Tiger Bound

by Doranna Durgin

Chapter 2

  Maks stood back in the bus shuttle parking area, giving Katie space to absorb what she’d so obviously understood. Her dismay shone clearly in those expressive healer’s eyes—clearly enough for him to read. Brevis had sent her a wounded tiger, and thought it response enough.

  But her attention quickly shifted beyond him, out to the small parking lot where the dark asphalt wavered in the sharp heat of the sun. Maks moved to her side, turning to face the parking lot.

  He spotted a man and his dogs.

  Not the classic Atrum Core minion, nattily dressed and tending toward swarthiness, easily passing for dark Mediterranean. And not one of Sentinel blood—that, Maks would have seen.

  Just a man, one such as any Sentinel could readily handle—Chinese water deer or no. But still Katie had held her breath that quick instant, and still the man looked as though he thought he had some upper hand.

  As if it pleased him.

  At his side, two large Malinois leaned against their short leather leads, panting—their big upright ears swiveling, their bodies tense and alert. The man didn’t seem to pay them much attention—and yet he wielded their presence like a weapon. “Katie Maddox,” he said. “Have you got a new pet project?”

  He meant Maks; he meant to be insulting. But Katie’s response was steadier than Maks thought it might be. “As long as you’re training dogs, Akins,” she said, “I’ll have plenty of projects.”

  “People are going to figure it out sooner or later,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “The way you lie. The things you do. You’ll pay the price.”

  Maks threw off the remnants of the recent fugue; he stood just a little bit straighter.

  But Katie didn’t need him. “People are going to figure it out sooner or later,” she said, flinging the words right back at this man. “The way you abuse dogs—the harm you do. You’ll definitely pay the price.” The quick flicker of contempt on her face startled Maks—he hadn’t imagined seeing it there, on features so open and thoughtful.

  Anger darkened the man’s face. “As if a fraud like you could tell an injury from an attitude problem. You’ve got nothing on me!”

  “I will.” Katie’s voice held determination and promise. She turned abruptly to Maks, gesturing sharply at several cars lined up to face the little shuttle depot. Her face held an expression he wasn’t inclined to disregard even if he’d had reason.

  Akins might not have seen it, or he might not have cared. He took a sudden step toward Katie, hand outstretched to grab an arm, dogs triggered from alert to aggressive—their gazes locking on Katie, their tails gone stiff and quivery. “Don’t you turn away from—”

  Maks stifled the rumble in his own chest, but he didn’t stifle the rest of it—one step forward, his head tipped to a warning angle, his eyes narrowing.

  Akins snorted. “You and what army?” he asked Maks. “Do you really think these dogs are just for show?”

  Maks didn’t spare the animals a glance. He made of himself a physical shield, as he always did; he could stop the dogs if they went for Katie.

  But they wouldn’t.

  Because the dogs were 100 percent smarter than their handler, and they’d seen in Maks what the handler had failed to see. One whined in sudden anxiety, licking his lips; the other flicked its ears back and forward and back again, alert but no longer aggressive. Submissive, both of them—no longer looking directly at Maks or Katie at all.

  Akins felt it through the leads; he looked down and transferred his scowl to the dogs, shifting his grip on the leather to give it a good jerk—

  “Don’t,” Maks said, quiet in the promise of it.

  Akins opened his mouth, a snarl in the making and turned to Katie.

  “Don’t,” Maks said.

  The moment stretched out. Maks stood in it, absorbing the unremarkable features, sturdy build and bristling presence of the man. Katie’s hand slipped around his elbow; the tremble of it betrayed her.

  Akins’s mouth tightened in frustration; he looked past Maks to Katie. “He won’t always be with you.”

  “I think,” Maks said, his very self-control a threat of sorts, “maybe I will.”

  Akins sneered by way of comeback and turned away, jerking the dogs to heel.

  Maks eyed the man’s hard stride, his stiff shoulders. “Whatever is between you,” he told Katie, “that man will be back.”

  “He’s the least of my problems.” Katie’s voice was as hard as the man’s anger. “And he’s not why you’re here. I can handle him.”

  He shifted just enough to glance at her while keeping Akins in his peripheral vision. “You can,” he said, no doubt in the words. “But while I’m here, you won’t have to.”

  She took a deep breath, blowing it out in a soft gust. “Right,” she said. “Of course. Just don’t let the prospect of a good fight distract you from why I contacted brevis in the first place.”

  Akins headed toward the pine-lined curve of the entry to this small, offset strip of shops that would take him out of sight—but he hesitated there, glancing over his shoulder. Maks watched him, even as he gave the greater part of his attention to the woman beside him. “Katie Maddox,” he said, “if I had wanted to fight that man, then I would be fighting.” A hint of rueful honesty won out. “Not that he would have been a good fight.”

  “Uh-huh.” She sounded far from convinced, already heading for the parked cars, cinnamon-touched hair bouncing with her step.

  “Wait,” he said softly, as Akins glanced into the spreading juniper bushes at the base of the trees then back at Katie, his dogs straining at their leads.

  He’d put no command in his voice, and maybe that’s why she responded, retracing her steps with her brow faintly drawn, her mouth impatient—and her gaze following his.

  Akins said something harsh and low to one of the dogs. It sprang into the bushes in a sudden flurry of caterwauling and clouding dust; the second dog roared frustration, lunging against its short lead.

  Akins regained control, hauling the first dog from the bushes, but by then Katie had breathed “Oh, no,” before breaking into a run—quick, long strides, flashing legs, graceful arms—easily out-running Maks. The alarm of it bristled right up Maks’s back as he hit his own speed and headed right for Akins and the dogs.

  By the time he got there, Akins stood aside with an expression both smug and self-satisfied. Katie knelt at the curb, pale with horror. “That was a monstrous thing to do, Roger Akins! And why? Just to upset me? That’s even worse!”

  “Brago took me by surprise.” Akins shrugged. “A powerful dog like this? It happens.”

  “You made it happen!” Distress choked her voice as she reached beneath the spreading bush. “You think I don’t know?” Maks came to a stop between them, pushing Akins back by dint of his presence even as he saw what Katie cradled.

  Rumpled black fur, soaked with saliva and blood, body twisted, eyes glazing and lip lifted in a lopsided sneer, exposing tongue and teeth in a gaping mouth; the little chest pumped in short, shallow breaths.

  “It’s just a cat,” Katie said, full of dismay. “Does it really make you feel big to let your dog do this?”

  “I’ve already said it was an accident.” The words sounded bored. “Besides, you know as well as I do that it would have gone to the coyotes sooner or later.”

  “You pig,” she said. “You horrible, horrible pig.”

  Akins only smiled, a tight and impenetrable expression, and Maks found himself wary, aware that Akins seemed to be waiting for something—and that they didn’t want to be part of it. “We need to go,” he told Katie. “We can take the cat.”

  “I’ll only be a moment.” She touched the animal between the eyes, lightly stroking short, shiny fur. She seemed oblivious to the small crowd gathering just across the parking lot, pointing and murmuring and upset—and obviously not willing to come any closer to the dogs. “You poor baby.”

  “Surely you want to get the cat to help,” Akins said, his voice pitched lou
dly enough to include the crowd.

  “You know damned well it’s too late for that.” Katie closed her eyes, took a deep and peculiar kind of breath—touching the cat between the eyes, her other hand resting so lightly on its broken body that she might not have been touching it at all.

  The cat, too, took a deep and peculiar breath. And then it...didn’t.

  Katie didn’t move, not for a long moment. Akins shifted as though he might come closer; Maks tipped his head in warning.

  Katie wiped her hands on denim-clad thighs, and stood in a single fluid motion, one that held the same grace as her swift running stride. The glare she sent at Akins should have sent the man for cover.

  “You killed it?” he said, his voice loud and his surprise unconvincing. “Just like that dog?”

  She faltered, her flushed face gone pale and her body stiff, as if she saw the blow coming and couldn’t do anything about it. “That dog,” she said, strain showing in her voice, “was terribly ill.”

  His sneer was back. “And it died on your table, under your hands. Just like the dog the month before, and before that it was, what...some sort of pet pig?”

  Her struggle to stay above the moment showed on her face; her chin gave a single, betraying quiver. “You’re a monster, Roger Akins, and you don’t deserve those beautiful dogs of yours for one moment.”

  She turned on her heel and walked away, leaving the handful of onlookers big-eared and big-eyed on the sidewalk—and leaving Maks one step behind again. He looked at the cat; he looked at Akins. The man shrugged, all innocence, and Maks wanted to snarl at him.

  But sometimes the quieter warnings were the better ones. He took a single step closer, a silent step—a meaningful step, in the face of Akins’s sudden uncertainty—and then Katie Maddox was too far ahead of him to linger any longer.

  He caught up with her as she outpaced the few onlookers who thought they might speak to her—calling her name, hastening to reach her. She headed past the car to the garden at the outside edge of the complex, sitting on the ornate wooden bench set in rock. Her followers might not have taken the hint at that, but when Maks glanced at them, it was enough; they fell back.

  Maks joined her on the bench, quietly enough to hear it creak faintly under his weight—not responding to the single glare from behind her wet-lashed eyes and thinking, to his surprise, that they had something very much in common. In her own way, she was as much a protector as he was.

  He pondered that, pushing away the lingering dissonance from the recent spell—feeling again the sting of the circumstances. The tiger who wasn’t whole, coming to help the deer who hid from herself. Marginal seer having the vapors over vague portents, she had said, her tone faintly bitter.

  And so her file had said. But Nick Carter had been plain enough. She knows more than she thinks she does—and we can’t afford trouble right now. You know the area. You’re the best man I can send for this job. Go see what’s happening.

  Of course, in the wake of Core D’oíche, Nick had few field agents to choose from. He’d been, Maks thought, not so much the best man as the only man.

  Katie shifted suddenly, drawing Maks’s gaze from its constant sweep of the area. Her expression, eyes still bright and cheeks still flushed, had shifted to annoyance. “I can deal with Roger Akins,” she said. “He’s certainly not why I called brevis.” And she stood, unfolding with graceful ease to head back for her car.

  “Katie,” Maks said, without following—she stopped, turning back to him. “Why did you contact brevis?”

  She closed her eyes, an acknowledgment of the question she didn’t look quite ready to answer. “Please,” she said. “Let’s just go home. We can talk there.”

  “You want time to figure out how to deal with me.” Still honest. Always honest...or else silent.

  She offered the smallest of smiles as she reached a sporty-but-sensible little vehicle. She flipped open the back hatch, and stood aside so Maks could toss in his duffel.

  It wasn’t so much a polite move as it was wary. All in undertones, as if she didn’t even realize it—always a certain buffer of distance between them; always a certain balance of readiness.

  This particular car model no doubt worked just fine for a slender body that folded with limber ease. His own? Not so much. Maks leaned over and pushed the seat all the way back, giving the resulting leg room a dubious look before he eased himself into the available space. He groped for the seatbelt before he closed the door, knowing there’d be no room to find it afterward. His knees bumped the dash.

  “Well,” Katie said, and bit her lip. “We can check with brevis about renting something while you’re here.” She reached behind him, stretching—the rustle of clothing, the sweet scent of woman and prey combined, brushing up against him and—

  “Here,” she said, and maybe she’d already repeated it once or twice, nudging his hand with the seat belt buckle. Maks clamped down on it with such abrupt reflex that her breath caught—right there in his ear—and he swallowed hard. So close. So sweet. So...

  What was he even thinking?

  She sat back behind the wheel, her hands quiet in her lap. Not reaching for her own seat belt at all. “Maybe,” she said, “this was a mistake.”

  He turned on her with more ferocity than he’d intended, then desperately swallowed it down.

  Because it didn’t matter if she carried the faint scent of something he might well hunt, and it didn’t matter that her movement mesmerized him. Maks had grown up protecting the weak, the small, the injured...he had made it his life. Before he’d even spoken fluent English, he’d conquered his instinctive responses to such factors. So it shouldn’t matter.

  He managed to gather his thoughts. “It’s not a mistake to ask for help. Or to give it.”

  She sat a moment longer, hair spilling free of the careless waterfall at her nape, a ponytail running through elastic and then half again, the ends spraying free in cinnamon undertones that matched her freckles and brows and eyes. Searching eyes, large and dark-lashed, irises rimmed with chocolate. She finally reached for her own seat belt. “I don’t think it’s going to be that simple.”

  Maks couldn’t argue that.

  He barely watched the road as they drove the mile to the first turn—but then, he never watched the road. Oh, he could drive and he could navigate. But it had never been natural...never been a part of who he was. They’d been too late in finding him for that.

  Pine Bluff was a small town with a single wide, meandering main street; one turn took them onto narrow asphalt, another onto dirt. They passed a house set far back in the woods, then another; after a third, they came to a straight quiet stretch and Maks rolled his window down to take in the scents of the place. All the green, all the fir and pine, all the sharp, dry dust and a thick overlay of dried needles breaking down black over silty soil.

  Not a tiger’s native land...unless that tiger happened to be Maks.

  The dirt road ended without fanfare, turning into the stumpy driveway for a well-worn log cabin tucked in among the trees. It was old enough to precede the existence of manufactured log homes; old enough for the trees to crowd it, ponderosa pines looming tall.

  She cut the little car’s engine, and they sat in silence for a moment.

  Maks breathed.

  Maybe for the first time in a long time.

  “I need to do some fire clearing,” Katie said finally.

  Maks pulled himself from being to thinking—to applying himself to Katie’s situation. Unlike many Sentinels, he had little in the way of additional talent. He could handle shields; he could create faint boundaries, and knew when those were crossed. He couldn’t heal, or see and manipulate wards, or sense subtle amulets. He had no clear mind-voice—only a few words conveyed with much effort, and the habit of sending impressions and concepts that didn’t always make an impact on the intended recipient.

  Of course, there was the silence. A gift from his early years, born of necessity and seldom used. But not even th
e best tracker—using Sentinel gifts or Atrum Core amulets—would discern his psychic scent if he went silent.

  It wasn’t likely to be of any use in the protection of Katie Maddox. His mouth twitched; he returned his full attention to her, finding her paused and waiting, fully aware of his wandering thoughts.

  She pointed through the windshield. “This is where I started. The road turns into a trail...cuts through to the forest land. Bikers, hikers, horseback riders...it’s a trickle this time of year. You never know when someone might toss a cigarette, so I cleared out the deadfall—but the stuff near the house...” She shrugged, shoulders eloquent. “That job has always been bigger than I am.”

  “But you’ve worked on it,” he said, seeing the signs. Areas where the smaller trees had been thinned, the space between them cleaned of the ladder fuels that would leapfrog a fire straight to the house.

  “I love this place,” she said simply, looking down at hands that, indeed, bore calluses; she probably didn’t even know about the smile curving her mouth, or the way it brushed light into her eyes. “After the Chediski-Rodeo fire pushed right up against this town...” She brushed her hands off. “Well, I may not be able to do it all, but I’d be a fool not to try.”

  “Is that what you thought when you contacted brevis for help?” Maks asked. “Only that you would be a fool not to try?”

  She’d reached for her door latch. Now she let the door finish its opening arc, but made no move to get out of the car. Her face had stilled. No smile, no light. And no flinching. She studied his face a moment, and then nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Because I couldn’t not try. No matter what I expect.”

  Maks had never learned the art of layered conversation; it wasn’t in his nature or his nurture. Not when survival meant clear action and clear communication. “I don’t know what you expect,” he said. “But you asked for help. I’m here to give it.”

  She laughed, short but light. “Your cleared field profile is a study in contradictions and things unsaid. But it doesn’t make me think you’re the right one to deal with this. With me.”