Taken for the Tiger

by Annabelle Winters

  “Then I will kneel beside you in shame,” said his wife, going down to the floor and crawling toward her husband. “Because I have layed with an animal too,” she whispered, glancing over at Baby Lacy and then at her husband. “And the child that emerged from my womb is his spawn, not yours.”

  Tracy and Lacy stared in shock as the two babies in their vision giggled again, holding hands like they were kindred souls. And then Tracy realized that the wound on Baby Lacy was completely healed. Not even a scar remained!

  “Ohmygod, Lacy,” she whispered. “I didn’t Turn you with that bite! You were already a Shifter! That was just my animal playing with its sister!”

  Lacy’s lips were moving but she wasn’t saying a word. She just stared at that vision, her eyes finally rolling up in her head as if she was going to faint right there in the dragon’s belly.

  “Oh, God, you’re right,” she gurgled, almost choking as the realization hit both sisters at once even as they watched their parents sob and hug each other in that vision.

  The vision was still going, but Tracy could no longer hear what her father and his wife were saying to each other. She could feel their emotions, though. Dark emotions. Shame and guilt, self-loathing and fear, darkness and no light. No light at all.

  “No,” Lacy whispered, her grip on Tracy’s hand tightening. “Please, no! I can’t watch this!”

  But they both continued to watch as their father reached behind a bookshelf and pulled out his shotgun, loading and cocking it as his wife crossed herself and muttered something under her breath. Their father went back down on his knees, drawing his wife close to him, placing his head directly beneath hers, lodging the double barrels of the weapon firmly beneath his chin.

  Then he pulled the trigger, and the vision exploded into nothingness, into darkness, pure black so deep and all-encompassing that it almost made Tracy choke.

  The darkness seemed like it would consume them both, and Tracy wondered if they were getting pulled to that pit of Darkness again. She held her sister’s hand tight as she tried to see through the wall of black. She could still feel the remnants of their parents’ emotions, but at the same time she was feeling strangely liberated, oddly excited, like this revelation had opened up a doorway of sorts, freed them from something that was holding them back, pushing them towards some broader part of their destiny.

  “Finally,” came a female voice through the darkness, and Tracy gasped. It was her real mother’s voice, even though she couldn’t possibly remember her mother’s voice. Still, she knew it was. She just knew.

  “Yes, took you two long enough,” came a male voice, and then Tracy saw the silhouettes of the two bobcat Shifters slowly take shape until she could see them clearly.

  Instantly she knew these two were brother and sister! Bobcat siblings! The man was Lacy’s father! The woman was Tracy’s mother!

  “Holy Mother of God,” Tracy whispered in awe, feeling her face light up in a smile when she realized that this wasn’t a vision. This was freakin’ real. Well, as real as anything could be in an undersea dragon’s belly!

  “Um, I prefer just Mom,” said the woman, smiling at Tracy with her eyes—the eyes of a cat.

  “And you can call me Father,” said the man, glancing at Lacy and shrugging. “Or Dad, if you want.”

  “Um, nice to meet you, I suppose,” Lacy stammered. She glanced over at Tracy, blinking in astonishment. “Is this real?” she whispered.

  Tracy snorted, hands on her hips as she stared at her older sister—who was neither older nor a sister—but hey, old habits died hard. “I was about to ask you the same thing, moron,” she whispered back.

  “So we’re . . . we’re cousins?” Lacy said, shaking her head and blinking five times as if to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. She turned back to the two bobcat Shifters. “You two are brother and sister? Bobcat Shifters who took human mates just so you could . . . what, produce offspring?”

  The woman—Tracy’s mother—took a long breath, her eyes filling with tears that shone like diamonds in the dark. “The needs of our animals are strong, fierce, undeniable,” she said softly. “There is a drive to seek out our fated mates, but we lost hope of ever finding them. Not every Shifter finds its fated mate, you know. We believed we were the last of our kind, and the needs of our animals to produce young were too great. And so we did what we did.”

  “What you did was destroy a marriage, destroy two human lives!” Lacy said, her eyes burning with the anger of her cat.

  “Yes,” said Lacy’s father, his slender frame shaking as he looked away from his daughter’s accusing glare. When he looked back up, his eyes were shining with tears too. “And we paid the price. Paid it with our lives.”

  “And we are still paying the price in the afterlife,” said Tracy’s mother. “We will be paying the price for all eternity. Those are the consequences of mating with someone who is not your fated mate.”

  “So then what kind of creatures are we?” said Tracy, feeling the same indignation roll through her. “The offspring of an unnatural coupling? Some kind of monsters?!”

  The female bobcat laughed, and the dragon let out a low wail just then, as if to remind them of what they were. “We are all monsters, my dear child,” said the woman. “We will never be part of the human world, human society, human civilization.” She reached out and touched the walls of the dragon’s insides, sending a shiver through the beast like it could feel her touch. “This monster knows that, and so does her mate Murad. When this beast materializes fully in the world of flesh and blood, crawls out of the Darkness and into the real world, we will all experience a new beginning, a fresh start, a clean slate.”

  Tracy stared at her mother, then at her uncle, finally back at her cousin-sister Lacy. “They’re insane,” she whispered. “Our parents are nutcases, Lacy! All four of them were nutcases—even the human ones! We can’t listen to any of this crap! There’s hope for the world! There is Light in this dragon! I know it! We just have to reunite the dragon with the human woman! We can do it, Lacy! We can go to the Light and bring back that human soul!”

  Lacy nodded slowly, her fierce gaze focused on the two Shifters standing before her. “What happened when you two died?” she asked softly. “I know that when an unmated Shifter dies, its human and animal gets split. The human goes to the Light, and the animal goes to the Darkness.”

  Tracy frowned as she listened. “But the two of you aren’t unmated. Both of you did mate—just not with your fated partners. So yeah, Lacy’s right. What happened when you died?”

  “The most wonderful thing,” said the female bobcat, her eyes shining with a darkness that made Tracy shudder.

  “We didn’t lose our animals to the Darkness at all!” said the male bobcat, his tight, catlike face broadening to a grin that showed teeth that were yellowed and chipped, with jagged edges like he’d been chewing on rocks or grinding his canines against each other for eternity!

  “We went with our animals to the Darkness,” whispered her mother, hissing out loud like a bobcat gone mad.

  “We live in the Darkness as humans!” said Lacy’s father, rubbing his hands together . . . hands that were covered in clawmarks, like he’d been clawing at himself for years. “We are powerful! Immortal in the flesh! Able to do what we please!”

  “With whomover we please!” giggled Tracy’s mother, her tone exuding a dark sexual energy that made Tracy want to scream and cover her eyes, her mouth, her ears . . . block out all her senses!

  “Ohmygod, it’s the choice you made as humans,” whispered Lacy, backing away from the giggling Shifters and pulling Tracy back with her. “The choice to give in to your animal lust and mate outside of the fated bond. It was a human choice to give in to the animal’s needs, and now your humans are lost to the Darkness too!”

  “We are not lost,” said her father. “We are found!”

  “And no
w we’ve found you!” said Tracy’s mother with a happy smile that made Tracy clutch Lacy’s arm in fear. “Come with us! We’re family! We can be a family forever! Through time and space!”

  “The Darkness is beautiful once you get to know it,” said the male bobcat through his yellowed teeth. “There are others like us there. Thousands to choose from. Pleasures of the flesh that you can’t even imagine!”

  “We aren’t like you,” whispered Lacy, pulling Tracy close and pointing at their crazy-as-fuck parents. “We never lost hope. We waited for our fated mates and we found them.”

  “Yes, you found them. But then you lost them,” said the female bobcat with a shrug. She spread her arms out wide and twirled around like a lunatic, leaning her head back and laughing out loud. “Where are your fated mates? They are gone, my little ones! Gone because of the choices you made! You are just like us!”

  “What the hell is she talking about, Lacy? What choices?”

  “Dark choices,” whispered the male bobcat.

  “Suicide,” said the female bobcat, still twirling, still laughing. Then she stopped and pointed at Lacy’s belly. “And gambling with the life of your unborn child! Shame! Shame! Shame!”

  “Shame! Shame! Shame!” hissed the male bobcat, pretending to rock an invisible baby as Tracy turned to her cousin in horror.

  She could see that Lacy was losing her nerve, losing her calm, losing control. Her eyelids were fluttering, and Tracy watched as Lacy’s white eyeballs began to cloud over with black, as if she was being lost to the Darkness!

  “Lacy, no! There’s no shame in what you did! You did it for me! Because you loved me! Don’t listen to them! Lacy! Lacy! Lacy!”

  But Lacy was fading to black before her very eyes, and Tracy knew she had to make a decision.

  The same decision Lacy had made for her.

  “You followed me into death,” she whispered to her fading sister—and Lacy was her sister, family technicalities be damned. “And I’m going to follow you into Darkness.”

  Tracy took one last look at the two dark bobcats who were their parents, and she smiled and closed her eyes, reaching for those old feelings of shame that she knew lived inside her too. Feelings that would open up a path to the Darkness just like it was doing for Lacy.

  But she wasn’t scared, because even as she felt herself being consumed by the Darkness, she felt a part of her reach back to that one kiss on the beach, that kiss with her fated mate. Would that one kiss be enough for her tiger to blaze a path across the universe to find her? To bring her back?

  “Everett,” she whispered as she floated away into dark nothingness, smiling as the words of an old poem came back to her even though she didn’t remember ever reading it:

  Tiger, Tiger, burning bright,

  In the forests of the night.

  One beautiful kiss.

  One true mate.

  One chance in hell.

  10

  “I’m in hell,” muttered Everett, whirling around in the Darkness surrounding him. He was in tiger form, snarling and snapping at the ethereal beasts that were wailing and howling around him in this dark pit.

  He looked up to see if those damned Bear Shifters were still looking down at him. He could make out their shadowy figures, but they weren’t standing there with hands on their furry haunches like before. No, they were standing at the edge of the pit, up on their hind legs, massive paws swinging as they fought back thousands upon thousands of beasts that were leaping up in a wild effort to crawl out of the dark pit, out through the gateway, out of hell and into the world of flesh and blood!

  “Yup,” he said again. “I’m in hell.”

  “Correction,” came a familiar voice from his left. “We’re in hell, brother.”

  “Darius!” roared Everett, picking up the scent of the Lion Shifter before he actually saw him. It took a moment for his image to materialize, but when it did, Everett roared again, this time in awe.

  Because Darius was glowing with a beautiful golden light, his lion’s fur shimmering with energy that seemed on par with the sun! His eyes were clear and focused, and from the edge of the glow that enveloped him was a strand of golden light that Everett immediately understood connected Darius to his mate! His fated mate! His bonded mate!

  Everett whipped his tiger’s head around, desperately hoping that he’d see the same golden thread linking him to his own fated mate. But his heart dropped like a stone when he didn’t see a thing. Then he realized Tracy was no longer there, and he roared as a terrible fear whipped through him! He was supposed to protect her! But now she was gone! When had that happened? How had that happened?!

  “Relax, bud,” said the lion, coming close, his presence calming down Everett’s tiger. “She’s with her sister. She’s safe.”

  “How can either of our mates be safe when the two of us aren’t with them?” growled Everett. “It’s our job to protect our mates, remember? Or do you not give a damn now that you’re the Golden King of the Cosmic Jungle?! Got bigger responsibilities now that you’re some kind of Angel of Light?”

  Darius chuckled, the sound coming out as a deep rumble. “Actually, yes. We both have bigger responsibilities. All four of us do, in fact. But first you’ve got to get your head straight, brother.”

  “Easy for you to say,” snapped Everett, once again looking around in search of his mate, his tiger’s head again twisting to see if that cosmic thread had magically appeared. If it did, maybe he could just pull Tracy back to him! “You’re connected to your fated mate. You can never lose her. But that goddamn she-dragon took me before I could complete my bond with my mate! You want help me get my head straight, then help me find my mate!”

  “You can only find her by looking within yourself now, brother,” said Darius, his calmness almost sending Everett into a murderous rage!

  “What the hell does that mean? When did you turn into some kind of mystical sage?! Here, give me that! I’ll pull both our mates back to us!” Everett leapt toward Darius, his tiger’s paws reaching for that golden thread of Light that connected the lion to his bobcat mate.

  But his paws just passed through the golden thread, and Everett roared in anguish as he whirled around helplessly one more time. Above him he could still see and hear those Bear Shifters beating back those soulless animals. His mate was missing. And Darius was standing in front of him, happily bathed in golden light, connected forever to his mate, speaking words of annoyingly hokey wisdom.

  “There’s a reason the two of you got separated,” Darius said. “There’s something each of you has to come to terms with about yourselves before you can complete your bond. That’s the path fate takes. That’s the way destiny works. The universe brought the two of you together, and so if it split you apart, it’s because there’s some part of your private, individual journey that has to be completed before you can complete your fated bond. Some task to be completed. Some part of yourself that needs to be understood, needs to be accepted. Lacy is helping your mate with her task. And looks like it’s my job to help you with yours, brother.”

  Everett wanted to snap back at the annoyingly pompous lion, but something about Darius’s words hit home. What had Everett told Tracy when they were swallowed whole by a sea-dragon? Hadn’t he said it reminded him of Jonah and the Whale? How did that story end? It only ended when Jonah accepted that he was chosen to do something, and he could never hide from his responsibility. And to finish his task, Jonah had to understand himself, accept himself, believe that he was worthy of his mission!

  “All right,” Everett finally snarled, his tiger’s tail moving from side to side as he faced his friend the lion. “Where do we start, O Great Wise Lion of the Light?”

  Darius raised a golden eyebrow and then shrugged his lion’s shoulders. “Beats me. I guess maybe we start with your parents? How was your relationship with them?”

  Everett co
nvulsed with laughter, his blazing tiger’s eyes going wide as he stared at his friend. “Are you serious? You’re going to be my goddamn psychiatrist?! Did you even finish high-school before joining the circus?”

  “I probably learned more about life in the circus than you did in your ivory tower of academia,” Darius shot back. “Oh, wait, you didn’t actually get your PhD, did you?”

  Everett stopped laughing. “How do you know that?” he growled.

  Darius squinted, his gaze focused just above Everett’s head. “I can . . . I can see it, Everett! I see your . . . your shame!”

  Everett snorted. “Now I know for sure that you’re full of it. I’ve never felt a moment of shame in my entire life!”

  “And that’s why you’re ashamed!” Darius said. “I see it, Everett! Your parents! They were both highly intellectual, logical-minded Tiger Shifters. They believed that the animal parts of themselves brought them down, debased them, made them less than human. That’s how they raised you! That’s what they taught you! But in your heart of hearts you understood that your tiger made you more than human, not less! That messed you up, brother! The conflict between wanting to believe what your parents told you and needing to believe what your instincts were telling you!”

  Everett stared in muted shock at his buddy, wondering if the lion really had turned into some kind of all-knowing magical shrink! What the hell? How the hell? Could Darius really see all that?! See his past? See what was inside him?

  Everett looked around, and then he suddenly saw them: His parents, clear as day!

  “Bloody hell,” he growled, crouching down and baring his teeth at what he was sure was just a vision, a mirage, an hallucination. “You’re dead. I watched both of you die!”

  “Hear that, love?” said his father, raising an eyebrow and glancing at his mother. “He watched us die!”