White Tiger

by Jennifer Ashley

The sword lay on top of a pile of crushed stone, just out of reach. Of course. Kendrick clawed his way to a relatively open spot—not much space between the fallen stone and what was left of the ceiling.

  He reached up, his between-beast claws changing back to a human hand so he could wrap his fingers around the hilt.

  Instantly the sword went into paroxysms of joy. The sword jangled and sang, vibrating on the rocks.

  “Shut up,” Kendrick told it in irritation. “You’ll bring the rest of the ceiling down.”

  The sword muted its song the slightest bit but the happy noise went on. Kendrick knew it couldn’t be heard except by himself—maybe others couldn’t see the glowing runes either. Kendrick was just one lucky sod, wasn’t he?

  The tunnel seemed to be filled fairly uniformly from the cave-in, the narrow crawl space near the ceiling sloping a little way down to the sides of the corridor. Kendrick knew that whichever direction he went, he was likely to find a total collapse in his way or he’d cause one.

  But what the hell? He couldn’t stay here debating about it. Kendrick picked a direction and started crawling.

  He’d gone, he calculated, about twenty yards, the sword lighting his way, when he heard sounds. He snarled at the sword, which was humming in his ears, to shut up again and listened as hard as he could.

  The noises were groans. Eventually, Kendrick distinguished them into separate ones, two of them, one louder than the other. They were male voices, of Shifters in great pain, unable to make any sounds but the moans that came from their throats.

  Kendrick carefully scrambled down and over stones, making his way to them. The rock fall sloped downward farther on, flowing out of an open door. The doorframe had remained upright, the lintel supporting the walls, but the entire ceiling inside the room had collapsed.

  Kendrick spied a hand poking from this debris. He dropped the sword near it and started pulling rocks away from the man buried beneath. The groans increased as Kendrick moved the concrete away to reveal a Shifter, one of the ones who’d joined Lachlan. Lachlan had trapped him in here to die.

  The Shifter—a Lupine called Darien—opened his dark eyes, and his next moan became a sigh of relief. “Thank the Goddess. I won’t die without a Guardian.”

  Kendrick felt Darien’s chest, arms, legs, neck, and gently slid his hands across his abdomen. “You might not die at all. You’re pretty tough.”

  Darien’s dirty face split with a grin. “Yeah, so my mate tells me.”

  Kendrick knew Darien’s mate, and his cubs. “You’ll see them again. I promise you. There’s another down here with you. Can you help me find him?” The other voice had grown fainter still.

  Darien tried to raise his head, grunted, and gave up. “Five of us. Lachlan told us to wait for you here in case you came back this way.”

  “Bastard. Why the hell—?” Kendrick bit off his question. Rescue now, interrogate later.

  Darien put his dirt-encrusted hand on Kendrick’s arm. “Because we needed a leader. We’re Shifters, Kendrick. We like hierarchy and alphas. Life is hard to figure out—we need someone to lean on when it gets too tough.”

  “I was still there for you,” Kendrick said in a hard voice. “Even if you didn’t see me.”

  “I know, but like I said, we’re Shifters. We need someone to hold our hands sometimes—literally.”

  And Lachlan had played on that need and dependency. A leader’s Shifters weren’t much different from his own cubs—his followers thrived on attention as much as the basics like food and a safe place to sleep.

  “I’m sorry,” Kendrick said. “Truly. You’re right. I should have been there for you.” He closed his hand around Darien’s fingers where they rested on his arm. “Tell you what, when we get you and your friends out of here, you can smack me upside the head.”

  Darien grinned again. “I wouldn’t have hurt you.” His other hand came to rest on Kendrick’s as though he took strength from the touch. “Much.”

  Kendrick grunted a laugh as he continued to unbury Darien and helped him to sit on the pile of rubble. He left Darien to catch his breath and crawled to where he heard movement. Kendrick began pulling away rocks and gravel, the Sword of the Guardian lighting the way.

  Kendrick’s heart dropped when he uncovered a Shifter, dead. The man had been crushed, no hope of survival.

  Kendrick knew him, as he knew Darien, as he knew every Shifter under his command. Immense grief flowed through him as he lifted the sword and plunged it into the dead Shifter’s heart. There was a faint whisper, and the Shifter disappeared into dust that dispersed and vanished.

  But there was still someone alive under here. Another groan sounded, and rocks moved near where Kendrick crouched. Kendrick let the sword drop with a clatter and dug through the rubble with both hands. Darien joined him, and soon they uncovered another Shifter.

  It was the Feline who’d been Lachlan’s main supporter. The man opened his eyes, dark orbs shining among the white dust that coated his face.

  “Guardian,” he whispered.

  The Feline’s body was broken. Blood seeped from between his lips, and his bones had been shattered.

  Kendrick laid his hand on the Feline’s chest, feeling his heart beating erratically—struggling for life.

  “I know a healer,” Kendrick said quickly. “He can get here soon. Crazy asshole, but he’s got the gift.”

  The Feline gave him a wan smile. “I’m not going to make it out in time, he’s not going to make it in, and you know it.” He closed a bloody hand around Kendrick’s wrist. “Lachlan’s a bastard. So are you, but he left me to die.”

  “I’ll avenge you,” Kendrick said. “Trust me.”

  “Yeah, I know you hate him. Just tell him before you kill him that I’ll be waiting to kick his ass in the Summerland.”

  “I will,” Kendrick promised. More sorrow swamped him. “I’m sorry I failed you, my friend.”

  The Feline snorted. “Get over yourself. Just do it. I want to see my mate and cub. I can feel them reaching for me.” His mate had passed long ago, trying to bring in a cub that had also died.

  Kendrick brushed his hand over the man’s forehead. He hated this part of his job, but he also knew that he sent the Shifters off with some comfort.

  “Goddess go with you,” Kendrick said. He lifted the sword, which sang and glittered, and drove it into the Feline’s heart.

  “Thank you,” the Feline whispered, and then he was dust.

  Tears streamed down Darien’s cheeks, plastering the dirt to them. “He was a good man.” He sniffled and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “For a Feline.”

  Kendrick cleared his throat, trying to contain the pain in his heart. “Help me find the others.”

  The final two Shifters Darien said had been with him were farther down in the rubble, already dead. Kendrick dispatched them, then bowed his head for a time, resting his weight on the sword, unable to move.

  * * *

  Addie felt sick when she saw the rubble blocking the tunnel at the bottom of the shaft.

  Kendrick was behind there. Zander’s flashlight roved the seemingly solid wall of boulders. A slight indentation at the ceiling showed that the debris had filled in nearly to the top of the tunnel.

  “Are you sure he’s through there?” Addie asked Tiger. “Dylan said there were many ways out.”

  Tiger touched the rocks and bent his head. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “This is the closest path to him.”

  Jaycee, who’d climbed down directly after Addie, clicked off the cell phone she’d used to contact Dimitri. “Dimitri says Kendrick hasn’t come out. The main entrance has completely collapsed. Dylan and his trackers are checking all the side tunnels, but they’re not optimistic.”

  “No,” Tiger said. “He is behind here.”

  Zander slapped his hand to a boulder. “It’
s nothing but rock. We’ll never tunnel in there. Going around has to be better.”

  Tiger had both hands on the fill now, his head bent, while Addie watched worriedly. She could barely breathe in this stuffy place, and her wildly pounding heart didn’t help.

  “I can see,” Tiger said, his eyes closed. “Heat, moving . . . now it’s gone.”

  “Gone?” Addie ran two steps to the rock and flattened her hands against it, as though she’d be able to feel something through it as Tiger did. “What’s gone?”

  “The heat. Someone was alive. Now dead.”

  “Kendrick?” Addie’s word came out a whisper.

  “No,” Tiger said. “Another.”

  “Let’s hope it was Lachlan,” Jaycee said.

  Tiger shook his head. “Another. A Feline.” He remained frozen for a few more seconds, a giant of a man with his hands spread on the rock, as though listening to what the debris had to tell him.

  He turned abruptly, eyes flashing gold, and started up the ladder.

  Addie, instead of screaming at him to wait, climbed quickly out after him. She’d figured out that Tiger didn’t answer direct questions or take orders or bother to explain what he was doing. He did what he did and everyone else had to figure it out. Jaycee followed Addie, Zander coming behind her.

  Tiger stood at the top of the ladder, looked around for a few moments, then started off to the west, his strides even. Counting paces, Addie realized as she hurried after him, his strides never varying.

  The sun touched the horizon. Red and gold rays streamed up into the soft blue sky, a Texas sunset in all its glory.

  Tiger moved about a hundred paces from the entrance to the shaft, then turned and walked south. He stopped on a patch of ground that looked no different from any other to Addie—the grasses and dust were identical to all other grasses and dust around it.

  “Here,” Tiger said. “This is the best way in.”

  Zander scanned the ground, his white braids swinging. “You see a hidden door that I don’t? Nothing here but solid earth.” He stamped one booted foot on the grass.

  “Here,” Tiger said, and started taking off his clothes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Addie stared as Tiger’s body came into view, then she spun on her heel when he started to slide down his jeans. She saw the jeans land on the grass, a very small pair of underwear on top.

  There was a rush of air, and Zander said in awe, “Holy shit.”

  Addie risked a glance behind her. The giant tiger that had confronted her at Charlie’s ranch stood like a statue on the vast plain, the dying sun’s light burning its orange fur golden. Tiger let out a tiger growl, then he planted his sharp claws in the grass and started to dig.

  “Seriously?” Zander said to him. “You’re going to dig forty feet down with your bare paws?”

  Tiger paid no attention. In the space of a minute, he had soft earth moved aside and was going deeper.

  “Thirty-nine feet now,” Addie said, coming to the hole. “Don’t stop him unless you have a better idea.”

  “A backhoe and a giant drill,” Zander said. “But what the hell. I can’t let a tiger best me.”

  He threw his duster to the ground, tugged off his boots, and peeled his T-shirt from his torso. He was as tightly built as Tiger and almost as big.

  Addie averted her gaze as Zander slid out of his jeans, and saw that Jaycee was undressing as well.

  Zander growled and Addie looked at him in time to see him complete the shift to very large, snowy white polar bear. Addie had never seen a polar bear apart from ones in zoos, and then only from a distance. Now she stood an arm’s length from Zander, who was larger than any wild polar bear would ever be. His black nose and claws stood out vividly from his pale fur, as did his very dark eyes.

  Zander gazed at her soulfully for a moment, then he put his giant paws down next to Tiger’s and began to dig.

  Jaycee was much smaller than both of them but her leopard was a thing of grace. She darted in between the males and began to dig, her paws spewing up dirt faster than they could.

  Addie, not to be outdone, found a piece of board and joined them. She couldn’t dig as well as they did, but she could scrape the loosened earth out of the way.

  They worked while the sun sank, bathing the sky in hazy purple twilight. By the time it was fully dark, a half-moon rising, they’d made it down about fifteen feet.

  Zander decided they needed to shore up what they’d dug out, or the walls would collapse. He shifted back to human to ask Addie to help him drag over the doors from the hidden entrance, and used the timber to brace the shaft they were creating. Zander didn’t bother dressing for this, but by this time Addie was used to Shifters thinking nothing of standing around naked. Zander was beautiful, though, the man with stark white hair and black eyes, touched by moonlight.

  Kendrick was even more beautiful.

  Zander sent Jaycee running back to the main house to bring help and more supplies. They’d need rope if they were going to climb down and fetch Kendrick.

  Tiger said nothing at all, never returned to his human form. He simply dug.

  The moon was high by the time Dylan had arranged for more diggers, equipment to move the earth and solidify the hole, and rappelling gear.

  “You know I’m going down there,” Addie said to Dylan.

  Dylan looked at her a long time, then amusement entered his hard eyes. “I know.”

  “Don’t be crazy,” Zander said. He still hadn’t bothered with clothes. “I’m a Shifter healer. There’s nothing to say I can help you if you get hurt.”

  Addie faced him, hands on hips. “Well, one thing about working for Bo is he was good about making sure his employees had an insurance plan. If I’m hurt, just drive me to a hospital in Austin. I’m covered.”

  Zander stared at her, eyes unmoving. “Not my point.”

  “I know. But if I worry about shit like that, I’ll break down and never get up. I have to go down and help Kendrick. That’s all there is to it.”

  Zander watched her for another moment. “If you’re hurt, you know he’ll kill me.”

  Addie shrugged. “Suck it up.”

  Zander gave her another black-eyed stare, then he nodded. “You’re his mate. What’cha gonna do?”

  Jaycee wasn’t so sanguine but she declared she’d go down right in front of Addie. She’d been assigned to be Addie’s bodyguard, and that was that.

  Finally they had the shaft clear to the depth Tiger wanted it, the ropes and pulleys ready.

  “I go first,” Tiger said.

  No one argued with him. Addie was coming to understand, both from observation and comments by the others, that Tiger had unique abilities for search and rescue.

  Tiger had resumed his jeans, shirt, and boots before he approached the hole and settled the rappelling gear around his chest and thighs. Now he leapt backwards into the hole, not bothering to wait to see if Dimitri, who was securing the ropes, had done it right. He simply trusted Dimitri had.

  The nylon ropes whirred as Tiger went down, snapping tight when he stopped. He made his way gradually down into the darkness—he had no light, saying he could see better without it.

  The ropes went slack abruptly, then Tiger tugged at them, indicating Dimitri should haul them back up. “Wait,” Tiger called, then went silent.

  Addie heard a faint clinking of metal against rock. After an interminable time, Tiger’s gravelly voice floated back to them.

  “I’m through.”

  Addie breathed a sigh. Tiger had found a way into the tunnels after all.

  “Me next,” Zander said.

  “No,” Tiger called upward. “No room. Jaycee, then Addison.”

  “No,” Dimitri said abruptly. “Z-zander, and that’s it.”

  Jaycee glared at Dimitri. She’d restored her cloth
es, but they were too shredded to cover her much. Dimitri glared right back at her, his red hair shining in the moonlight.

  “Addie’s insisting,” Jaycee said. “Which is her right, as mate. And I have to take care of her. That’s my job.”

  Dimitri’s wolf gaze landed on Addie. “Add-Addie . . .”

  “I’m going down there, Dimitri,” Addie said. “Jaycee doesn’t have to come.”

  “Yes, I do.” Jaycee heaved an exasperated sigh. “What am I supposed to do? Disobey an order from my alpha to keep his mate safe? Because you might be worried?” She pointed at Dimitri. “There’s no connection between you and me. I don’t care if we had a great night in the sack.”

  The other Shifters crowding around didn’t pretend to mind their own business. They listened, interested.

  “No c-connection?” Dimitri asked, rage in his eyes.

  “Nope. So you have no call to tell me what to do.”

  Dimitri drew himself up. “Jaycee Bordeaux, under the light of the Goddess and in front of witnesses, I claim you as mate.” His voice rang clear, his stammer gone.

  “What?” Jaycee shrieked. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “No.” Dimitri said. “You going to refuse?”

  Jaycee opened her mouth, very likely to hotly say yes. Then she subsided. “No. I don’t know. I have to think.”

  Dimitri’s eyes flared with triumph. “Mate-claimed. Stay out of the hole.”

  “Don’t even start with me.” Jaycee grabbed the harness and began buckling herself in. “You’re not my mate yet, and you can’t override the alpha’s command until then.”

  Addie twined her fingers together to keep herself from grabbing the gear from Jaycee and plummeting downward herself. She asked Dimitri, “Does she mean you can tell a Shifter leader to stuff himself if you think his orders might hurt your mate?”

  “Yep,” Dimitri said. His smile beamed. “L-looking forward to it.”

  “What if your mate is the Shifter leader?” Addie went on.

  Jaycee snapped the last strap into place and lifted the supplies she’d carry down with her. “Then you’re screwed. Watch that rope real close, Dimitri.”