by Jenna Black
Still cupping his cheek, I took a deep breath and then waded in. “We need to talk about Sita,” I said.
I guess he heard something ominous in my tone, because his hands dropped from my shoulders and he took a small step backward, enough so my hand could no longer reach his cheek.
“What is there to talk about?”
“I need to know that if we go in there tomorrow, she’s going to attack the bad guys instead of attacking me.”
Jamaal put on an offended look, but it was clear from the expression in his eyes that he was worried, too. “She’s not stupid. She’ll know who the real threat is.”
“But will she care?” Jamaal started to respond, but I cut him off. “I think she and I need to make peace with each other, and I think we need to do it now.”
His eyes went comically wide. “Please tell me you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”
“I’m suggesting that you summon Sita now so she and I can have a little heart-to-heart before we potentially go into battle tomorrow.”
He took another step backward like he was prepared to bolt. “You’re crazy! That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard from you, and that’s saying a lot.”
I reminded myself that he was feeling cornered and that I shouldn’t take anything he said personally. “Yeah, letting her out tomorrow in the heat of battle when all our lives depend on it and we don’t know if she can be trusted is a much smarter idea,” I countered. “If you can’t keep her under control tonight, when you can put your full concentration on her, then she and I can’t both go tomorrow.”
Figuring out which one of us shouldn’t go would be a challenge—Sita would be able to wade in without risk, but unlike me she wouldn’t be able to take out multiple targets in quick succession—but I was really hoping it wouldn’t come to that. Sita had proven before that she had way beyond an animal’s intelligence and seemed to understand what people were saying to her. I just had to hope that intelligence ran deep enough for her to see the logic in making peace with me.
Of course, first I had to convince Jamaal, who looked like he was near panic.
“We have to try,” I told him in a soothing a voice. “She can’t do me any permanent harm if it turns out you can’t control her, and I promise I won’t hold it against you if that happens.”
I rested my case on those words, knowing that I needed to give Jamaal a little time and space to think it over. I would be the one in physical danger if Jamaal lost control of Sita, but it would do some serious damage to his psyche if I got hurt. He had always been ashamed of his inability to control his temper and his death magic, each of which fueled the other in a sometimes-unbearable feedback loop. Losing control of Sita would mean he hadn’t improved as much as he wanted to think, and that would hurt like hell. But sometimes we have to swallow unpalatable truths, and this was one of those times.
Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Jamaal walked away from the water and plopped down onto the dry sand. “This is such a bad idea,” I heard him mutter under his breath, and I realized I’d won the argument. Hooray for me.
Now that I’d gotten my way, adrenaline began to rush through my veins and my breathing shallowed. All well and good to build a logical argument for why we needed to do this, but that didn’t mean the prospect didn’t scare the bejesus out of me. I’d seen Sita in action before, and if she didn’t feel inclined to listen to my rational argument, this could get very ugly very fast.
I moved a little farther away from Jamaal, closer to the water’s edge. I didn’t know if the water would discourage a real tiger, much less a phantom one with human or near-human intelligence, but if she came after me, I figured I’d dive in and find out. The edge of a wave lapped against my bare heel, and it was all I could do not to jump and yelp at the sudden cold. Diving in would not be fun, and I hoped like hell it wouldn’t be necessary.
Sitting cross-legged on the sand, Jamaal closed his eyes. It used to take considerable time and effort for him to summon Sita, but the process was getting faster. Five hundred pounds of surly tiger appeared on the sand beside him before I felt even remotely prepared to face her.
Sita greeted me in the usual way, with a tooth-baring snarl that made my bones rattle. Her eyes fixed on me with unnerving intensity, and she lowered herself into a crouch as she began stalking toward me. Jamaal opened his eyes and reached out to her, touching her flank.
“Let her be, Jamaal,” I said. Inside, I was practically gibbering with fear, very aware that I was prey in the presence of an apex predator, but I think I sounded relatively calm. “She and I have to work things out between ourselves.”
I don’t know whether Jamaal did as I asked and let her be, or if Sita just chose to ignore him, but she kept stalking closer, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. My pulse pounded in my throat, and it took a hell of a lot of willpower to stop myself from backing away.
I held my ground and met Sita’s eyes, hoping she wouldn’t take that as some kind of challenge. “I’m not your enemy, Sita,” I told the tiger. “You and I both love Jamaal.” Internally I winced at hearing myself use the L word. I hadn’t intended to, but now was not the time to act embarrassed and equivocate. “I want what’s best for him, and I hope that’s what you want, too.”
Sita snarled again and kept coming toward me. This time, I couldn’t stop myself from taking a step back, even though it put me within reach of the chilly waves. A little cold water was the least of my problems.
“You’re hurting him,” I said. Sita didn’t appreciate that, and her snarl turned into a mini roar. “I know you don’t mean to,” I hastened to continue, “but you are anyway. Humans need contact with other humans, and Jamaal has been isolated for so long. You’ve helped him so much with managing the death magic! Because of you, he can finally have real friends without worrying that he’s going to lose control and hurt them.” I hoped phantom tigers liked flattery as much as most humans do.
“But the problem is you won’t let him. He’s not afraid his own temper is going to be dangerous anymore, but he has to worry about what you’ll do, and that’s just as bad.”
Sita was still moving toward me, but I was mildly encouraged by the fact that she hadn’t attacked me yet. She could cross an enormous distance with a single bound, so I was already well within her kill zone. Either she was listening to me, or she was playing with me. I took another couple of steps backward just to give myself a little more space. I now had water up to my ankles and I had to fight for balance as the sand shifted beneath my feet, but at least Sita didn’t speed up her approach.
“You know him,” I told her. “Better than anyone else. Think about how he would feel if you hurt someone he cared about. Do you really want to put him through that?”
Sita paused and narrowed her eyes at me. Her tail twitched, and she showed me her teeth again.
“We both want what’s best for him,” I said, and this time I was determined not to back away any farther. “There’s going to be a fight tomorrow, and he’s going to need both of us there to keep him safe.” Jamaal probably would have bristled at the suggestion that he needed our protection, but my slow retreat toward the water had put enough space between us that he probably couldn’t hear me over the waves. Either that, or he was giving me one of those looks that kill, but I wasn’t about to take my eyes off Sita to check.
Sita started forward again, and I dug my toes into the sand to keep from retreating.
“Please, Sita,” I said. “Let’s work together. Jamaal deserves so much better than what he’s gotten from life.”
I was being consciously manipulative, and yet my own words made my throat tighten and my eyes burn. Jamaal had suffered so, so much over his life, and though he wouldn’t appreciate anything that resembled pity, I hoped he could at least tolerate some empathy. Aside from practical matters, I wanted this for Jamaal, wanted him to have Sita and still be able to have relationships with other people, to be loved.
Sita was close now,
and a wave lapped at her front paws. She looked down at them with a soft snarl, lifting and shaking first one, then the other. I fought a sudden urge to giggle. She started toward me again, and another wave wet her paws. Once again, she flicked the water off before taking another step. And another. Step, flick. Step, flick. Step, flick. I had to suck my cheeks in to keep from laughing. It’s hard to look dainty and menacing at the same time, even for a quarter-ton tiger.
I swallowed past laughter and fear and took my life into my own hands. “How about if I come to you, since you don’t like the water?”
Sita froze in midflick. I’m not much of an expert in reading feline facial expressions, but I interpreted the way she looked at me then as total shock. There was no question that she understood what I’d just said.
Gathering my courage, I took a cautious step closer to Sita. Her lips twitched with a warning snarl, but I ignored it and took a second step. She finally put both her paws down, now ignoring the water that lapped at them. Behind her, I could faintly see the man-shaped shadow that was Jamaal, and I could almost imagine him holding his breath.
I was ashamed to feel the quivering in my knees as I continued to approach, one careful step at a time. Sita wasn’t leaping to attack me, but the narrowed eyes, bared teeth, and twitching tail didn’t look all that welcoming. Maybe I was just shivering because I’d been walking in the cold ocean water and not because I was quivering in fear. Yeah, that was it.
“Can we make peace?” I asked her softly as I took a final step, one that put me solidly within reach of her dishpan-sized paws. She looked up at me and made eye contact.
Her sudden snarl caught me by surprise, and I made an embarrassing bleating sound as she lunged. She moved so fast that I had no warning, couldn’t even take a step backward.
The top of her head made solid contact with the center of my stomach, knocking the wind out of me while not actually hurting me. However, the blow was easily hard enough to push me off my feet, and I landed on my butt in the water. Sita did the lift-flick thing with each of her front paws, sending sprays of water right into my face, then turned around and sauntered back onto the beach, where Jamaal awaited her.
FIVE
I sat stunned and chilled in the shallow water. Sita looked back at me over her shoulder once, then disappeared, leaving Jamaal and me alone.
Jamaal was on his feet, and he probably would have come and given me a hand up if his first step in my direction didn’t make him sway dizzily. He had a much easier time summoning Sita these days, but it still took a lot out of him and he needed some recovery time afterward.
Teeth chattering, I climbed to my feet. I’d fallen in ankle-deep water, which was more than deep enough to soak my jeans through and through. I’d caught myself with my hands, which meant my fleece sleeves were wet practically to the elbow, and the water Sita had flicked in my face dripped off my chin and the end of my nose.
I tried in vain to wring the water out of my sleeves one by one as I made my way back onto the dry beach, but even if I could get them to stop dripping, I’d still be soaked. I was also now a sand-magnet and could feel the abrasive rubbing where it had gotten under the waistband of my jeans.
When I was finally close enough to Jamaal to see his face in the moonlight, I found that he was smiling broadly. Which I supposed was better than laughing out loud, but not by much.
I shoved a damp tendril of hair out of my face and willed myself to stop shivering. “Why don’t you go take a seat in the ocean and see how much you like it,” I grumbled at him.
His smile remained firmly in place. Jamaal with a smile on his face can take a woman’s breath away, and parts of me started heating up despite the soaked and sandy clothes.
“I still haven’t figured out if you’re brave or stupid,” Jamaal said with a shake of his head.
“I didn’t realize the two were mutually exclusive.”
He enveloped me in a hug, and I let out an incoherent sound of protest as I tried unsuccessfully to hold him off.
“I’m all wet!” I reminded him, as if he could possibly have forgotten.
“Ask me if I care,” he mumbled into my hair, holding on and sharing his delicious body heat.
I took him at his word and wrapped my arms around his waist, pressing the side of my head against his chest. The steady thump of his heart was as delicious as his warmth, and my shivering eased.
“So I’m going to guess the message was Sita will tolerate me for the greater good,” I said. I couldn’t decide whether shoving me into the water was supposed to be a playful gesture or just a reminder that she still held me in contempt. But I was willing to settle for anything that didn’t involve ripping my head off.
Jamaal pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “That’s my takeaway, too. And though I hate to admit it, I guess this means you were right.”
I grinned against his chest and squeezed more tightly with my arms. I was pleasantly surprised Jamaal deigned to admit it, and I knew both of us would feel a whole lot safer tomorrow now that Sita and I had forged some kind of truce.
I would have loved to preserve that moment for another hour or so, would have loved to just stand there on the moonlit beach and enjoy the feeling of Jamaal’s arms around me. Unfortunately, while my shivering had calmed somewhat, it hadn’t stopped. The otherwise lovely ocean breeze was making my jeans and my sleeves into air conditioners, and my lips were probably turning blue. I considered taking the jeans and fleece off—I knew Jamaal wouldn’t complain—but I doubted I’d be much warmer without them. And though my truce with Sita might make it possible for Jamaal and me to explore our attraction further, it probably wouldn’t be smart to go too fast. Especially not when we were in for a fight tomorrow.
Reluctantly, I pulled away. For the first time I could remember, things felt almost peaceful between Jamaal and me. The silence as we made our way back to the cottages above was distinctly companionable.
Jack kept watch on Jasmine’s house for all of the next day and saw no sign of anyone moving, inside or out. That didn’t make me—or anyone else—feel any better. There was no way Niobe had left the altar undefended, and we’d all have felt a lot better about things if we had some clue what to expect. Personally, I worried that there was some kind of booby trap set up inside the house. Sita would go in and explore before any of us tried it, but would she recognize, say, a bomb if she saw one?
Because we feared we might need to make a speedy getaway, we drove our rental car over to Jasmine’s place for our attempt at reaching the altar. Not the stealthiest approach, even though Logan killed the lights before we turned into the driveway and rolled toward the house.
Logan stopped the car in the middle of the driveway instead of pulling off to the side to park. We gathered our weapons and piled out of the car, our eyes straining in the darkness as we tried to spot any hidden threats Jack might have overlooked.
The house was surrounded by lush tropical vegetation, with beautifully manicured bushes and flower beds all around. There was a narrow strip of lawn on each side of the driveway, but that lawn ended abruptly with a wall of junglelike greenery: trees, vines, and untamed bushes that looked eager to spill over and reclaim their territory.
Jamaal summoned Sita, and I tensed in case our truce had been a figment of my imagination. She gave me a glare and curled her lip to show me her teeth, but thankfully that was the full extent of her aggression. Hell, for her that was practically a friendly greeting.
The night was alive with sounds, from the steady chorus of frogs and insects to the crash of the waves far below to the rustling of the leaves in the breeze. The moon and the stars were obscured by clouds, and we had to take a few minutes for our eyes to adjust to the darkness before starting forward.
Sita took the lead, and we made sure Rose stayed behind us. She was much harder to kill than the rest of us, but she was also a noncombatant. Logan had tried to arm her, offering to teach her how to shoot, but she had staunchly refused. Probably just as well.
Who wanted an amateur with a gun running around in their midst?
Logan, Jack, and Jamaal each carried an intimidating automatic—Logan had told me what kind, but the array of numbers and letters had promptly slipped my mind. Instead of my usual revolver, I was carrying a Glock semiauto.
We crept up the driveway toward the house. When we were at the base of the front porch, Jamaal crouched beside Sita and whispered instructions. She then padded silently up the steps and walked right through the door into the house, her body insubstantial whenever she wanted it to be. We all held our breath, waiting for the sound of screams, as a light rain began pattering down.
Even knowing that there had to be trouble awaiting us inside the house, I still had the nagging feeling that this had been too easy so far. I kept scanning the darkness around us, looking for some clue as to where our enemies were hidden, because surely they had to be hidden somewhere. Never mind that Jack had thoroughly checked the area and seen no one.
The rain intensified, making the visibility even worse. I shivered and wished my jacket were waterproof as the wind kicked up. We should have gone ahead and stormed the altar last night, when the sky had been clear and bright.
I heard the soft thunk of a car door closing somewhere in the distance. I glanced over my shoulder, but the only car in sight was our rental, and all four of its doors were hanging open as we’d left them, ready for our quick escape. The sound must have come from a neighbor’s place.
There were still no screams from inside Jasmine’s house, which meant that Sita still hadn’t located anyone lying in wait. My gaze kept darting around anxiously, and that’s when I saw it, carefully concealed within the branches of a tall bush.
A spy camera. So small and hidden I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I didn’t have personal experience with the things.
What if the enemy wasn’t waiting for us inside the house? What if they were just hanging out nearby somewhere, where no one could see them? What if they were watching the feed from that spy camera, waiting for a threat to present itself?
