Or something, she said, so nonchalantly like it wasn’t terribly important. The various kingdoms of wolves and tigers had been warring amongst themselves for thousands of years in a tangle of vendettas and alliances that was near impossible to keep track of.
She arched an elegant eyebrow at the expression on my face. “That’s more of the reaction I expected when I told you who your father was.”
“I need a moment.”
I went to my room, sat on my bed. I had to be a null, considering that I never felt like I had much wolfiness, to begin with. But Kai was a tiger, and not only that, the scion of a House about to go to war. It was things like this that started wars.
I was going to have a baby.
Not just any baby.
A Tigerlord’s baby.
The Nightclaw Alpha was my father, something I never even fathomed.
And Kai was not the man I thought he was.
He’d lied to me, and left me.
You are my destiny, Seria.
I pressed a pillow into my mouth, laughing at the outrageousness of it all, tears streaming down my cheeks. I felt broken, as if the news had sucked the life from my bones. And star suck it, was I starting to feel nauseous?
I had to get over this. I would get over Kai. I had to do it for the life within me.
Even if it seemed like an impossibility.
And if I saw him again, stars help me, I would kill him.
I opened the letter my father had written me.
My dearest beloved Princess Seria,
For as my daughter, you are indeed a Princess, and beloved even though I have never met you. If I had known of your existence, I would have searched the universe for you until you were brought back to your family. I cannot imagine what your life has been like.
There is much we must talk about.
Visit before it is too late.
Your father,
Tazaren, Alpha of House Nightclaw
Chapter Five
Present Day
Kalasharv Castle, House Stargazer, Tigrantine Empire, Altai
It was massive and hairy, with about a gazillion poisonous antlers, poisonous quills, eight legs, and a poisonous tail that was designed for bashing enemies into meat paste. Another beast engineered by the Ealen, the gorani was designed to teach solitary hunters like tigers to work together. Typically, bringing one down required at least four tigershifters working in tandem.
It was supposed to be one of the most crucial components of our wedding ceremony. I looked away from the wallscreen. “I agreed to be married, not to be sacrificed.”
The Counselor rolled her eyes. She was a small, but fierce little old woman, a distant cousin to Kai of some sort. Odd how everyone was so related. She presided over the Place of Peace, an area of the castle dedicated to meditation and prayer, and would be the one to officiate our marriage. “You’re supposed to hunt it. With your husband. There is no marriage without a successful hunt.”
I turned to Kai, who had the faintest hint of an amused smile on his face. “I thought it was ceremonial. And isn’t it usually supposed to be a type of bovine or something?”
The Counselor, gave me a wry grin. “For most people, yes. But most people are not Tigerlords. You should feel honored. This gorani has been protected from hunters for the last decade so that he could be a part of the Tigerlord’s marriage ceremony.”
“But it’s the size of a starship!”
Red leaned against the wall, who was one of what seemed like a crowd of required witnesses to our pre-marital talks. Her status as a Coalition citizen made her the perfect neutral witness supposedly. “The bigger the bull, the bigger the —“
I put a hand up. “No, no. I don’t need to hear it.”
I kept reading the information on the tablet trying to ignore the snickers of Lord Aralon, who would apparently witness the proceedings on Nightclaw’s behalf.
Apparently, witnessing meant following me until the shuttle dropped us off on the damn hunt.
I brought up a three-dimensional image of the gorani, rotating the figure and examining the underside. Soft and unplated, like most prey animals on planets without large predators. Another swipe showed me the placement of the vital organs.
A plan began to form in my head. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
Kai folded his arms. “You don’t have to worry, Seria. I’ll take care of everything.”
What was it with men who thought they should have say in what I did with my life?
Kai touched my elbow. I jerked it back. And then I realized Aralon was watching.
I turned to the Counselor. “I want to see your weapons room.”
“Seria,” Kai said in that low voice that still pulled at me. “You have nothing to prove.”
I knew what he was saying to me. That I wasn’t a shifter. That I wasn’t worthy.
Aralon was still watching me with that considering gaze, as if waiting for me to prove that I wasn’t worth Nightclaw’s attention. Well I wasn’t. But being human didn’t mean I was helpless.
I leaned toward Kai and said a quiet voice. “You think you know me. But you don’t.”
The Armor Mistress rubbed her chin. Her green gaze was evaluative but different from the other women of the court. It was a clinical analysis, like one from an AI, to determine how best to prepare an ordinary human to hunt a giant poisonous Ealen-made monster. “Most of our gear is for shifters.”
In some Houses, an inability to shift was a feared condition that resulted in banishment. Thankfully, the shifters were not monocultural. Nightclaw did not harbor that kind of prejudice, and neither did Stargazer.
“You’ve had nulls in your ranks even now. If I remember correctly, Stargazer even once had a null alpha,” I said.
Kai and Kanona stared at me as if I had sprouted wings. It was the kind of obscure fact only an Infoist would know.
I smiled sweetly at them. “Sometimes, I even read the books I take care of.”
We walked down long aisles of torturous looking weapons. It wasn’t a weapons room; the family armory of Stargazer was a hanger bay.
The Armor Mistress led Kai, with me and Kanona, as well as the Counselor and Aralon trailing in her wake. Weapons-shopping with a crowd was not exactly how I envisioned this afternoon.
“I have weapons that would vaporize the gorani in an instant. But typically a marriage hunt is a display of teamwork, skill, and commitment. You need the carcass intact and edible.”
“Edible?”
“For your guests. If you don’t kill it properly, there is no wedding feast.”
My stomach turned with the idea of eating such an ugly thing. “Of course. I’ll take a laser rifle with smart-targeting.”
The Armor Mistress looked at Kai. “Is that what you want?”
The Counselor leaned toward me. “Typically, there are informal restrictions as to what weapons can be used, but exceptions will be made since you are human.”
Kanona looked bored. “And a werewolf. Everyone knows that werewolves are useless by themselves. They’re pack animals.”
“Duchess,” said Lord Aralon, his voice lingering on her title, with the tone of one addressing a naughty child. Funny how shifters, unlike their animal counterparts, never seemed more deadly than when they looked calm. His voice was mocking. “Care to test that statement with me?”
Kanona picked up a simple, gleaming sword, testing the grip in her hand. “You’re below my rank, wolf,” she said, not even bothering to look at him.
The Armor Mistress turned to me. “Smart weapons and Smart armor are no-starts in a marriage hunt.”
Well, that ruled out practically everything since First Earth discovered their shapeshifting kin in the greater universe.
Kai said, looking at me, “Lady Seria can have whatever she wants.”
I thought of my childhood on the frontier planet of Kjarn. The civilized worlds didn’t want any more bedraggled refugees, so they dumped us on a planet that had the most primitive r
esources. I spent several years hunting my food. If I didn’t catch my prey, I didn’t eat.
I looked at Kanona, stunning with her ceremonial robe and the obi belt at her waist that probably cost as much as a year’s supply of rations on Kjarn. These tigershifters may have been natural hunters, but I was sure that not one of them ever had to hunt to survive.
I picked up the sword Kanona had set down. It was a good weight and balance. I pointed it towards the floor and gave it to the Armor Mistress by the handle. “Can you ensure this is sharpened? I’ll also need a Martian crossbow, some throwing knives and a powered bolas to start.”
The Armor Mistress snorted. “You gonna ask for a rock and a big stick too? It’s a hunt, not a suicide mission.”
I reached for another sword lying in the rack. “I’d rather work with what I know.”
“A gorani is not a rodent,” said Kanona. “It’s got armored plates that can only be cut by a laser sharpened sword. You can’t kill a gorani with a Martian crossbow.”
I matched Kanona’s skeptical gaze with what I hoped was confidence. “You’d be surprised at what I can do with a Martian crossbow.”
I just hoped I wasn’t going to die for prideful stupidity.
A twenty-klick shuttle ride brought us to the middle of a vast forested island, the private hunting preserve of the Stargazers. It was uninhabited and largely untouched, a complete contrast to the domed floating city of Yatinu, in the distance.
As we dropped closer to the forested island, I could see the trees dotted with glowing spheres of pink, blue, yellow, and violet. They shone in the sunlight, like decorations for some holiday festival. The shuttle landed in a large clearing, near but not too near where sensors claimed the large gorani was. The salt air hit my senses as we exited the shuttle, and a horn sounded the beginning of the marriage hunt.
I watched the shuttle disappear, then looked around the clearing. The air was thick and floral and salty at the same time. The tree spheres were even more stunning up close, each one a swirling mosaic of similar shades of color. Amongst the higher branches, wispy iridescent jellybirds floated, scooping tiny insects in their tendrils.
Teenage tigershifters dreamed of a place like this when they envisioned their marriage hunt. And yet, looking at Kai’s back, I felt wistful for the rotting primitive sewage stink jungles of Tranquility. In contrast, this was a place designed for beauty, which wouldn’t be surprising considering how long the tigers had been shaping the environment of Altai to their whims. Knowing tigershifters and their care for the environment, this was probably the marriage hunt island, where poisonous murderous gorani stags were bred specifically to bring together lovers in a romantic union.
“Let me guess; there are camera drones hidden everywhere, recording our every move.”
“Some couples choose to do that,” said Kai, shading his eyes with a hand and scanning the perimeter.
I stalked over to him, tired of these games. “Did you?”
He looked at me with serious eyes. Recording such events would only be desired by couples intending to watch them together in their old age. “Do you wish me to?”
Certainly not us. “No.”
“I thought not,” he said, shifting the pack on his back. He began walking towards the trees. “Stay here where it’s safe. I’ll be back before evening.”
I followed him. “Wait, isn’t the whole point of this for us to hunt together?”
He looked at me, his gaze, unreadable. “You have nothing to prove.”
Kai might as well have said You’re just here to fuck me so I can do my vision thing.
In Alzarian fashion, I had already made sure there was an ending date to the marriage contract. And yet, for no reason I could articulate, it infuriated me.
The gorani called again, this time much closer.
There was no way I was letting him continue alone. I kept following him. “You still have to tell me about my mother.”
“Your sense of timing is flawless.”
I blocked his path. “You can at least do it before you get yourself killed.”
He leaned into my personal space in that shifter way, so close I could smell the faint mint of his soap. “No. After the marriage is consummated.”
Fury coursed through me. “Oh, is that all?” I started unbuckling the armor at my chest. “Well, come on then, let’s not delay.”
His voice deepened into a rumbling growl. “Don’t. Push. Me.”
Another day I would have been frightened. Another day I would have at least taken a step back. Another day I would rethink what I was doing. But today was my holedark wedding day.
I ripped open my chest plate. Fury fueled me. “What are you waiting for?”
He snarled and crushed me to him, clamping his hand on my mouth.
I struggled, but he only held me tighter against the heated muscles of his body.
Then I heard it: the snuffling mnph mnph of a gorani in search of a mate. It was too damn close.
The gorani-stag appeared at the edge of the clearing. Though we both went still, I saw it turn and sniff. It was even more hideous in real life. Larger than the shuttle we had come on, with spines the size of my arm on a clubbed ball at the end of its long tail.
The gorani raised his nose to the air. I knew the moment it sensed us because it froze. Then it lowered the forest of antlers on its head.
Kai shoved me back.
The gorani began to paw at the ground.
Kai exploded into a massive white tiger before I could even blink.
I hadn’t even realized shifters could change so fast.
Tiger Kai roared a challenge, a thunderous sound that seemed as if it shook the trees.
I scrambled for my crossbow. I was fumbling with the string, shaking with adrenaline, and much too out of practice. I brought it up, sighted the eye, and fired even as I knew it wouldn’t hit my intended target.
There was a thud as the arrow hit the left rear flank. The gorani screamed in a fury and swung back toward me. A forest of poison antlers raced toward me, its head swinging back and forth.
I turned and ran faster than I had ever run in my life.
But the massive hooves thundered after me, closer and closer. My chest, my legs, my arms burned with the effort, but turning and looking would slow me down.
I heard the gorani scream, another roar, and then a thud in the earth.
I turned.
The gorani was rolling back to its feet, and Tiger Kai shook his huge head as if drunk. He had taken a blow to the head. Both had blood on their sides, but I couldn’t tell whose blood was whose.
The gorani-stag screamed again and ran off into the forest.
Kai charged after the stag.
“Kai! Wait!”
The white tiger whirled.
I ran to him.
As I did, I realized that this was perhaps, the first time I had seen him in tiger form.
He was as gorgeous as you would imagine a magical white tiger from the stars would be.
His fur was so white it seemed as if it threw off its own light, contrasted with stripes darker than any black I had ever seen.
As I stopped before him, my eyes widened with realization.
I was not a small woman by any means, but he towered over me by at least three head lengths.
Sharp claws the size of kitchen knives extended from his paws.
In his green eyes, flecked with gold, I saw the man I knew.
The man I apparently, was on the verge of marrying.
“Kai, you can’t just go chasing after the thing without a plan.”
Eyes narrowed, chest rumbling, claws gouged the ground. He turned, and I ran in front of Kai, waving my arms.
“Hey! Don’t think you can just ignore me and leave me behind.”
Then the tiger began to melt.
It was one of the grossest things I had ever seen. Flesh liquefied, fur shrank, bones cracked.
I had to close my eyes.
No one understo
od the science of how shifters seemed to obtain mass in their animal forms and then disappear in their human forms. Well, maybe the shifters did, but they would never allow humans to study them, not that they hadn’t tried. Any attempt to study shifters against their will usually led to lots of dead researchers.
When I opened my eyes, he had a gash across his abdomen. It was an injury humans might take weeks to recover from, but even now before my eyes, I saw the blood staunching itself.
“Are you —“
“SERIA!” Remnants of the tiger’s roar echoed in his voice. He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “This isn’t a game.”
I raised my arms as if to wring his neck, then brought them swiftly down breaking his hold on me. “I have no intentions of dying before I can divorce you.”
Fire flared in his eyes. His hand slashed through the air.
“Enough.”
Droplets of blood splattered me. The warm liquid jolted me. He had just risked his life for me.
And at that moment, the fury evaporated.
I closed my eyes and sighed. “Let’s get you cleaned up. You—“ I stopped and corrected myself. “We can’t hunt this thing if you’re covered in blood.”
He stood there, still, watching me warily. “Seria, the gorani is designed to kill tigershifters. Even a skilled human hunter risks certain death.”
I laughed and startled him. If anything, this showed just how little we knew each other. “You need to trust me, Kai.”
He folded his arms against his chest making his considerable biceps even bigger. “This hunt is a show of politics that you don’t have to risk your life in.”
He was right.
Maybe it was because I didn’t want him to see me as just another fuck buddy. Maybe it was because I hated the way his people seemed to see me as lesser because I wasn’t a shifter.
And maybe I just wanted to show him exactly what he had given up.
Star suck it. I was going to regret this.
“I learned to hunt on Kjarn.”
“Kjarn, huh?” he said, finally asking. He hadn’t said much since I had mentioned the borderspace refugee colony where I’d spent much of my early childhood. And now he looked at me with those calculating tiger eyes.
Taken By The Tigerlord: a sexy tiger shifter paranormal psychic space opera action romance (Space Shifter Chronicles Book 2) Page 5
