by Dawn Steele
Zach was embarrassed. Men like him did not confess to falling in love.
“I’m not sure, sir. I think it’s too soon.”
“And you are right,” the old man told him in Russian. “It is too soon to tell. But you should never allow your feelings to show, son. Never allow people to think that you are a card they can play. Many successful people in our world have been brought down by emotion – the kidnapping and ransom of a son, the seduction of a wife.”
Zach nodded. “Emotion makes people weak.”
“Not all emotion is unhealthy. Rage can be useful. Desperation can lead a man to survive all odds. Emotion that is not channeled to purpose is useless. Love can motivate people to go beyond their physical and psychological limits. At the same time, love can be crippling and defeating.”
Vladimir paused.
“Enjoy your time with this woman, my son. Fornicate with her. Make sons with her, if you wish to. But never, ever fully give your heart to her. People disappoint, Zachary. Wives, girlfriends, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers – they all can disappoint you, as you found out as a child. People steal a part of you and make you weak if you let them in. This woman will disappoint you, too, in one way or another. Mark my words.”
Zach listened and actually took this to heart. So he never allowed himself to fully fall in love with Karen. And when he made that decision, he gave in to his baser desires and manipulated Karen into submitting to him.
After that, it was easier and easier to distance himself away from her as he began to see her as a sexual object and not a person. His personal slave. He began to spiral into a deep loathing of himself, and by extension – her. And yet she aroused him more than ever. It was a complex psychological tangle.
And now –
Vladimir was right.
Of course he was right. When had he ever been wrong? That was why Vladimir was the only person in the world that Zach truly admired and loved.
Noah rankled him. The very existence of Noah was a slap in Zach’s face. Karen was supposed to desire no one else. Zach was the one who was supposed to be in control! And now she chose to give her heart and throw in her lot with a blind man.
For that alone, Noah should pay. The one million dollar bounty was offered was merely a sweetener.
He activated the communicator in his ear.
“Boris? Are you in?”
“We’re already in, boss. Sergei is moving upstairs. No one down here.”
“He’s upstairs.”
“Yes, boss. It’s pitch black in here.”
Zach waited for a while. Then he heard a cry.
“What’s the matter?” he rasped.
There was a growl, and then the communicator was cut off.
Zach sat up in his car. A gunshot rang out in the house. There came a shout and another gunshot.
Zach reached for his gun in the glove compartment. Damn. He told them to take Noah alive.
Well, dead would have to do it then.
He got out. Damn fools. Send idiots to do the job . . .
He pushed the front door of the house open. Boris was right. It was pitch black in here. Fuck. He needed the lights. Lights could only give a blind man the disadvantage.
He reached for the switches. Light flooded the hallway.
Boris lay in the lounge. There was a deep gash at his neck. Zach reached for the man’s pulse. It was very feeble, but still present. Zach frowned at the nature of the gash. It did not look as if a knife made it.
He cocked his gun. He had to be very alert.
Could a blind man do this? Noah had been evading bounty hunters for a long time. Unless he was just pretending to be blind.
Zach’s mouth flattened into a grim line. He hated pretenders of any sort.
He searched the lounge and the kitchen. The back door was locked.
He went upstairs. At the top of the stairs, his man laid still – a victim of more apparent mauling. Again, the man was still alive.
Zach explored the bedrooms, but there was no one to be found. The window of the master bedroom was wide open. The curtains billowed in the breeze.
RESCUE
Karen had almost gotten one hand out of a strap when the door to the playroom opened. She froze.
To her shock, a very naked Noah hurtled in. He was without his dark glasses, and his brown eyes were fraught with concern.
“Karen?” he called.
“I’m here!”
“Thank God. I came as soon as I could.”
She didn’t understand why he was naked. But he was beautiful. Beautiful enough to make her throat hurt. But she couldn’t really appreciate him now because they were in a rush. She only glimpsed his gleaming pecs and swimmer’s body, tapering into slim hips. His genitals were topped with a black thatch.
Had Zach tortured him? Or worse?
He ran to her and started to undo her bonds.
“Hurry,” he said urgently. “I think they’re going to come for us.”
“I wanted to warn you, but Zach captured me and tied me up. You’re right. He’s very dangerous.”
“Let’s go.”
“But we’re both naked. We need clothes. I can get you some of Zach’s.”
He nodded tersely. “OK. But we have to hurry.”
They ran out of the playroom. Karen hastened upstairs to get a few clothes. She hurriedly put on a tee and some jeans. Then some headlights outside arrested her. Her heart skipped several beats.
Zach had returned.
She thumped downstairs in panic.
“Noah?” she hissed.
But he already knew that Zach had returned. He faced the front door steadfastly.
“Noah, we can go out the back door. We can run into the woods.”
“No. He’ll be faster than you.”
She tried to tug his arm away, but the front door opened. Zach stood on the other side, the muzzle of his gun pointed at Noah.
“You fucking bastard,” Zach growled. “What did you do to my men?”
“Apparently not enough,” Noah replied.
Then something amazing happened. Noah went into a crouch. His limbs thickened and lengthened. His body became huge. Fur sprouted from his naked skin. His dark hair shrank and blended into the orange, white and black fur.
Karen blinked, rooted to the spot, as the huge tiger that had once been Noah sprang at Zach, snarling.
The gun went off.
Karen screamed. “No!”
The tiger did not seem to heed the bullet, through Karen was sure that it had been struck. It savaged Zach, who cried out and pumped two more bullets into the tiger’s broad body. Karen could only clap her hands to her mouth. She blinked, unable to believe what she was witnessing. Noah – a shape-shifting tiger?
Noah . . . dead?
There were streaks of blood all over Zach – on his face, on his shirt. As much as she feared Zach, she didn’t want him to be hurt. Not really. She didn’t want either of them to be hurt, though it was far too late for that.
“Please,” she pleaded. She was so terrified that she found herself on her knees. “Please, stop.”
Man and tiger continued to struggle for several moments, though it seemed a lifetime to Karen. Another shot went off. Then both went still.
Karen’s breath stopped in her throat.
Please. She willed them to move. The tiger. Zach.
Please.
Then the tiger transformed back to Noah. Noah didn’t move, but lay naked and moribund on top of Zach’s equally lifeless body.
“Noah?” Karen’s frightened voice rang hollowly in her own ears.
She suddenly found her feet and scampered to him. She seized his arm to turn him over. He fell to the floor, his eyes closed. His chest and stomach were marked with bleeding bullet wounds.
She was certain that he was dead.
The gun was in Zach’s hand. Zach was covered with blood, and his face was equally as lifeless. Karen looked from one to the other. Then she bent down to remove the gu
n from Zach’s grip. It came away easily.
She was trembling. She couldn’t leave Noah here.
“Noah?”
Was he really dead? Kneeling beside him, she felt for the pulse at his neck. He was still warm, although she couldn’t discern his breathing. Nor could she feel a pulse.
“Noah, please. Don’t leave me.”
Should she try to resuscitate him?
She began to thump his chest. She opened his mouth to breathe into it. Anxious tears stung her eyes.
“Come on,” she pleaded with him. “Don’t leave me here alone.”
She did this again several times. Maybe CPR didn’t work on shape-shifters.
Then his eyes flew open. He coughed. Blood flew out with his spittle.
“Karen?” His eyes stared blindly at the ceiling.
“I’m here!” She grabbed his questing hand. But he was hurt so badly. “I have to get you to a hospital.”
“No! No hospital.” He clutched at his multiple bleeding wounds. He was breathing harshly. Blood filtered through his fingers.
She was amazed that he was still alive with so many gunshot wounds.
“We have to go to my car,” she said. “But first, I have to get you some bandages.”
“No bandages. There’s something you have to know about me.” He tried to get up. “Please can I have water?”
She wasn’t sure he was supposed to be getting up. But he wasn’t an ordinary human being. So she helped him up.
“What about Zach?” she said anxiously.
“He isn’t dead. He’ll be out cold for a long time. I gave the back of his head a blow against the floor when we were both trashing around. It’s a combat maneuver that I’ve specialized in so that I don’t have to kill anyone in my tiger form.”
“How do you know he isn’t dead?” Then she took a step back, suddenly wondering if she should be afraid of him.
He sensed this, because his jaw suddenly gritted with concern.
“No.” His bloody hands clutched at her. His eyes shone with emotion as they looked blindly upon her. “I’ll never hurt you, Karen. You have to believe that. I’ll always protect you. I came here to save you.”
Slowly, she nodded. His face was so earnest and his voice rang with the truth.
He said, “I am what I am. A tiger shape-shifter. My father was a tiger shifter and the alpha of his clan. He died of a stroke, leaving us twin brothers to deck it out for alpha. Because we are twins, succession is never clear, even though my brother is older than me by two minutes. And he wants to eliminate me, as by custom.”
“By custom?”
“For centuries, alpha shifters have eliminated all contenders. Those who dare challenge them, for instance. Brothers. Clan members. Cousins. Uncles. The old ways are still practiced by tradition, even though we live in the modern world amongst you.”
She understood. It was not very much different from Zach’s world.
“My brother wants to kill me,” he continued. “He has tried, and that’s why I’ve been blinded.”
“It was your brother who blinded you?”
“He meant to kill me. But I escaped. As a result, through circumstances, I was spared from death, but blinded in the process.” He paused. “I have no desire to be alpha, but I can’t make him understand that. And even if he does, he won’t let me stay alive. I’ve been running for five years now because I won’t fight him. I’ll only fight to survive. But I won’t kill my own brother. I’ve never killed anyone before.”
She understood.
He staggered to his feet as she helped him up. They made their way to the bathroom.
“How is it that you’re still alive?” she marveled.
“Because I have the ability to heal quickly.” He groped for the taps in the shower and let the water run over his bleeding body. “But not with these lead things in me.”
“You mean the bullets?”
“Yes.”
She watched, amazed, as the blood washedoff. The bullet wounds still gaped on his skin – ugly puncture marks on his otherwise splendid body.
“Look away,” he cautioned.
“Why?”
“This is going to get ugly.”
“I can take it,” she said bravely.
He considered this for a moment, and then he nodded. She watched, trying not to flinch as he inserted his thumb and index finger into the one of the bullet holes in his chest.
“Arrrrh!” he cried.
“I have some painkillers,” she said anxiously.
“No time.” Clenching his jaw, he pulled the bullet out. His raw wound spouted more congealed blood. It was a horrible, painful process and she had to look away.
“I might need help,” he added. “I can’t reach as well into the other wounds.”
She had to be brave for him. She opened the bathroom cabinet door and brought out a forceps and a wad of surgical gauze.
Gritting her teeth, she said, “Let me to do this for you. Stand still.”
He braced his back against the bathroom tiles in the shower cubicle and stood still. His fists were bunched.
“Don’t be afraid of hurting me,” he assured her.
It wasn’t the only thing she was afraid of.
Summoning all the courage in her little body, she gingerly inserted the forceps into a bullet hole in his abdomen. He contracted his muscles to remain still.
He said, “In my tiger form, I can see. I’m also a lot more resistant to bullets than in my human form. They don’t penetrate that deeply into my flesh. In that way, my vital organs are protected. It’s like wearing a bulletproof vest made out of tiger flesh.” He winced as she found the bullet with her forceps and grasped it. “So these are all flesh wounds to me.”
“Stay still.”
He smiled weakly at her. “Thank you. I know this is difficult for you.”
Difficult doesn’t even begin to cut it, she wanted to reply, but she was too busy trying not to faint.
“So you’re very hard to kill,” she remarked.
“That’s the trouble with us tiger shifters,” he joked. “I’m my brother’s bane, just as he is mine.”
“But you can be killed?”
“Yes. But it would have to be a very massive blow. Such as decapitation or getting my entire body crushed.”
“Don’t say things like that.” It turned her stomach. She got the final bullet out. “These might get infected. I have some antibiotics.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
She continued to clean his wounds and patch him up as he swallowed some antibiotics that she had stashed in the cabinet. Zach always kept some for times like these, though – as chief enforcer – those times were becoming fewer and fewer as other men took the blows for him.
Noah got dressed.
“The men in my house will wake up soon,” he warned. “They’ll call in reinforcements. We have to get going.”
“But where are we going?”
“Somewhere very far from here.” He pulled in a deep breath. “I’ve tried to live here in America, always moving around, changing my name and keeping one step ahead of my brother. But it’s getting too hard. It’s time to move to another continent. I need you to come with me, Karen. It’s the only way I can keep you safe. I’m afraid of what people like Zach will do to you to get leverage on me.”
He paused.
“Do you want to come with me?”
She hesitated. She loved him – the man that he was. There was no doubt. But could she love everything else that he was?
Her hesitation was only for a moment.
Follow your heart.
“Yes,” she said steadily. “I want to come with you.”
His face creased into a broad smile. “Great. I’ll die before I let any harm come to you, Karen. You have my promise on that.”
His blind eyes were so luminous and fervent that she knew he spoke the heartfelt truth.
She couldn’t help herself. She clasped his face and seized it f
or a kiss. He responded voraciously. The kiss was burning hot – all passion with their tongues thrusting into each other’s mouths. He grabbed her waist. She threw her arms around his neck. The desire flared within her. She wanted this man. She wanted his body and soul – everything that he was.
The kiss went on and on. It was hungry, soul-searing. It was a kiss of pent-up longing and unleashed relief. She melted into that kiss. Was it only her imagination, but did she sense nuances and layers in his kiss, which was far more textured than any she had ever received from a man?
He finally broke off. He laughed throatily.
“We have to go before I take you on the floor right this instance.”
She looked down at his crotch. He wore Zach’s jeans. Zach was taller, and Noah had rolled up the legs.
“Y-yes.”
Together, they made their way to her car. On their way out, she had to step over Zach’s body. She couldn’t help studying him, remembering everything they shared together.
She remembered meeting him for the first time – their eyes touching across the crowded club. Going out on their first date. Laughing. Drinking red wine. Being enchanted by him.
Having sex with him for the first time; smoldering passion igniting both their bodies as they writhed in the summer heat.
Moving in with him within the first month. Loving him. Caring for him. Being everything she could to be his perfect mate.
Submitting to him.
Being a slave to him.
How did it all get so ugly?
Noah was already at the car, waiting for her to have this final moment.
“Goodbye,” she whispered to Zach.
Then she turned away and left the man she had once loved.
STARTING OVER
In the car, she asked, “Is your name really Noah?”
She was driving, naturally.
“No. My real name is Jonas. Jonas Fisher.”
“Where are you really from?”
“The Adirondacks. My brother is called Kyle.”
“Do you want me to call you Jonas?”
“No. I’ve left that name and life behind a long time ago. Besides, it’s too dangerous. We have to change our names now.”
“To the names on our passports?”
He had already called ahead to his friend – a fence in the city who specialized in creating new identities for people.
