The Tiger King (Paladin Shifters Book 1)

by Patricia Logan

  The sounds of Damiano’s screams in his own ears were deafening.

  ****

  Pasha Raab rushed naked and barefoot through the secret passages he knew like the back of his hand. He’d grown up in this palace and he knew every inch of it, including the secret passage he’d been about to pull Paget through when Miruna Grey appeared out of nowhere to confront him. Fain had barely had the time to mask his vibration and scent when she began ordering his subaltern around. Fortunately, Pasha Raab was lucky to know the palace—his palace—as well as he did.

  The knowledge that his subaltern was in danger weighed heavily on his heart as he worked his way to his chamber that had been claimed by his distant cousin, a man he’d never met. Pasha Raab had come to think of Paget as much more than a servant over the past five years. He was a companion and confidant, the best and most loyal friend and subject he’d ever known. Once he got out of this mess, Paget was going to be rewarded with whatever he so desired. Pasha Raab would see to it. For now, he hid in Fain’s closet, the one which had once been his, waiting quietly until Paget had come and gone, straightening the chamber and making Fain’s bed. Once the chamber was quiet, he dressed in a pair of sweats, a jacket, shoes and socks, all “donated” from Fain’s closet.

  He quietly stepped out into the chamber, flaring his nostrils to check for the scent of danger and began to rummage for weapons. He needed something. He wasn’t certain what. Fucking coward, Fain, you have nothing in your chambers, not even a knife. Pasha Raab abandoned his search after a few minutes and opened the king’s door. He stuck his head out into the wide public hallway, checking for danger. When he found none, he walked down the hall. He was passing another chamber when he picked up a faint scent he recognized. Damiano Satriale. Pasha Raab moved closer to the door and bent to sniff under it. Sure enough, this was his primero’s room. He checked the knob, expecting it to be locked and was surprised to find it open. He stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him, noting the room was empty as he glanced around. When he spotted the Damascus blades and the Herstals on the bureau, he grinned wide.

  That’s my knight!

  Pasha Raab rushed for the weapons, lifting the holster and putting it on. Within minutes he was dressed for war. As he held up the final Damascus blade, he turned it over and over in his fist, examining the intricate carvings in the steel. It was exquisite—a blade fit for a king. Pasha Raab kissed the cold steel before sheathing it at his waist. He set both hands on his hips and looked around the room.

  “You think you can steal my throne, kill my queen, eliminate my primero? Corrupt my kingdom and destroy my life, asshole?” Pasha Raab brushed his fingers over the hilt of the blade at his waist. “You’ve no idea who you’re dealing with!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  K ota Takemoto played dead as long as he could. Being shot in the chest should have killed him instantly. Fortunately for him, Bennett was a shitty aim. That and the fact that he was descended from a long line of Samurai shifter warriors from the mountains of Japan, probably saved his life. His father had always joked that there were only two ways to kill a Takemoto. The first was the swift application of a katana sword to a stretched neck or by hara-kiri—seppuku—which was a much less pleasant way to go. Rather than commit ritual suicide as he probably should have once Captain Bennett humiliated him, he let fury drive his actions.

  Takemoto had been a loyal askari nearly all his life. He’d lived and breathed the military since joining the ranks at eighteen and now, at thirty-eight, while following orders, he’d been gunned down like a criminal in the desert. Fuck that.

  Takemoto lay on his back after being shot. It was humiliating. Ever since King Fain’s newest champion and his companion had arrived, Takemoto’s sharp senses had been on alert. The fact was, he’d sensed something going on at Base Camp for months. When the king started coming down to Base Camp for frequent visits, he’d known something was wrong. Whenever the king arrived, Bennett had assigned Askari Curry to head a detail out to the training arena.

  Takemoto had been passed over each and every time Captain Bennett formed the detail even though he outranked Curry and every other askari at Base Camp. Not only that, people assigned to those details had begun talking behind his back. He began hearing the whispers and detecting a certain lack of respect over the last few months. It made him wary of confiding in anyone. He felt utterly alone. Now he knew why.

  At first, he’d been furious that he hadn’t been included in Bennett’s details with the king but he’d turned that fury into investigation, going out to the arena after the king had come and gone to discover puddles of blood. It seemed the king was watching matches but Takemoto realized they definitely couldn’t be training matches. Judging by the amount of blood that had soaked into the sand, at least one of the two cats fighting had either been severely injured or had died as a result of the fight. Not only that, he began to realize that several askari had gone missing. From the time Takemoto started noticing the missing askari a few months back, he’d counted at least eighteen men, Askari Nelson only the most recent.

  If the king hadn’t been involved in whatever was going on out in the training arena, Takemoto would have reported it a long time ago. The fact that Bennett, the highest ranking askari at Base Camp, seemed to be running the matches had him feeling more helpless than ever. He hadn’t known what to do and had been doubly suspicious when he’d met Damiano Satriale and Chino Cortez. The two paladin who had been flown in from overseas were keeping everything close to the vest as though they had something to hide. Takemoto wasn’t sure what or how it tied in… hell, maybe it hadn’t tied in at all with what was going on in the training pit out at Base Camp. Maybe he was just feeling paranoid.

  All of the suspicion on Satriale and Cortez had flown out the window when Bennett had turned and shot him, momentarily rendering him unconscious. He’d woken up to find Bennett and the other askari who’d followed after Cleveland, loading Paladin Cortez onto a stretcher that was put into a truck and driven away while he and Cleveland were left behind in the desert to rot. When heard Bennett’s response to one of the askari, Takemoto had seen red.

  “Leave them. They are both traitors to King Fain.”

  “But they need to have pyres, Captain.”

  “We don’t honor traitors with pyres, Askari. No more questions. Drive this one back to Base Camp. He’s still alive and King Fain has ordered him to the palace. We’ll be transporting him tonight,” she’d said.

  Takemoto had been left for dead and they’d driven away.

  “Now what do I do?”

  He’d answered his own thoughts with actions. Bennett’s gunshot would have been well-placed had she not been under pressure to kill him before turning the gun on Paladin Cortez, but she’d probably been flustered. She’d turned and shot him through his upper chest, missing his heart and lungs. Instead, after only four shifts, Takemoto had been able to heal himself; but for a strong ache in his chest and a lot of blood down the front of his torso, he was going to be fine. When he’d finally returned to jaguar form, he’d taken off toward Little Rock rather than heading back to Base Camp where he had no idea whom he could trust.

  Even though every instinct in Kota screamed for him to try to save Paladin Cortez, he knew he couldn’t. He needed water and food to replenish his body after the bullet wound and the multiple shifts in order to be at 100 percent for whatever the next step was. In Little Rock there was a man whom he could trust and who’d know what he should do next.

  He’d arrived at the small askari training outpost in Little Rock bloody and naked and found Sergeant Sheridan, his former training officer. In fact, the man had trained every askari who’d ever gone through boot camp to prepare them to advance to their full potential and take their tactical training exams out at Base Camp. He’d known Sergeant Sheridan had never liked or approved of Captain Bennett’s promotion to captain but he was a soldier, trained not to question the higher-ups, but to follow orders. There were only a few
who’d caught the expression of distaste on his face every time her name was brought up, Takemoto being one of them.

  As he’d expected, Sergeant Sheridan had taken him in, cleaned him up, fed him, and given him enough food to finish healing from the gunshot, listening with great interest to everything he had to say. When he’d been feeling better the following day, Kota had gotten the Sergeant to agree to assemble a group of men who were not yet formally askari, to travel to Wrightwood. If they were caught in the forest, so be it. They would explain that they hadn’t realized they were hunting on palace grounds. But Takemoto and Sheridan decided that until they knew whom to trust, things would have to be done this way. They’d have to snoop around and try to figure out whether the new paladin primero was aware of what had been going on in the training arena at Base Camp.

  Unfortunately, their timing had been off. The moment they’d begun scouting the goings on at the palace, they’d realized that Satriale and Cortez were being loaded into carts to be taken somewhere in the forest. As they spied on the activity in the courtyard of the palace, Takemoto almost instantly recognized Bennett directing her men to load up the prisoners.

  “Where the fuck do you think they’re taking them?” Takemoto whispered to Sergeant Sheridan. He’d never been to the palace before and was unfamiliar with the grounds and the forest surrounding the compound buried deep in the Angeles National Forest.

  “My best guess is that they’re being taken to the King’s Arena. It’s buried deep in the forest away from the prying eyes of humans and from what I remember, it’s quite opulent,” the sergeant replied. “I only saw it once when I traveled here as a boy with my father who’d served Pasha Raab’s father. I’d say it would be interesting to see it again but under these circumstances, surrounded by so many askari and paladin who’d think nothing of killing us should they catch us, I wouldn’t mind never seeing the arena again.”

  Takemoto snorted, turning his attention back to the activity in the courtyard. Satriale and Cortez were in chains. He could make out sores and burns on Satriale’s shackled wrists and ankles. The heavy collar around his neck had carved bloody grooves into his clavicles and the burns that were visible under the restraints betrayed the shiny metal as silver. Cortez’s restraints were black and he didn’t possess the same burns. To Takemoto, that meant he was wearing iron. He wondered why. Obviously they were trying to weaken the paladin primero, but why not his companion as well? Perhaps they were going to fight matches in the arena but why not weaken them both? And who was going to be assigned to fight with them? Perhaps King Fain had another paladin to fight them but that didn’t make sense unless…

  “They’re being taken to the arena to fight,” Sergeant Sheridan said from beside him. They watched from upwind at the tree line fifty yards away where it was impossible for anyone in the courtyard to pick up their scent. The fifty future askari recruits they’d brought with them waited in the forest a hundred yards behind them, anxious to do whatever they could to prove to Sergeant Sheridan that they would make good soldiers. The longer they watched wondering what to do, the more helpless Takemoto felt. Suddenly, Takemoto spotted the stripes of a tiger in the darkness of the trees way across the clearing. As the cat appeared and then disappeared only a second later, Takemoto had to blink to make certain he’d even seen the cat. Had he really seen a shifter at all, or were his eyes playing tricks on him? He was still watching the trees a second later when Sheridan whispered.

  “Did you see that?”

  Takemoto glanced over at the sergeant. “Did you see a tiger just now?”

  Sheridan nodded and then trained his eyes on the copse of trees where they’d both spotted the cat at the same time. Takemoto watched closely, hoping that any movement at all which would alert him to more shifters in the forest with them. Every so often, he would turn to spy on the goings-on in the courtyard. Bennett began assembling her contingent of askari who would presumably be escorting the cart holding the paladin to wherever they were going.

  “There!” Sergeant Sheridan said, pointing at the tree line, this time twenty feet closer to their position.

  Takemoto narrowed his eyes, wishing he was in jaguar form so that his cat eyes could see the tiger easier between the trees. When he finally located him amongst the dappled sunlight in the forest, he was shocked to his very core. He couldn’t possibly be seeing what he was seeing. Only one tiger in the world had ever had the unmistakable markings of a pure-blooded king in his striped fur.

  “Oh, Jesus! It’s Pasha Raab,” Sheridan whispered. “How the fuck?”

  Takemoto felt his heart speed up until it was pounding inside his chest. How in the hell was their noble and fair king standing only two hundred yards from them, spying on his own palace and how the fuck was he even alive? He felt a sharp sting in his bicep and looked over to the sergeant as Sheridan nudged him. He nodded.

  “It’s him and to answer your question, I have no fucking clue. I thought he died in the pit five years ago and now here he is, out here hiding in the trees when he should be reigning over his kingdom,” Takemoto said, feeling completely helpless. “You think they know he is alive?” He nodded at the group of askari in the courtyard, being ordered around by Bennett.

  Sheridan shook his head. “If they knew he was alive, this forest would be filled with askari and paladin loyal to King Fain. Pasha Raab would be in that cart right along with the primero and the other paladin with him,” Sheridan replied.

  “The paladin with the primero is Chino Cortez. I actually thought that the two of them had something to do with what Bennett did to me,” Takemoto said. “What do you want to bet, Primero Satriale and Paladin Cortez learned Pasha Raab was alive and that’s why they’re being taken away?” Takemoto asked.

  “I can’t think of a better explanation.” He frowned at Takemoto as his nostrils flared. “Takemoto, we need to stay focused… you need to stay focused. I am scenting anger and exasperation on you right now and you need to shut it down. If we are to be of service to Pasha Raab, we need to be smart about the way we handle ourselves. Please don’t lose focus now.”

  He was angry. “So, what do we do?” Takemoto asked.

  “Now, we wait for them to leave along with all their askari and King Fain, and we join Pasha Raab,” Sergeant Sheridan said. “No doubt he’s trying to figure out just whom he can trust right about now.”

  “Well, I think it’s safe to guess that an army of fifty askari-in-training will help him feel a hell of a lot better about things, Sarge.”

  Sheridan grinned at him and nodded before turning to look back at the askari in the courtyard. “You’d better fucking believe it.”

  ****

  Pasha Raab watched the man he knew as Damiano Satriale, the paladin primero, and another man being loaded into a prison cart on the front drive of his palace. It was heartbreaking watching Damiano Satriale weakened by the silver restraints he wore. The man was so weak he could barely hold himself upright as he was loaded into the cart. In fact, his knees buckled as he was led out of the palace and it took the two paladin walking on either side of him to catch him and help him make it all the way to the cart. Several paladin stood in the courtyard along with many askari but when his most loyal servant, Paget Jureaux, was dragged out in chains and thrown into the prison cart beside Satriale, Pasha Raab almost boiled over with anger. His tiger began to pace back and forth at the tree line, knowing that the movement might get him noticed. He stopped and stood still, trying to calm his racing heartbeat.

  He couldn’t help himself. He was as pissed as he could possibly be. Unfortunately, outnumbered the way he was, he knew there was little chance of him being able to rescue anyone, much less keep himself free. It was the exact reason he’d stayed in his self-imposed prison beneath the palace for the last five years. He’d been so hopeful that the new primero would be his salvation, only to lose all hope as he watched the caravan start up and leave the courtyard.

  He waited, watching the last of the askari ranks who shou
ld be serving him depart the courtyard, feeling defeated and at a loss as to what the hell he could do to regain his throne. After gathering weapons from Satriale’s room, he’d been hopeful that he would be able to assemble his army to defend him but when he’d seen the askari on the drive complicit with Fain’s paladin, he’d felt more defeated than he’d ever felt in his life. He couldn’t possibly do this without his army. Alone, Fain would call him an imposter or kill him before he could even show himself. Even if he were able to get his askari’s attention, it didn’t mean they’d stand behind him. They were quite obviously in the service of Fain and his paladin judging by what he had witnessed in the courtyard.

  Pasha Raab’s nostrils flared as he suddenly picked up the scent of someone in the forest with him. There was more than one and though the scent of big cats was easy enough to recognize, the actual identity of the shifters was unknown to him. There was something familiar about at least one of them, however. When the air around him was filled with the scent of loyalty and excitement, Pasha Raab’s heart began to race. He was among friends. He snarled and it echoed through the forest. There was no answering call but quite suddenly, two men stepped out of the tree line a hundred yards away, watching him with smiles on their faces from across the courtyard. If he weren’t in tiger form he would have grinned as great relief washed over him. He’d been hoping for more than two but he was grateful for whatever help he could have at the moment.

  Pasha Raab shifted, bending to gather the clothes he’d stashed in the forest, dressing quickly and re-arming himself with Satriale’s weapons. By the time he’d finished dressing, the two men he’d spotted were walking toward him. When they were ten feet away, both men dropped to the ground on one knee, bowing their heads until he approached.