The Tiger Prince

by Iris Johansen

“No,” she whispered.

  “Yes.” His finger reached out and gently touched the plane of her cheek. “Oh yes, we have to have each other. We have to be together.”

  “Ian.”

  He went still. “I can work it out.”

  “Forgive? Forget?” She smiled sadly. “Not you, Ruel.”

  “I’ll work it out,” he repeated. “I have no choice.”

  “But I do have a choice.” She turned away from him and moved toward her bedroll. “And I have no intention of letting myself be hurt by you again. Ever since we met you’ve manipulated me, pulled me to and fro to suit yourself, but it’s finished now. When this is over I’m going to be free to live my life as I wish and you’ll not be a part of it.” She forced herself to glance at him over her shoulder. “I can’t believe you’d think I’d want anything else.”

  “Then I’ll have to change your mind, won’t I?” One corner of his lips lifted in a sardonic smile. “Oh, I know it’s not going to be easy after what I’ve done to you. I’ll do what I can to smooth the way for both of us, but you’ll have to work through it too.”

  Dear God, she had seen how determined and irresistible Ruel could be when he was focusing his attention on a goal. Now he wanted to focus that will on her for a lifetime instead of a few days of revenge. The mere idea terrified her. She wanted peace to live her own life as she saw fit. She settled down in her blankets and turned her back to him, trying to shut out his words, trying to shut him out.

  “We could share one bedroll, you know,” he said softly. “We’d probably both sleep better. We’re used to each other now.”

  The truth of his words frightened her even more. They were used to each other’s bodies, used to all the textures and scents and flavors, used to the rhythms of passion. They knew each other in the most erotic and seductive of intimacies. Yet there had been other moments in the past few days when their togetherness had taken on a gentler, even comfortable quality. He was no longer a dark secret to her, and that knowledge in itself was alluring. He was a battle she had fought and lost … and won.

  “For God’s sake, I’d only hold you. I’m not fool enough to think you’re well enough to—” He broke off. “It would be a start.”

  She couldn’t let it start. “No.” She could feel his gaze on her back. She had been so relieved when she had thought herself free of him. Let him not say anything more. Let him not touch her.

  With relief she heard him move toward his own bedroll and settle into the blankets. The silence was unbroken for several moments. Then he said in a low voice, “Think about it, Jane. If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll admit you don’t have any choice either.”

  Her eyes were suddenly stinging with unshed tears. He had mentioned need and lust but not love. Not that she wanted him to love her, she told herself quickly. She knew that was as impossible for him as it was for her now. She was tired and not completely over her illness or she would not feel this sense of desolate loneliness and isolation. She would get over it. She mustn’t answer him or let him come any closer.

  She hoped he was wrong about her not having a choice. Of course he was wrong. He had to be wrong.

  hey did not overtake Li Sung until late afternoon of the next day.

  “Li Sung!”

  Li Sung stiffened at Ruel’s hail and then turned to confront them. The relief Jane felt immediately turned to concern. Li Sung’s usually golden skin was parchment-pale, his mouth set in lines of strain, and his expression distinctly forbidding.

  “You should not be here,” he said.

  “Neither should you,” she said. “Are you ill? You look terrible.”

  “So do you.” Li Sung smiled faintly. “And you are the one who has been ill. I have merely been enduring the usual agonies inflicted when riding on this equine beast for too long.”

  Even a half-day’s ride was painful to Li Sung, and he had been driving himself unmercifully for three days. She hid the pity the thought brought and said lightly, “It serves you right for going after the elephant without me.”

  He grimaced. “I did not trust you not to soften when I caught up with him. Your heart is too tender. I want to shoot him, not adopt him.”

  “You shouldn’t have worried. He’s not a dog or a cat, and he destroyed my tracks,” Jane said. “Do you have any idea how far ahead he is?”

  “Not far.”

  “How do you know?” Ruel asked. “Have you heard him?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know?” Ruel persisted. “He could be angling back toward the crossing by another route.”

  “He is not.” He gestured impatiently as Ruel opened his lips. “And I do not know why I am sure, but I am. I tell you, he is just ahead.”

  “I’m not arguing. I have a firm belief in instinct,” Ruel said quietly. “If he’s just ahead, then you won’t mind stopping for the night. This clearing seems to be as good a place as any. We can fetch water from that pond we passed a quarter of a mile back.”

  Li Sung frowned. “It is still early. If I keep on the trail, I might be able to overtake him.”

  “And you might not.” Ruel got off his horse. “And even if we do catch up with him, we might be too tired to be any threat.”

  Li Sung stiffened. “I am weary, not helpless.”

  “I wasn’t talking about you.” Ruel reached up and plucked Jane from the saddle. “Jane’s been ill, remember?” He met her gaze warningly as she started to protest. “You may be able to drive yourself without collapsing, but you might think of someone else besides yourself.”

  “She should not have come.”

  “We’re here,” Ruel said flatly. “Deal with it.”

  Li Sung hesitated before nodding reluctantly. “Very well.” He got off his horse and then had to grab the pommel of the saddle to steady himself as his stiffened legs threatened to give way.

  Jane hastily averted her eyes from this betraying sign of weakness. “I’ll gather the wood.”

  “I’ll do it.” Li Sung released the saddle. “Danor has left more than enough torn up trees in his wake to accommodate our needs.” He limped toward the path left by the elephant.

  “It was clever of you not to let Li Sung know it was him you were concerned about,” she said in a low voice.

  “Hell, I can’t claim any great degree of cleverness. I only told the truth. I am worried about you.” He turned away before she could speak. “I’ll set up camp. You go after Li Sung and see if you can persuade him to stay here while I go after the elephant.”

  “Alone?” she asked, startled. “Don’t tell me you were a hunter too at one time?”

  He shook his head. “The only animals I ever hunted were the rats in the London sewers.”

  She vaguely remembered him telling her he had been a rat catcher that night at Zabrie’s. “A rat is hardly in the same class as an elephant.”

  “The principle is the same. At least, I’m more qualified than you or Li Sung.” He unfastened the girth of his saddle. “Go to him.”

  She stood there, watching him. The mere thought of him stalking that mad elephant alone sent panic racing through her.

  “Go on,” he repeated.

  She hurriedly turned and followed Li Sung.

  “This was very foolish of you,” she said quietly as she fell into step with him. “I told you we’d find another solution.”

  He didn’t answer her.

  “You can’t claim you’re here to stop him from doing more damage. That’s just an excuse. You just have some insane desire to destroy the elephant.”

  He didn’t reply.

  She had to say something to break through that wall of silence. “Ruel wants us to stay here while he goes after Danor.”

  “No!” Li Sung whirled to face her, his eyes blazing. “He’s mine!”

  Shock rippled through her. She had never seen Li Sung display such passion about anything. “I didn’t say I’d let him do it. I just said he—”

  “This is not your concern.
Go back to the crossing.”

  “You’re my concern. Just as I’d be your concern if I were the one running after that crazy elephant.”

  The emotion faded from his face, and he looked away from her. “You are right. I would feel the same.”

  “Then we go after him together.”

  He nodded reluctantly. “Very well.”

  They walked in silence for a moment.

  “But you are wrong.” His gaze went compulsively to the path Danor had made through the trees. “I am not running after Danor anymore.”

  She looked at him inquiringly.

  “He is waiting.”

  “What?”

  He whispered, “He is waiting for me.”

  “And what will you do when you catch up with him?” Ruel asked as he stirred the wood of the fire. “Shoot him,” Li Sung said.

  “There can’t be many vulnerable spots on an elephant.”

  “I’ll aim for the eyes.” Li Sung stared into the flames. “Dilam said that’s the only way to assure a quick kill.”

  “You’re not a wonderful shot,” Jane pointed out. “And you may not get a second chance.”

  “I’ll think about that when I find him.”

  “You’re not thinking at all. You’re just feeling.”

  “Perhaps.” Li Sung’s gaze lifted from his coffee. “But it is useless to try to dissuade me.”

  Jane had suspected this but she had to make the attempt. “I don’t understand it. Why?”

  “He tried to kill me.”

  “You’re acting as if he set out to do it deliberately. He’s an elephant, for God’s sake.”

  Li Sung shrugged and didn’t answer.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” Ruel asked suddenly. “It’s because he is an elephant.”

  Li Sung stared at him impassively.

  “Power,” Ruel said softly, his gaze narrowed on Li Sung’s face. “Tell me, are you going to eat his heart too?”

  “What?”

  “In Brazil I heard about the men of a tribe who ate the hearts of captured enemy warriors because they thought that by doing so they would absorb their foe’s strength and courage.”

  “And you think I’m privy to such superstition?”

  “Are you?”

  “I am no fool. I realize that the only thing I’ll win from killing Danor is revenge. Sometimes that is enough.”

  “And sometimes it isn’t,” Ruel said wearily.

  “You surprise me.” Li Sung smiled faintly. “I would have thought you would understand my feeling in this.”

  “Oh, I understand.” Ruel glanced at Jane. “No one could understand revenge better than I do. Isn’t that right, Jane?”

  She sensed beneath the self-mockery in his voice an underlying pain that hurt her. She wanted to reach out and touch him, soothe him. She spoke hastily to Li Sung. “We’d better get some sleep if you intend to start out at first light. Why don’t we—”

  An elephant trumpeted in the darkness.

  Li Sung sat upright, his gaze flying to the path leading west. “Close.”

  He was right, Jane thought, Danor must be very close, but there had been a puzzling difference in the elephant’s cry from the angry trumpeting she had heard that night at the track. It was as if—

  Li Sung was on his feet, grabbing his rifle.

  “Li Sung, wait until daylight,” she said, alarmed. “If he’s that close, a few more hours aren’t going to make any difference.”

  “Now!” Li Sung slung a cartridge belt over his shoulder and limped from the campfire. “You wait until daylight. I don’t need you.”

  “The hell we will.” Ruel was already extinguishing the fire. “Can’t you at least wait until we saddle up?”

  “No need.” Li Sung’s words trailed behind him as the jungle closed around him. “He’s close….”

  Jane jumped to her feet and ran after Li Sung.

  She heard Ruel call her name but she paid no attention.

  The elephant trumpeted again. Beckoning. Calling. Calling Li Sung toward destruction.

  “Blast it, Li Sung, wait for me!” Jane called to the shadowy figure stalking ahead.

  “Save your breath.” Ruel pulled aside a thorny shrub to let her pass. “There’s no stopping him. Just try to keep up.”

  How could Li Sung travel so fast with his crippled leg? He was moving through the jungle at almost a run.

  The elephant trumpeted again, closer.

  Alarm, uneasiness, and bewilderment tumbled through her. There was something in that cry that bothered her. Of course it bothered her, she thought impatiently. The blasted elephant was drawing Li Sung into danger. “Li Sung!”

  Li Sung must have decided to heed her plea to wait, she saw with relief. He had stopped a few hundred yards ahead of them. Then, as they drew closer, she saw he was staring straight ahead, his body peculiarly rigid.

  “Is it the elephant? Be care—” She stopped as she and Ruel came abreast of him and she saw what had startled him.

  Skeletons.

  Gleaming white bones everywhere, covering the vast clearing before them in a macabre blanket. The moon had gone behind a cloud, but the skeletons seemed to give off a chilling shimmer of their own in the darkness.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  “An elephant graveyard,” Li Sung said. “That must be why they make the trek west.” “I don’t understand.”

  “Dilam said that when an elephant senses he is going to die, sometimes he travels many miles to a place of death.” Li Sung’s gaze traveled over the bone-littered landscape. “This appears to be such a place.”

  Jane shivered. “It certainly does.”

  “But why did Danor come here?” Ruel asked thoughtfully.

  Li Sung moved his shoulders as if shaking off the oppressiveness of the sight before him. “How do I know?” He smiled grimly. “Perhaps he senses I’m going to kill him.”

  The trumpeting sounded again and Jane’s gaze flew across the graveyard. At the edge of the trees she could barely discern the massive figure of the elephant, his trunk lifted.

  Li Sung made a low sound of satisfaction and started across the bone-strewn clearing.

  Jane and Ruel followed quickly, but Li Sung had already reached the middle of the graveyard by the time they caught up with him.

  The elephant stood watching them approach.

  “Why isn’t he charging?” Jane murmured, remembering the elephant’s bloodshot eyes and thundering attack at sight of them at the crossing.

  “I’d just as soon he refrained,” Ruel said dryly.

  Li Sung had come within range of the elephant. He lifted the rifle and sighted down the barrel.

  The elephant did not move.

  The moon came from behind the clouds and lit both the clearing and Danor’s face with pale clarity.

  “Wait!” Jane grabbed Li Sung’s arm. “There’s something—”

  “Let me go.” Li Sung tried to shake her off. “No, not yet. I see something …” She ran ahead of him toward the elephant.

  “Jane!” Ruel called.

  “He’s not going to hurt me. Can’t you see …” She stopped only a dozen yards from the elephant, making sure she was in Li Sung’s line of fire. “Don’t shoot him, Li Sung.”

  “Get out of my way, Jane.”

  “Come here,” Jane called, her stare never leaving Danor. She had been right, the moonlight revealed something damp and shimmering on the elephant’s face.

  “So he can try to trample me again?”

  Ruel reached her side. “Dammit, Jane, do you want to get killed? Why the hell do you—”

  “Shh!” She pointed to a shadowy bulk on the ground to the left of Danor. “I think he’s … isn’t that …”

  “Another elephant.” Ruel moved cautiously forward, keeping a wary eye on Danor. “Stay behind me. I’ll take a look.”

  Danor lifted his trunk and trumpeted again, this time in warning.

  Ruel stopped in his tracks. “I don
’t believe I’ll go any farther. He doesn’t appear to like me.”

  “He doesn’t like anyone in this world.” Li Sung limped toward them, the rifle cradled in readiness in the crook of his arm. “And if you’ll step out of the way, I’ll send him out of it.”

  “He’s not going to hurt anyone,” Jane said. “I think he’s only protecting— Can’t you see? He’s weeping, Li Sung.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “You’re not even looking at him. I tell you, he’s mourning.” Jane pointed to the fallen elephant. “We’ve got to see if there’s anything we can do to help.”

  “After I kill Danor, we’ll look at the other elephant.”

  “Stop it!” Jane said in exasperation. “You don’t have to kill him now.”

  “Necessity doesn’t always coincide with desire.” He lifted the rifle.

  Jane started toward the elephant. “I said no.”

  Danor shifted back and forth, turning on her threateningly.

  Ruel reached out and grabbed her arm. “He doesn’t like you either. How ungrateful when you’re the only one determined to save him.”

  An explosive sound came from Li Sung as he moved ahead of them toward the elephant. “I knew I should not have let you come with me. Must you be shown how vicious he is?” He strode toward the elephant, the rifle in readiness. “Come after me now, elephant.”

  Danor stood unmoving, his stare on Li Sung. Another tear rolled down his leathery face before he slowly lowered his trunk to the head of the fallen elephant and began tugging as if trying to lift the beast to its feet.

  Li Sung stopped in back of the fallen elephant, staring in frustration and challenge at Danor across the animal’s body.

  “Is the elephant dead?” Jane called.

  Li Sung glanced down at the elephant. “I don’t know.” He reached out and touched the leathery hide. “Warm. Perhaps not.”

  “Then why was Danor trumpeting?” Jane edged closer. “Is it a female?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then she must be his mate.”

  “Possibly.” Li Sung scowled. “And now I suppose you’re feeling so soft-hearted toward him you’re going to let him tear up the rest of the railroad to assuage his grief.”

  “I didn’t say that. But we have to help her if we can. We can’t let—” She stopped as Danor’s head lifted and he fixed his gaze on her. “You’ll have to see if there’s anything we can do. He’s not going to let anyone but you near him.”