White Tiger

by Jennifer Ashley

  “Maybe.” The guy who answered was a bear, not one from the Austin Shiftertown. “If we do the deal right, no records will show that Shifters have anything to do with it. We’ll need a human.”

  “I have an idea about that too,” the Feline said. “My biggest worry, besides that interfering bastard, Dylan, is Kendrick. Kendrick’s working for Dylan.”

  “Okay, I know you think that,” the Lupine said, his voice heating. “But Kendrick would never work for someone like Dylan. He might be pretending to, but Kendrick always plays his own game. I say we should make Kendrick a friend, not an enemy.”

  The Feline reached across the table, his hand turning to claws. “Contact him, and I kill you.”

  The Lupine growled, not cowed. “Chill, kitty-kitty. It’s only a suggestion. I haven’t seen Kendrick or talked to him since the compound was destroyed, and I don’t follow him anymore. I’m bringing it to the table for us all to decide. You’re not leader yet.”

  The Feline snarled softly, but withdrew. “Fine. I vote no. No contacting Kendrick. Not until we know whose side he’s on.”

  “He’s on Kendrick’s side,” the Lupine said. “Trust me, I’ve known him forever.”

  The Feline went on in a hard voice. “Part of the reason we’re doing this is the old leaders have screwed us standing. They’re why we’re practically slaves, wearing shackles to keep us tame. No more arbitrarily chosen leaders. We form the hierarchy the old-fashioned way, with challenges that are truly won and lost—not the shit rules of the fight clubs.”

  The bear spoke, his rumble holding caution. “In the old days, Shifters died when they lost a hierarchy struggle.”

  “Oh, well,” the Feline said, with exaggerated indifference. “That was nature taking its course. We looked after our families and clans fine in the wild, everyone knowing their place.”

  “That’s true,” the Lupine said. “We can work it out so there’s not so much bloodshed, though. Dominance can be established in the fight clubs, even with their stupid rule that a won or lost fight doesn’t make a difference in the hierarchy. Such bullshit. Everyone knows it does make a difference.”

  The Feline thought about this, then nodded. “Good idea, Darien. We can use the fight clubs to figure it out as we go. Turn the Shifter leaders’ rules to our purposes.”

  The bear and Lupine, Darien, liked that. They murmured assent and toasted their agreement with beer.

  The talk slowed after that, and the Shifters drifted apart from each other, then departed at different times. A wise tactic—not coming and going in an obvious clump.

  Ben waited until they were all gone, then walked casually past their table, as though heading for the bathroom, and removed the bug.

  He left by the back door, becoming an inky shadow among other shadows.

  The head Shifter, the Feline, was still in the parking lot. Ben watched him walk to his motorcycle and prepare to mount it. Before the Feline could climb aboard, another man approached him. Like Ben, this guy stayed within the shadows, obscuring his face. Ben could see the guy was male and wore a hoodie, and that was about it.

  The Feline stiffened, coming up from bending over his bike, snarling softly. He seemed to know the man, however, because he stopped and listened as the man began to speak.

  Ben had no idea what hoodie-guy said or what the Feline replied. They were a long way across the parking lot, traffic was roaring by on the highway, and Ben didn’t have Shifter hearing.

  Should have dropped a bug into the Feline’s pocket. Oh, well. Live and learn.

  Ben couldn’t tell if the man were Shifter, human, Fae, or a whatever. While Shifters could scent the distinction, Ben couldn’t—not that even a Shifter could smell much over the stench of Dumpsters and loose trash, oil, and exhaust.

  The conversation ended. The Feline, not looking happy, climbed onto his bike, started it, and flowed away out of the parking lot. The man watched him go.

  Ben couldn’t see the guy very well, or hear his voice or smell him, but he recognized a stance of pure arrogance when he saw it. He didn’t think the guy was Fae, though. They had a certain body shape that had been imprinted on Ben’s mind from all the persecution his family had suffered from the hoch alfar shits.

  That left human or Shifter, one who had something going on with the Feline but had waited to catch him alone. Hmm.

  The man turned to fade back into the shadows, but for a moment, Ben felt a gaze resting on him. A pause, a stare, then a shake of head, and the man was gone.

  Ben turned away to leave and found another Shifter directly in front of him. It was a Lupine but not the one who’d been in the bar. He wore a Collar and needed a bath.

  “Dylan’s pet,” the Lupine said.

  Ben decided to play stupid. “What are you talking about, man?”

  “Shit,” the Lupine said, his lip curling. “What are you? You stink.”

  The Lupine smelled like alcohol, whatever he’d been eating, and the strong odor of unwashed Shifter.

  “Could say the same,” Ben said.

  “Dylan’s a hypocrite, and you’re a fucking Fae.”

  Ben scowled, fists clenching. This Lupine was spoiling for a fight. Ah, well, Ben would have to teach him a lesson.

  “Never call me a Fae.” His words hard, Ben swung his fist and contacted the Lupine’s drunken face.

  In the next moment, a sharp pain burned him in the abdomen. Ben glanced down in surprise to see a knife hilt sticking out of his stomach.

  “A knife?” Ben asked incredulously. “Shifters don’t fight with weapons. Have some self-respect.”

  As he spoke, fuzzy blackness took over his vision and he collapsed to the trash-strewn asphalt. At the last minute, Ben cast a spell that wiped the encounter from the Lupine’s brain.

  The Lupine blinked, looked around in bewilderment, and stumbled away.

  Ben clapped his hand to his abdomen, pain washing through him. He managed to pry his cell phone from his pocket and press the name at the top of his speed dial, before he proceeded to pass out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “What happened?” Addie demanded as she hurried out onto the porch, clad in the T-shirt and shorts she’d bought to sleep in.

  Seamus and Tiger were carrying the recumbent form of Ben from the truck they’d taken him out of and up to the house. Kendrick, fully dressed, met them halfway, and helped them get Ben onto the porch. They laid him on blankets Kendrick must have already fetched.

  “Ben,” Kendrick said, touching the man’s face. “Who did this to you?”

  “He’s pretty out of it,” Seamus answered. “I got a call from him, but he couldn’t speak more than a word or two. I tracked the phone—with a little help—to a bar outside Houston. There he was, stabbed half to death, left in a pile of trash.”

  Addie hurried to Ben’s side, feeling Kendrick’s warmth next to her. “Why did you bring him here?” she asked. “He needs a hospital.”

  “He’s not human,” Seamus said. “A hospital might mess him up.”

  Seamus didn’t look very good himself. His face was wan, and he kept pressing his hand to his side, as though he too had been stabbed, though Addie saw no blood on him.

  Addie studied Ben’s flat face, now-pale skin, and dark hair. “He isn’t a Shifter, though, is he?”

  “We’re not sure what he is,” Seamus answered. “Calls himself a goblin or a gnome, but I’m not sure if he says it as a joke.”

  “Well, he needs a doctor,” Addie said decidedly. “If you pull that knife out of him, and it’s pierced an internal organ, you could mess him up.”

  Kendrick nodded, face grim. “She’s right. We need a healer.”

  “Finally,” Addie muttered.

  She was aware of Jaycee in the darkness of the porch beyond Kendrick, looking but not getting too close. Dimitri stood in the front doorway, in n
othing but a pair of very brief briefs and the sling. He held his arm negligently, as though it had already healed a long way.

  Seamus kept his hand against his side, but no longer pressing as hard. “Think you can trust him?” he asked Kendrick.

  Kendrick didn’t answer. Seamus seemed to know who Kendrick was talking about, but Jaycee and Dimitri looked nonplussed—they didn’t. Tiger, stoic as ever, only stood in place, watching.

  “Trust who?” Addie burst out. This cryptic Shifter glance-exchange thing was driving her crazy.

  “A healer I’ve met,” Kendrick said. “He doesn’t answer to me.”

  “He doesn’t answer to anyone,” Seamus said. “He doesn’t even answer his phone most of the time.”

  “I will find him,” Tiger said. He didn’t say it boastfully, but as a statement of fact.

  Kendrick shot him a look. “You know where to start?”

  “Yes,” Tiger said. Without another word, he walked off the porch and into the darkness. A few moments later, they heard his motorcycle starting up, then he was gone.

  Dimitri shivered. “He is spooky.”

  “You get used to him,” Seamus said. “He’s a good guy.”

  “Sure,” Dimitri said. “And s-spooky.”

  Charlie had emerged onto the porch with a lantern flashlight. The cubs, of course, had woken up and come to see what the matter was, but they stayed in the doorway, sheltering behind Dimitri’s bare legs. For once, they curbed their exuberance and watched with quiet eyes.

  “He don’t look good,” Charlie said. “Want me to fetch a doctor?”

  “We’ve sent for one.” Kendrick unfolded to his feet. “We should make him comfortable and try not to move him too much.”

  Ben groaned and fluttered his eyes open. “Have a lot to tell you,” he whispered.

  “Later, my friend.” Kendrick leaned down and put his hand on Ben’s shoulder, his touch gentle. “I plan for you to live, so you can tell me when you’re better.”

  Ben raised a bloody hand and clapped it around Kendrick’s wrist. “If I die, I want you to take that big sword of yours and run me through. It might not work, but I’d rather take a chance at getting to Shifter heaven than having my soul zipping back to Faerie. Wouldn’t the Fae love to torment me then?”

  Kendrick gave him a solemn nod. “You have my word.”

  “Thank you,” Ben said fervently. “Now, any chance for some morphine?”

  * * *

  Addie remained on the porch with Kendrick as the others dispersed. Jaycee went out to patrol as her wildcat, as did Seamus. Dimitri disappeared into the house then reemerged, dressed but without the sling. He too walked away into the night.

  Charlie had taken the cubs back to bed. They’d been somber, seeming to understand just how hurt Ben was.

  They had seen death before, Addie realized as she gave them a second kiss good-night. The tigers’ mother had died, and Robbie had lost both mother and father. They barely knew Ben, but they understood what his injury might mean.

  Addie sat down on the porch swing next to Kendrick. Ben lay on blankets at their feet, where he slept fitfully. Kendrick had pulled a sheet over Ben’s legs, but with the night still in the 90s, Ben had shoved it off almost immediately.

  Addie felt Kendrick’s arm against hers, then his thigh. In spite of the night’s oppressiveness, his warmth wasn’t overwhelming—it was comforting.

  Addie gave up on trying to fight her feelings for him and leaned into him. “Who is this healer you’re looking for?” she asked. “Why is Seamus worried?”

  “He’s kind of eccentric,” Kendrick said. “You’ll see.” He let out a faint mmph noise. “I hate that Ben’s hurt because of me.”

  “How do you know it’s because of you?”

  A reasonable question, Addie thought, but Kendrick growled. “He was poking around in things I’d been investigating. They must have caught him at it. They must know more about me and my friends than I realized.”

  “It could have been random violence,” Addie suggested. “He might simply have been mugged.”

  Kendrick shook his head. “I doubt it.” He stared off into the night, his entire body pressed the length of hers. She was aware of every twitch, every stillness, every beat of his pulse.

  She laid her head on his strong shoulder. “Why do you want me to stay?” she asked softly.

  Kendrick’s shrug moved his body. “I need you.”

  The simple declaration warmed Addie’s heart. “I’ve heard you say that to many people since I’ve met you. Dimitri, Jaycee, Seamus, Tiger. Even when you didn’t say it out loud, that’s what you meant. You seem to need a lot of people.”

  Another shrug. “I had a crappy upbringing,” he said, forcing a light tone. “I have issues.”

  “An upbringing so crappy it made other Shifters rush to follow you to live in an underground compound in the middle of Texas?”

  “Yep.”

  Silence descended, broken only by a chorus of crickets, the occasional crackle of brush as a lizard or snake slid by, and Ben’s uneven breathing.

  “Are you going to tell me about it?” Addie asked after a time.

  Kendrick glanced at her. “You want to know?” He sounded surprised.

  “I want to know everything about you.” Addie rested her fingertips on his blue-jeaned thigh. “Have, ever since you walked into my diner.”

  He continued to study her in a puzzled way, as though he couldn’t understand why she was interested. “When I was ten, my father died,” he began. “He was a white tiger, an old Shifter, much older than my mother, and he came to the end of his natural life. My mother was still young, very beautiful. She was a tiger, but an orange one like Tiger. I’m an aberration.”

  “Is that what you call yourself?” Addie asked. “I’m sorry about your dad.”

  “I grieved. The Guardian of our clan sent him to dust, and my mother and I tried to get on with our lives. But that was back in a time when Shifter males far outnumbered females, and an unmated female like my mom was considered fair game. The strongest male around mate-claimed her, took her as mate under sun and moon, and then tried to kill me.”

  Addie’s gasp was sharp. “Holy shit. Why?”

  “Because a male doesn’t want the offspring of another male to challenge him when that offspring grows up. He wants his own cubs to take over. My mother fought him tooth and nail—literally—to protect me. The male was a wolf, and though my mother wasn’t as dominant, she was a tiger, the last of her line. I helped fight him off, already pretty strong. We couldn’t get rid of him completely, though. It wasn’t as acceptable for a female to deny a mate-claim then as it is now, and he was dominant to her.” Kendrick let out a resigned breath. “I know now that if he hadn’t forced the mate-claim, another Shifter would have. The Lupine got a few cubs on my mother, but they all turned wolf, not tiger. The offspring of two different Shifter species can go either way. My mom had no other tigers. Just me.”

  Addie pictured him, a small cub like Brett or Zane, scared and bewildered after his beloved father died. He’d have hated and feared his mother’s new mate but stayed with his mom to make sure she was all right.

  Kendrick went on. “I learned then that I couldn’t do everything all by myself. I tried to fight my stepfather, tried to kill him, but I was one-third his size, so did little damage.” His lips twitched as though he were amused at his foolish, younger self. “He did plenty of damage to me, though. My mother couldn’t stop him anymore—she was usually pregnant, and each time she carried a cub it made her weaker. So I learned to form groups around me—we could pool our strengths to make things happen.” He paused. “I finally did kill him.”

  Addie’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

  “With some help. Dimitri’s father had come from Russia and his mother was a red wolf from the North American wilderness. Dimitri w
as pretty formidable, even before his Transition. He helped me, as did a few others, who are gone now. We cornered my stepfather, fought him, killed him. My clan leader didn’t punish me for it, because it was a legitimate kill—a son challenging his father’s place in the hierarchy. In those days, fights for dominance were to the death. I was sixteen.”

  His look was empty, not defiant, not triumphant. He should not have had to face something like that so young. Addie squeezed his thigh. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It was necessary.” Kendrick’s rumble was low, and he rested his hand on hers, firm strength. “My mother, worn out, passed bringing in my youngest half brother. I took care of him, as I did the others.”

  Addie tried to imagine Kendrick with brothers and sisters and couldn’t. He seemed so alone. “Where are they now?” she said.

  “Two were killed by hunters,” Kendrick said, staring into the darkness beyond the porch. “The other three were rounded up and Collared years ago. They live in a Shiftertown in Oregon. Trying to contact them would be dangerous—for them more than for me—so I let them go. They weren’t too fond of me anyway. Apparently, I can be a hard-ass.”

  “No,” Addie said with a straight face. “Never.”

  Kendrick glanced at her, his lips relaxing into a half smile. “Tigers are supposed to be loners. But I found out early on that I never could be.”

  And so he’d formed his own version of Shiftertown, outside the law, where he could gather everyone he cared about and protect them. Addie recognized that he wasn’t simply a man reaching out to friends—he had a fanatic need to protect them, to keep the world from harming them.

  Addie touched his face with light fingertips, as his eyes burned dark in the shadows. “You are an amazing man,” she whispered, then rose against him and kissed his lips.

  * * *

  Kendrick went still as Addison’s warm touch and kiss woke every yearning he’d been trying to suppress. He wrapped his arm around Addison’s warm body and pulled her against him.

  She moved in his embrace, her breasts flattening against his chest, the softness of her cutting through the horrific memories and the constant pain in his heart.