’t love him? And what was more, how had he turned back into a man?

  I gave Ana a pointed look and she shook her head again just as the emperor said, “That’s all I needed to hear.” Then he shouted, “Put him out of his misery!”

  All the soldiers below lifted their bows. I growled and dashed toward the balcony, ready to leap in the path of the arrows before they reached their target, but when I touched the stone, my body froze in place. I could move my head but nothing else.

  Turning to Ana, I saw her approach me, tears filling her eyes. Time had stopped. The girl had her hands pressed to her mouth, and the emperor was leaning over the balcony, his eyes lit with dangerous fire. “What have you done?” I mumbled.

  “We are not meant to save him,” she said.

  “You would force this choice upon me?” I asked. “Upon them?”

  Anamika didn’t need to answer, for I saw the determination in her eyes. The fragile thing that had been building between us broke and shattered into painful shards. She turned away from me and time moved again. That is, for everyone and everything except me. From my frozen position on the balcony, I watched as the lovesick young man was struck by dozens of arrows. I gritted my teeth as I listened to the smug emperor say to the girl, “Remember this lesson, little bird. I will not be made a cuckold. Now…compose yourself for our wedding.”

  As Anamika used the scarf to disguise herself, I stared at her, feeling the sting of betrayal. I wondered why she’d hide her intentions from me. Hadn’t I earned her trust? If she’d only taken the time to explain, maybe I would have gone along with her plan.

  Ana crouched down and touched the sobbing girl. She murmured condolences and muttered some platitude about her silk maker always being with her when she looked at the stitches on the sad gift she’d given him. I shook my head in disgust. Ana and the woman disappeared, leaving me alone, invisible, and frozen in place. I watched the soldiers remove the body of the poor man below.

  How could she be so cold? I thought. We could have saved the man. Easily. We had the power. I never believed in destiny the way Kadam had or, apparently, Ana did. I still wasn’t so certain I’d found mine. That this life I was living was my purpose. The only reason I was going along with Kadam’s list was because nothing was set in stone, nothing we’d done couldn’t be undone. Nothing I’d been asked to do so far went against the grain. Maybe that was going to change now.

  My blood pounded hot in the veins of my neck. I was boiling mad. Nothing I’d read on the list said, Let The Boy Die. Ana had deliberately chosen not to save him. Why? I wondered over and over again. She was a warrior, granted, but she abhorred senseless death, and this one qualified.

  The emperor returned and flew into a rage. Servants and soldiers scrambled, looking everywhere for the girl. All the while, I silently seethed at what Anamika had done. When she returned, she snapped her fingers and my body relaxed. I could move again. Across the tile floor, I stared at her, not trusting myself to speak. The room was now empty but every inch of it was bursting with unsaid things. The air between us was hot and vaporous. All it would take was one spark to blow us apart.

  She seemed to understand my mood and, without saying so much as a word, flicked out her arm and whipped the Rope of Fire until she created a portal. It cracked and spat sparks as if sensing the tension. When I still didn’t move, she raised an eyebrow. Something inside me snapped, and I took three bold steps forward, grabbed her around the waist, and lifted her off her feet.

  Ana struggled against me but I shook her lightly and just said, “Don’t.”

  She stilled and wrapped her arms around my neck. I shifted her in my arms and leapt through the breach.

  Chapter 14

  Intruder Alert

  We landed in our time on the grass of our mountain home. I set her down and then turned away abruptly, stalking toward the doors. The young boy she’d sent ahead burst out just as I was entering. He backed away from me when he saw my face as did the older servant. Xing-Xing took off at a run, skirting me widely, to greet his goddess, while I entered the hall and slammed the door loudly behind me.

  By the time I got to my room, the one I seldom used, I paced angrily, and then, not feeling my emotions wane, I headed down the long stairs to the secret passageway that led outside. I leapt down the stairs several at a time, and when I got to the bottom, I recklessly left the passageway entrance open and immediately switched to a tiger.

  I raced to the forest, heedless of anyone who saw me, and tore through the trees. Finding a rotting stump, I tore at it with my claws and teeth until it lay in mangled clumps all around me. Still unappeased, I chased a herd of animals, snapping and swiping at their legs, not trying to take one down but just trying to cause as much chaos as I could.

  When my breath came in great gasps and my tongue hung out of my mouth from panting, I walked deeper into the forest until I found a dark hollow near a stream. I drank deeply, letting the frigid water cool the blood pounding in my head, and then crawled into the hollow and curled up, putting my head on my paws.

  I must have fallen asleep because the moon had risen when a sound alerted me. Unmoving, my eyes snapped open and I scanned the forest. There was a splash and I caught the scent of jasmine. My tail twitched as everything in me came alive and I lifted my head. Repositioning my body, I centered myself and waited. My nose wrinkled and my whiskers lifted in a silent snarl. The intruder crept closer, the footfalls barely making a sound.

  When she was in just the right place, I sprung from my hiding place and barreled toward her. At just the right moment, I leapt in the air, claws out and jaws open, a specter of death as dark as the night. My victim didn’t run. D
idn’t scream. Instead, she turned her green eyes on me, her expression resigned, and opened her arms to the attack.

  Trying to stop my momentum was impossible. I made the attempt anyway and likely made the impact worse. The full weight of my tiger body hit her with enough force to break bones. I twisted, ducking my head so my teeth wouldn’t impale her, and retracted my claws. But it wasn’t enough. We went down. My body hit the ground and rolled. I felt her arms wrap around me and realized we were rolling together.

  We came to a stop when my back thumped roughly against a tree. My tail was the only thing that didn’t hurt, but I knew she would be much worse off. I tried to move away, but I was pinned between her and the tree and I didn’t want to hurt her worse than she already was. With her hand on my ribs, I opened my connection to her to assess the damage and was happy to find that she was bruised but not broken, though she did have a wicked scratch from my claws on her thigh.

  “It’s fine,” she said out loud when I made a husky sort of whine. She lifted her hand to my face and stroked my fur. “You are right to be angry with me, Sohan,” she said. “I don’t blame you for attacking me.” Sighing, she shifted away and I rolled to my belly and crouched, studying her as she used the scarf to bandage the wound in her thigh. It was deep and bled freely, but once the material of the scarf touched it, the bleeding slowed to almost nothing.

  Now that I knew she wasn’t irreparably damaged, my wrath returned. What she’d done had been cruel and hateful and yet I knew that wasn’t who she was. Her actions caused a discordant note to thrum in my veins, and try as I might, I couldn’t find a way to justify what she’d allowed to happen. A boy was dead because of her, and she’d wielded her power over me in such a way that I’d been incapable of stopping it.

  Rising to my feet, I paced around her. Scrunching my nose, I hissed and spat, narrowing the distance between us as I circled. I knew it wasn’t the gentlemanly thing to do, and it should have scared her down to her boots to be cornered by a tiger like that. Kelsey would never have forgiven me for such a display. But Ana sat there, matter-of-factly watching my posturing, and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, the only sign that my actions disturbed her at all.

  Finally, I pounced, landing right in front of her, and roared loud enough to break her eardrums. The quiet that came after was as immense as the roar had been. She didn’t move. Didn’t defend herself. She didn’t even flinch, which was either a sign that she had absolute trust in me or, the more emasculating thought, she had absolutely no fear of me.

  As I peered at her, my nose twitched, and I realized she was crying. The great goddess Durga had lowered her head, her long hair hiding her face, as she wept silently. If I hadn’t smelled the tang of salt from her fresh tears, I might not have even known. Never in my long life had I seen a girl cry in such a manner.

  The thread that bound me to her tugged at me forcefully. I sat quickly and just stared at her. When Kelsey cried, it was a wild, messy thing. It was a wet sorrow—purple bruises on the inside and red rage on the outside—and tangled knots of feelings. Her emotions raged in such a way that it was difficult to reel her in and try to soothe her. Afterward, she’d end up utterly spent and would sleep for twelve hours.

  With Anamika, her tears were almost ghost-like. She allowed only the barest hint of her feelings to even enter her heart, let alone spill over. It reminded me of a warrior’s tears—an almost shameful, hidden thing that happened in the dark by a campfire. The traces of tears wet the blankets that warriors rolled up in after a wearying, deadly battle.

  If it wasn’t for the connection I had with her, the one still open between us after I’d assessed her for injury, I might have wondered if she was even upset at all. The wet paths down her cheeks might have been the glint of moonlight. She was so controlled. So restrained in her grief. But she was grieving. In fact, she was almost drowning in it. I heard the crack of thunder somewhere overhead and lightning hit a tree in the forest.

  I didn’t want to feel her pain. Didn’t want to give in to the temptation to comfort her. Not after what she’d done. But almost without meaning to, I stepped closer. She reached up and wrapped her arms around my neck. Ana buried her face in my fur and the already muted sounds of her sorrow disappeared altogether. It surprised me that she didn’t automatically close off our connection. In fact, she pressed closer and took all my anger and betrayal into herself. She processed it and accepted it.

  Slowly, my fury abated enough that I opened my mind to her thoughts. I could sense the burning in her throat as she swallowed back her sobs. With the lulling stroke of her hand on my back, she at least let me see what had happened through her eyes. Kadam had appeared. I should have guessed as much.

  He’d come to her in the hall before she returned to me to tell me the whereabouts of Lady Silkworm. After a lecture on allowing history to unfold the way it was supposed to, he insisted that she prevent me from saving that boy, that I needed to let destiny decide the boy’s fate.

  Kadam had been the one who prevented us from changing the horse back to a boy in the stable. He then told her that if I saved the silk maker, then Lady Silkworm would never meet Kelsey, would never guide us on our journey to the dragons. That pulling that one young man out of the fabric of the universe would cause an unraveling that would destroy everything we’d accomplished. His words and demeanor had frightened Ana, filling her with dread regarding his all-too-righteous purpose based on his otherworldly perceptions.

  At that moment I wanted to rip into my old mentor and fling him down to hell, or at least to the awful place where Ana and I existed, which was a sort of hell to me. For the long months since Kelsey and Ren left, I felt as if I’d been caught in a terrible limbo where we were wedged somewhere between mortality and immortality, lost in time.

  Then I remembered Kadam was trapped in the same awful loop as we were. He was just as much a victim as the two of us. Only now, he actually was dead. It was ironic and sad that I could be so angry at a dead man. Every time he appeared to one of us, he was just an echo of the man who was now gone forever. When would his last visit happen? Had it already?

  His death had left a giant wound in my heart. Like the hollowed-out space in the ground where a large tree had been uprooted. We’d already grieved for him, but Kadam didn’t truly leave us, not entirely. He had left little scattered seeds behind, and even as we tried to make our own way, we’d stumble over one of his other selves and his impact would be felt once again. I wondered if the grieving over him would ever end.

  Trying to avoid the path he wanted us to take was as fruitless as kicking over an anthill. He’d just rebuild or figure out a way to go around us. Whatever the case, I couldn’t blame Anamika for listening to him. Kadam had been her teacher as much as he’d been mine. She trusted him in her way as much as I did. He’d put us on this path together, and no matter what, I wasn’t planning on leaving her to face this strange life alone.

  Closing my eyes, I shifted to human form and drew a trembling Ana onto my lap. She wrapped her arms around my neck more tightly and I stroked her back. “Shh, Ana. I don’t blame you. Everything will be all right.”

  “The silk maker is dead because of my decision,” she whispered against my neck.

  “We’ve made hard decisions like that before,” I said, my voice muffled by her hair.

  “Yes”—she drew in a shaky breath and lifted her head, looking into my eyes—“but he was just a boy. Not a warrior like the others.”

  Thunder boomed overhead again. Wiping a tear from her cheek with my thumb, I said, “You did what you had to do.”

  “Did I?” she asked glumly.

  Sighing deeply, I answered, “You did. Kadam isn’t a cruel man. If he believes the young man’s death needed to happen, then it needed to happen. Otherwise…” My words trailed off. My attempt to soothe her felt oily and wrong somehow. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Kadam. I did. I believed that he believed it needed to happen. I just didn’t know if I believed it yet.
r />   “You question my actions too,” she said.

  “No. Not yours.”

  “I will speak with you first next time, Sohan,” she said insistently. “I promise you this.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “It was wrong for me to make the choice without you.”

  Now that she was more under control, I purposely moved my hands away from her body, placing them on the ground. “You thought I’d stop you,” I said simply.

  Ana cocked her head and nodded briskly before standing up and offering me her hand. I took it and glanced at her injured thigh exposed beneath her torn clothing. “It does not matter if you try to stop me or not,” she said. “We agreed to do this together.”

  I rose with my hand in hers though I didn’t allow her to take any of my weight. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” I said gruffly.

  “You did not hurt me any more than I hurt you.”

  We began walking back to our home. “I think I hurt you a little more,” I said, lightly teasing her. “I’ll use the kamandal to heal you when we get back.”

  “Also I would like a bath and good night’s sleep.”

  “Me too.”

  We headed back to our mountain home, walking side by side, a companionable silence between us. When we arrived at the base, she stopped short at seeing the vast numbers of people camping there. It was like a small city had sprung up. Straining my ears, I caught the musical lilt of at least a half dozen languages, and yet the atmosphere was one of cheer and mutual respect.