Towards him.
He slept soundly on one side of her bed, his lips parted and chest rising and falling on his shallow breaths. He had moved at some point, because his hands rested on his bare stomach, his left one covering the bandaged wound, the fingers slightly drawn so they gathered the material. Had it comforted him to feel the wound bound now?
No longer bleeding?
She couldn’t imagine how terrifying it would be to have such a vicious injury, to feel life slipping from you like that.
Or how strong he had to be to keep going, and not give up.
She slipped quietly into the room, found a pair of dark grey lounge pants in the cream chest of drawers near the bathroom door, and pulled out a white camisole. She checked him again, and then went into the white and cream bathroom and changed her clothes, tossing her dirty white shirt, black slacks, and underwear on the floor in the corner near the shower cubicle.
She used a sponge to wipe off the blood on her stomach and then tugged on her white camisole and grey loose soft pants.
Shit, it felt good to be in fresh clean clothes.
She wanted a shower, but no way she was going to risk it. She wasn’t sure how long Tiger would be out and if he woke when she was naked, he might view it as an invitation.
Sherry pocketed her phone, slipped back into the bedroom and tiptoed through it. When she hit the wooden living room floor, she padded across it to the oak table wedged between the TV and the couch, grabbed her cup and headed for the kitchen.
Coffee.
She needed more.
A yawn escaped her as she poured another cup, and grabbed a cereal bar from the cupboard above the machine. Her phone buzzed against her thigh. She sighed, pulled it out and checked it. Kyter again. At least he was only messaging her this time.
She fired back a reply that the tiger still hadn’t eaten her, and went back to the couch.
Time trickled past as she watched TV and fiddled around on the internet, checking Facebook and then adding around a thousand things to her wish lists on several shopping websites, and answered a million more texts from Kyter, and one from Cavanaugh the one time she took more than a minute to reply to Kyter. That one had told her that Kyter was driving him mad and to text him back ASAP.
She ate lunch sometime in the early afternoon, and the coffee started to lose its effect a few hours later. She yawned and blinked hard as her eyes watered, and sleep beckoned.
She had to stay awake.
Sherry rubbed her eyes, stood and walked around the couch and to the window. She lifted the sash, breathed in the cool city air, gazed at the faint stars and then watched people coming and going along the street below. It kept her awake for all of five minutes before sleep washed over her again, making her eyelids heavy.
Another coffee might help.
Probably wouldn’t, but it was worth a shot.
She closed the window.
Tiger roared.
Cold washed through her followed by a flash of heat, and a delicious sort of trembling between her thighs that lasted only a second before fear chased it away when Tiger started thrashing around, kicking at the covers and clawing at her sheets.
She rushed into her bedroom and grabbed his shoulders, and pushed down with all of her weight and strength, trying to restrain him so he didn’t reopen his wounds.
He bucked and snarled, and fought her, easily dislodging her and sending her sprawling on her backside on the hard floor. Damn, that was going to bruise. She leaped to her feet and grabbed him again, unwilling to give up even when it was clear he was too strong for her to hold down. His breathing quickened, his struggle escalating until she was forced to get onto the bed and straddle him to hold him down.
He loosed a harrowing whimper that chilled her blood and made her heart bleed for him, and then roared.
“Jayna!”
Tiger launched forwards, his head connected hard with the side of hers, and the room danced and spun around her. Lightning arced over her skull and white stars burst and died before her eyes.
She groaned and slumped onto her butt on his knees, clutching her head and fighting the sickening wave of pain that rolled over her.
Tiger suddenly froze right down to his breathing, his amber eyes alert and wide.
“You okay?” she murmured, battling another wave of sickness as he wobbled in her vision.
Shit, he had a hard head.
He nodded.
She managed a smile. “That’s g-r-r-r-eat!”
And promptly passed out.
CHAPTER 5
Talon shifted sideways, his eyes locked with the tiger’s, circling with it as it stalked him. She bared fangs on a hiss and he bared his own back at her, showing her that he wasn’t going to back down. She had to stop this madness.
He had to stop it.
He glanced off to his left, barely taking his eyes off her, not giving her a chance to attack him. They were watching on the other side of all the mirror glass and bars that protected it.
Bastards.
What cocktail of drugs had they given her this time?
They had dragged him to the cage and he had noticed on the way past that her cell in the stark white block had been empty. He had asked them where they had taken her, had demanded to know what they had done to her.
He had been given his answer when they had tossed him into the cage, a huge white room with a thick solid glass divide down the middle of it.
On the other side of that barrier had been the tiger he had been looking for.
But at the same time, it hadn’t been her.
She had been brutally attacking the barrels and logs in her cat form, pouncing on anything she spotted and savagely biting and clawing at it. It wasn’t like her. He had only known her a short time, but it had been long enough for him to learn she had a gentle soul.
Not a violent one.
Archangel had given her something to awaken her aggressive nature, setting it free and unleashing the primal side of her in the process.
She had lifted her head when she had scented him, and the moment they had raised the barrier, she had attacked him.
He had taken her blows, blocking as many of them as he could, defending and never attacking her, hoping beyond hope that the drug would wear off if he withstood her assault for long enough and she would come to her senses.
“Listen to my voice, Jayna,” he murmured softly, coaxing her to come back to him.
She bared huge canines again and launched at him.
Talon caught her and twisted with her, slammed her into the bloodstained floor and tried to pin her. She hissed and snarled, writhed and kicked at him, and he barely reared back in time to avoid her fangs as she snapped at his head.
“Dammit,” he barked and fought harder, because he wasn’t going to give up on her.
He was going to bring her back.
“Jayna.” He wrestled with her, managed to get hold of her thick front legs and stop her from clawing him.
She wasn’t listening, was too deep in her animal side to hear and recognise him. It was in control now.
She wriggled her back legs free of his hold and he didn’t stand a chance.
Before he could spring away from her, she kicked at his stomach.
He sucked it in and arched backwards, but one claw caught him and he grunted and growled through clenched teeth as it cut through his flesh and fire followed in its wake.
“Fuck!” He shoved off her and staggered backwards, agony rolling through him as he clutched his left side and hot blood pumped over his hand and down his leg, sticking his standard-issue black cotton trousers to his thigh. “Jayna, stop this!”
Because it wasn’t like her. It wasn’t her.
And if she didn’t stop soon, he wasn’t sure he would be able to bring her back. The more she hurt him, the stronger the hold her tiger side had on her would become, until she wouldn’t want to come back.
He had to stop her, before her mind cracked.
He ey
ed her warily as she rolled onto her paws and paced away from him, and stopped near the mirrored window. Sickness washed through him again when she paused to lick at wounds on her own belly, cleaning blood away from her soft pale golden fur.
If the bastards hadn’t cracked her mind already.
She’d had new wounds tonight, low on her stomach.
The thought they might have been probing around down there, hurting her body and her mind with their twisted study of her, sickened him.
He would never forgive himself if anything happened to her.
Jayna suddenly sprang at the bars protecting the window.
The sizzle of electricity filled the room together with the stench of burning flesh as the defence system built into them fired. It didn’t stop Jayna from biting at the bars and clawing them.
“No.” He was across the room in the blink of an eye and hauling her off the bars and shoving her away.
She flashed her fangs on a growl and tried to pass him, but he countered her every move, blocking her way to the bars.
Jayna roared and launched straight at him, tackling him to the ground. He screamed as she sank her fangs into his right side, a bite meant to weaken him, and kicked off. He tried to grab her, but he was too slow to stop her.
By the time he had rolled onto his front, she was at the bars again, attacking them despite the charge they were pumping into her. She whimpered and hissed, drew back and attacked again, unrelenting in her assault.
“Stop,” he croaked but she ignored him and kept biting the bars, clawing and scratching at them with her front paws.
The scent of burning flesh and singeing fur swamped him and he choked back a cry as he pushed onto his feet and grabbed her tail, tugged hard on it and pulled her away from the bars.
She whimpered as she convulsed violently on the floor, and her fur rippled and washed away, leaving pink skin behind.
Jayna curled up and held herself, tears streaking her face as she shook. Blood covered her belly and thighs, and splattered across her breasts and shoulders. It streaked her face and surrounded her mouth.
“Jayna,” he whispered and she looked at him, her amber eyes dull and overflowing with sorrow and pain.
Talon shook his head and held his hand out to her.
She screamed like a banshee and in a lightning fast move was on her feet and clutching the bars with her hands again. Her body quaked as electricity poured through it and she threw her head back and shrieked.
He grabbed her around the waist and hauled her away from them. She growled and kicked at his legs, her hands clawing at his arms where he wrapped them around her waist. He locked them tight. Refused to let her go.
The blood on her made it hard to keep his grip on her though, and she slid down his body, her cries of pain haunting his ears as he struggled to keep hold of her and awareness crept in, cold and numbing.
He knew what she wanted to do.
He couldn’t let it happen. He would never forgive himself if anything happened to her. He had vowed to protect her.
“Don’t,” he whispered, broken and hoarse, silently pleading her to listen to him.
She was still a moment.
And then she pressed her left foot into his thigh, twisted in his arms and shoved her hands against his chest, pushing free of his grip. He staggered back a step and then sprang forwards, grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him. She grunted as she slammed into his bare chest and he growled as she clawed and bit him, and then threw his head back and cried out as she shoved her fingers into the wound on his side and tore at it.
He stumbled backwards as she kicked off again, and clutched his side. Warm blood rolled from between his fingers and the edges of his vision went dark. Dammit.
No.
Jayna stopped and stood before him, her face soft, amber eyes shining at him even though there was so much pain in her.
Talon reached his right hand out to her.
A flash of regret crossed her face.
“Don’t do this,” he pleaded. “Don’t.”
She pivoted on her heel and launched at the bars, grabbed hold of them and didn’t let go this time.
His stomach sank, his heart breaking as he realised he couldn’t stop her.
As he realised she wanted death.
Archangel had already broken her—mind, body and soul.
He had failed.
“No,” he whispered, and moved a step towards her.
She hissed at him, her eyes begging him to let her do this.
For him.
It was the way of their kind, but that didn’t mean he was alright with it. It was a stupid tradition. The weaker protecting the stronger.
He couldn’t bear it.
He didn’t want her to sacrifice herself so he could live.
She screamed and fur rippled over her naked body, but she kept holding the bars, somehow finding the strength and the courage to not let go.
Talon couldn’t watch.
He didn’t deserve this.
His pride would never forgive him for failing her.
His family would never forgive him.
And he would never forgive himself.
He would never forgive Archangel.
She collapsed and he rushed to her, gathered her limp form into his arms and cleared the black hair from her face. She breathed shallowly, panted gasps that rasped in his ears and tore at his heart. He should have stopped her. Her eyelids fluttered and then lifted, and she looked up at him, the gentle and beautiful female he had known her to be.
A smile tilted her lips.
Her eyes dulled and her breath left her on a soft sigh, and she sank in his arms.
Slipped through his hands and into the eternal forest where her ancestors waited for her.
Talon threw his head back and roared.
“Jayna!”
CHAPTER 6
Pain splintered into a thousand fault lines over Talon’s skull as it connected hard with something.
A something that loosed a muffled grunt and moved on his lap, swaying to one side and muttering to herself.
His breathing stilled, hammering heart slowing as he grew painfully aware of the slender weight on his lap, pressing down on his thighs, and the warmth of her that soaked through the thin sheets covering his lower half.
He opened his eyes and stared into the female’s blue ones, his pain forgotten together with his nightmare as he drowned in their infinite skies.
Gods, she was as beautiful as he remembered, and apparently not a dream.
He gave her a quick once over.
Although, she had been dressed differently in the dream that had preceded his nightmare replay of the last day, wearing a provocative little black slip rather than homely grey light cotton trousers and a tight fitting white strappy top.
“You okay?” she whispered, her soft voice curling around him, chasing away the last remnants of his nightmare and freeing him of its hold.
He nodded dumbly, still not quite over the fact he had come around to find her straddling him.
She smiled. “That’s g-r-r-r-eat!”
Before he could pick her up on the fact he was no cartoon tiger on the carton of a breakfast food, she collapsed into his chest, her cheek smashing against his right pectoral.
Icy tendrils snaked through him and he quickly leaned back to check on her.
Her button nose wrinkled and she moaned, smacked her lips together and settled against his chest, rubbing her cheek against it as if she was a damned cat too.
The fear building in his veins washed away.
She was just sleeping.
Although the bang to the head he had given her had probably helped her fall into sleep’s waiting embrace.
He took in his cookie cutter surroundings, with its magnolia walls and wooden furniture that made it look as if she had purchased the cover of a home style magazine. On the bedside table, an alarm clock revealed the hour was late, close to eleven at night, meaning she had been awake all day
watching over him.
It was little wonder she was fast asleep now.
Talon returned his gaze to her and studied her in silence, absorbing how beautiful she appeared in sleep, her face soft with it and rosy lips parted. Her warm breath skated across his chest, her skin heating his, and he didn’t want to move.
Not because he might wake her.
He just didn’t want to end this, whatever this was.
His heart thumped hard, as if the stupid thing wanted to jump right out of his body and into her arms.
Talon sighed and ghosted his left hand over her bare arm, down from her shoulder to her hand, and let his fingers brush over hers. They froze there. What the fuck was he doing?
This would only end in him getting his heart broken.
But he couldn’t help himself.
She was meant to be his, so why couldn’t he have her?
That quiet persistent voice at the back of his mind warned that he knew why.
It was too dangerous.
But still he couldn’t stop himself.
He preened her golden hair from her face, stroked his fingers down the sleek length of her ponytail, and lifted it towards his nose. He inhaled deeply, drawing her scent of vanilla and honey down into him, so it mingled and became part of him, and imprinted onto his memory.
Gods, she was beautiful.
Maybe even more so as she slept in his arms, because her guard was down and she was allowing him to be near to her when she was vulnerable, relying on him to protect her and trusting him not to hurt her.
He pressed a kiss to her hair and let it slip from his fingers. “Thank you.”
For watching over him. For patching him up. For giving him sanctuary.
For being so unguarded around him.
Not many people in this world would help a stranger as she had, or allow them into her home and take care of them, or trust them so easily and have faith in them.
He looked her over again. Small, but fierce. Brave. Strong.
She reminded him of Jayna.
Talon squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could shut out the pain as easily.
He opened his eyes and looked down at the female resting against his chest, forced himself to see how different she was to Jayna. He was just hurting from reliving what had happened in vivid detail, seeing similarities between them that weren’t really there because he wanted to cling to the idea Jayna wasn’t gone, and that he wasn’t going to be in the deepest sort of shit when he got back to the pride.
Turned by a Tiger Page 5
