Shifters Unbound [5] Tiger Magic

by Jennifer Ashley

  Carly was safe in his arms, her mate holding her and keeping her warm. The dream dissolved, and Carly woke in her bed, the sun rising.

  Carly’s silk pajamas, top and bottoms, hugged her with warmth, possibly why she’d dreamed of Tiger. But no, she’d gone down to the kitchen, hadn’t she? Her stomach felt hollow. Had she eaten or not?

  Morning sickness was rearing its ugly head. Didn’t matter if Carly had eaten or not—it was coming back.

  She made it to the bathroom and lost her load, then she went to the sink to wash her hands and rinse her mouth, as Carly did every morning these days. She raised her head and looked into the mirror . . . and saw the bandages stuck to the side of her face.

  “What the hell?” Carly peeled back the tape and found a cut surrounded by a nice bruise right below her left eye.

  Flashes of memory returned—Carly going downstairs for yet another snack, sensing someone, trying to turn on the light. The punch, the fall, and then Tiger over her.

  Tiger.

  No, couldn’t be. But who, then, had bandaged her face and put her to bed? She couldn’t have done this good a bandaging job in her sleep.

  Carly ran from the room and out into her kitchen. She looked wildly around, but she saw nothing out of place. No one here, and no evidence of anyone being there in the night.

  Wait, yes there was. Her back door was unlocked. The lock wasn’t broken, but someone had unlocked it, either using a key or by picking it, then had closed it nicely without relocking it. Carly clearly remembered checking the doors before she went to bed, as she did every night, and the door had been locked.

  In the living room, she found that a sofa pillow was missing from her couch.

  Carly stared at the sofa, hands on her hips. What kind of thief picked his way into a house, knocked out a helpless woman, stole her sofa cushion, bandaged her up, and left again, politely closing the door?

  Bizarre. She drew a breath, wincing as her bruised cheekbone moved. She let out the breath, locked the kitchen door, and went back to her room to get ready for work.

  * * *

  Connor sat up in bed and yelled. The intruder in the predawn hour was stealthy, almost Shifter stealthy, but he’d made a sound that penetrated Connor’s sleep.

  Connor was in Tiger’s bed, in Tiger’s loft room, which used to be Connor’s. He hadn’t needed to move back in here now that Tiger was gone, but for some reason, Connor felt safer here, as though Tiger’s presence had gifted the room with some kind of protective mojo.

  Until this morning. The man was a bulky black smudge in the lighter gray of the morning, in black fatigues, with a blackened face and a black knit hat. The only color on him was a couple of Tiger’s shirts he had bunched in his hands.

  Connor’s Shifter took over. His body fought the sudden change, which hurt like hell, and the shirt and underwear he’d slept in tore away. By the time he became his young lion form, the intruder had rushed out the door to the tiny landing.

  Connor crouched down on the bed on four paws, and sprang from there to the doorway. Not fast enough. The intruder was down the stairs, and there was Kim, with Katriona, in his path.

  Kim screamed but had the sense to move out of the way. Connor leapt from halfway up the stairs onto the intruder below.

  Who rolled out of the way and kept on going down the next flight of stairs. Liam and Sean were coming in the back door by the time Connor made it to the bottom, both running. The human man swung around and charged out the front, Sean and Liam after him.

  Connor ran behind them, his tail, which he could never manage, waving in his rage. He galloped out onto the porch and down the steps to find the intruder on his back, having been taken down by Dylan.

  Spike was there too, probably for an early tracker meeting or something. The human man looked up at the ring of Shifters around him—Liam, Sean, Dylan, Glory, Andrea, Spike, and Connor, panting behind them.

  “Who is this?” Liam’s voice held a savage growl, rage working its way up from a deep well. Liam could be laid-back and charm the devil, but Connor knew that his uncle had an ocean of anger, hurt, and grief in him, mostly about the death of Connor’s dad, Kenny. Liam had worked through that, and he had Kim now, but when he was very angry, that old bitterness and rage seeped through him to make him a deadly enemy.

  The man on the ground kept his mouth shut. Sean reached down, wiped the black off the man’s face with a tissue, and remained staring down at him. “No idea who that is,” Sean said.

  “Some kind of pervert, looks like,” Glory said. She ripped Tiger’s shirts out of the man’s hands. “Stealing Shifter clothes. What were you going to do next, break in and steal my bras?”

  “Glory,” Andrea said to her aunt in her calm tones like still water.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Glory said, showing her teeth in a smile. “I don’t wear any.”

  The man looked back and forth among them, his expression stoic, but his scent betrayed his alarm. No outright fear though, Connor thought. Strange. The alarm was because he’d been caught.

  “What do we do with him?” Liam’s question was not so much a question, or at least, it was rhetorical. From Liam’s scent and the way his eyes had gone Shifter white blue, he’d already decided what he wanted to do.

  “You can’t kill him, son,” Dylan said quickly. “Not worth the price.”

  Liam’s rage rose, the scent of it hot. “He came into my house. He endangered my mate, my cub, and my brother’s cub.” Liam had become ultra-protective of Connor, Kenny’s son, again going back to taking the blame for Kenny’s death.

  The intruder now started to exude some fear. Liam wasn’t the pushover he appeared to be, and Dylan, a man who looked even more frightening than Liam, was trying to calm Liam.

  Spike growled in agreement with Liam. Spike, recently discovering he was a father, had become a fierce protector of cubs.

  “Hold it together,” Sean said, his voice the calmest, but also with an underlying hint of feral anger. “How about we make an example of him?” His smile was frightening. “Sounds like fun.”

  “Aye,” Dylan said.

  Connor shifted—painfully—back to his human form, too furious to mind being naked in front of his enemy. “Let me help. He scared the shite out of me.”

  Andrea moved to Connor’s side and slid an arm around his waist. Connor’s shakes and pain started to lessen a little. Sean’s mate could make people feel better just by being near them—her healer’s touch, Connor supposed.

  “Kim okay?” Andrea asked him.

  “I think so.”

  Andrea glanced at the house, gave Connor’s shoulder a squeeze, and turned away. “I’ll just go make sure.” She ran lightly up the porch steps and into the house, and Connor moved within the circle of Shifters.

  “I have an idea,” Liam said, his smile flashing out, but the fury still in his eyes. “Sure, Connor, you can help.”

  “Great,” Connor said. He looked down at the man, who was smelling more and more of worry. “But wait for me a few seconds. I’m gonna need pants.”

  * * *

  Crosby found his wrists and ankles wrapped in duct tape, then he was loaded into the bed of a pickup between the shaved-headed tattooed guy and the older guy with the eyes of steel. The two Morrissey brothers and the kid Crosby had woken rode in the truck’s cab. A family outing, Crosby thought with grim humor.

  They took Crosby to a dirty street in a warehouse district, parking the pickup next to a line of Dumpsters. The Morrisseys piled out of the cab, selected a Dumpster, opened it, and returned to the truck.

  All five of the Shifters grabbed Crosby by the legs and arms and lifted him out of the truck.

  “One,” Liam Morrissey said as they swung Crosby back, then forward. “Two. Threeee.”

  Crosby felt himself go airborne and land with perfect precision inside the Dumpster, on top of a pile of foul-smelling, slimy trash. He heard the Shifters walk away, laughing, and the truck start.

  But they didn�
�t drive away. As Crosby lay motionlessly, waiting for them to go, the square of sky above him darkened and Liam alone looked in and down at Crosby.

  “If I see you in or near Shiftertown again,” he said in a voice that held the quiet fury of a wild animal, “I will kill you.” His laughter was gone, and much of his Irish accent too. All that was left was the calm conviction of a man not afraid to kill. “No one will ever find you. I’ll guarantee that.”

  Crosby believed him. Liam reached for the lid of the Dumpster. He stared a while longer at Crosby, his eyes that strange blue-white, hard to look at. Crosby did his best to appear subdued and nonthreatening.

  Liam at last let the lid fall with a clang, shutting out light and fresh air. The truck’s door slammed, and this time, the truck drove away.

  Crosby started working on the tape around his wrists. Liam’s threat didn’t bother him, because Crosby had no intention of ever going back to Shiftertown again. He was done with them.

  He finished making his way out of the tape, reached under his shirt, and pulled out the thin undershirt he’d managed to stuff inside before the Shifters had caught him and thrown him down. The shirt had belonged to the tiger, and all Crosby had to do was take it to his commander. Mission over.

  * * *

  The art class for the Shifter kids was held in a community center near the gallery. Armand had arranged everything with his usual efficiency.

  Carly and Armand started off with a tour of the gallery, showing the cubs the different styles of the artists, from representational art and sculpture to the abstract. Armand talked about texture and how to view a picture with rich texture from the side to get the full effect.

  At the community center, Armand demonstrated various techniques, explaining that creating art was not always about simple drawing or blotching paint on canvas. He showed them how etchings were printed, and let the kids pull sheets through the printer to reveal the picture of a wildcat he’d prepared.

  Next Armand stood them in front of easels and showed them how to hold pencils and paintbrushes, and then let them choose the medium they liked best for their own projects. Armand was very good at teaching kids how to make art fun.

  Carly watched them with interest. Ten Shifter kids had come, from Cherie, nearly twenty-one, to Jordan, Spike’s son, aged four. Cherie enjoyed herself drawing tall, long-legged angular women who looked a little like Yvette. Jordan happily dragged a brush loaded with paint all over his page, leaving thick red and yellow splotches, which he looked very proud of.

  Carly thought the cub with most potential was the little polar bear Olaf. He’d chosen watercolors, and had at first painted his entire sheet of watercolor paper black. Once that dried, he scraped away the dried paint with a palette knife to reveal patterns of the white paper underneath, like a negative. The lines resembled large bears, but they were incomplete, featureless. Olaf contemplated them with the dark-eyed seriousness with which Carly had seen him observe the rest of the world.

  “That’s very nice, Olaf,” she said after Armand had bustled out of the room, going for more supplies. “Unique. Can you tell me about it?”

  Olaf kept studying the painting-drawing, palette knife in hand. “My parents,” he said.

  Who were dead, Ronan’s mate, Elizabeth, had told Carly. Ronan had discovered Olaf, an orphaned Shifter cub no one knew what to do with, and had taken him in.

  Poor kid. Carly opened her mouth to praise his painting again when she smelled smoke.

  Cherie smelled it too. She raised her head, her nose wrinkling, her sudden fear showing Carly how young she still was by Shifter standards. Cherie was looking around for an adult Shifter, someone to keep her safe.

  Carly saw the ceiling above Cherie give. She grabbed the girl and yanked her out of the way just as a fireball came down and flames exploded through the room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The room in which Armand taught was in the middle of the two-story building, and had no windows. The explosion shattered the lights, turning the bright space to night, lit by roiling gas-fed flames. Cubs screamed, easels clattered to the floor, and little pots of turpentine popped under the heat, feeding the fire.

  Out! They had to get out.

  Confusion and noise took over. Carly inhaled smoke and heat, and she gasped for breath, coughing. Dimly she remembered that when people died in a fire, it was often from smoke inhalation, long before the flames reached them.

  But she couldn’t see to find the doors, couldn’t remember where the doors were. If the building had emergency systems, like lit-up exit signs or sprinklers, she saw no sign of them.

  They were trapped.

  Carly heard the high-pitched keening of Jordan, calling desperately for his daddy, Cherie’s sobs of terror, and cries and calls from the other kids. Nothing at all from Olaf.

  Stop. Wait. Carly closed her eyes, blotting out the horror. She needed to remember what the room had looked like moments before the explosion. Where everyone was. Who’d been there, who hadn’t.

  Armand had stepped out to fetch more supplies. Spike and Ellison, who’d accompanied the children, had been wandering in and out of the building. Carly knew enough about Shifters by now to know that they were watching out for danger. But the danger had been inside the room, in the ceiling above it, not outside.

  Spike and Ellison, and Armand, would see the flames or the smoke. They’d come and call for help. Meanwhile, Carly had to find the door and get the cubs out.

  Oblong room, doors at either end. She and Olaf had been in the center of it, Carly facing the east door, Olaf staring at his picture. Carly had leapt to jerk Cherie out of the way of the falling ceiling, but had Olaf moved in time?

  “Olaf!”

  Olaf still made no noise, and bile rose in Carly’s throat. She couldn’t breathe, she had to get out, to save the cub inside her.

  Her fire-safety training, which Armand made all his employees take, cut through her fear. Smoke rose. “Down! Everybody down! Crawl toward the walls, find the doors!”

  Carly’s voice, ringing with authority, cut through the screaming. The cubs, used to obeying the alpha Shifters, dropped to the floor, their yelling dying to whimpering.

  Carly got to her hands and knees and started across the room, groping for any of the cubs along the way. After a few moments, she found her hands full of soft but wiry fur, then the white face of a small polar bear looked out of the hell at her.

  “Olaf.” Carly exhaled in relief, then regretted breathing out. Breathing in hurt. “Find the door, Olaf. Or at least the wall. Can you do that?”

  Olaf turned around and started walking but stopped abruptly when Carly let go of him, and waited. Carly caught on after a second—Olaf wanted to lead her to safety.

  Carly held on to his fur again and let him pull her along, she half crawling alongside him. She passed another cub on the way and scooped him up, setting him on Olaf’s strong back.

  Olaf made it to the wall, then put his shoulder to it and slid along the wall until he found the door. Lungs nearly bursting, Carly pushed at the door, but it wouldn’t move. Jammed? Or locked?

  “Cherie!”

  Cherie could turn into a grizzly bear. If the door was stuck, even a half-grown grizzly would be of more use than a human, a polar bear cub, and another child paralyzed with fear.

  “Cherie, we need you!”

  Cherie didn’t answer. Olaf made a little growl in his throat, then he scampered back into the fire. Carly shouted after him, but in a few seconds, Olaf returned, his mouth around Cherie’s hand.

  Carly rose, seized Cherie by the arms, and pulled her down to the floor with the rest of them. She put her hands on Cherie’s shoulders and looked into her face. “Cherie, you need to shift. I need someone strong to push open the door.”

  “The door won’t open?” Cherie’s eyes were unfocused, the girl clearly terrified.

  “Please.” Carly shook her. “I need you to be a bear right now. Shift!”

  Cherie stared at Ca
rly a moment longer in incomprehension, then she nodded. Shaking fingers fumbled at her blouse, and Carly had to help her pull it off. By the time Cherie had shed enough clothes, the young woman’s instincts took over, and she began to change.

  It was painful for her, Carly saw, Cherie letting out noises of anguish as her face elongated into the bear’s, her hands and feet curving to accommodate grizzly claws.

  Carly scrambled back as Cherie grew and changed until a grizzly, easily as large as a wild one, stood next to them. Cherie rose on her hind legs, growling, and pounded on the door with her massive paws. The door at last broke under her onslaught, spilling her, Carly, and the cubs out into the corridor.

  But instead of the refuge Carly pictured, she saw more fire. Flames licked down the walls, the way out of the building blocked.

  “Damn it!”

  At least there was more air out here. For now.

  The studio lay on the second floor, but there were other rooms up here, rooms with windows. If Carly could gather the cubs into one of them, she could open a window where the fire department might reach them and get them down. Even better if she could find a fire escape.

  Carly hurried down the hall, trying the doors she could reach. All were locked.

  Shit, what was wrong with this place? No sprinklers, no alarms, locked doors, no marked exits . . .

  But there were sprinklers. Carly glimpsed them in the ceiling, and she saw the alarms on the walls waiting to be pulled. Everything going wrong at the same time was too much of a coincidence.

  This fire had been set deliberately, the cubs and Carly trapped inside the room on purpose.

  Carly would have to save her fury at whoever would be twisted enough to set fire to a building with kids inside for later. Right now they had to get out.

  “Cherie!” she called. Cherie came to her at once, the large bear shivering as she leaned on Carly. Looking for reassurance, Carly realized. And for someone to tell her what to do.

  Carly put her arm around the bear’s shoulders, giving her a half hug. “We’ll get out of this, Cherie. And you’re going to help me. Can you break that glass? There’s a fire extinguisher.”