Here There Be Tigers (19 page)

“
They’re all in tiger form. Where
would they carry a gun?”

“
What if one of them followed in
human form? Just in case.”

“
I’d know it. And they would have
fired at us already.”

“
Even from the cover of the
trees?”

He kneeled down low beside her. “Maybe,” he
admitted with reluctance. “But I doubt they have guns. I’d have
sensed a tiger in human form.”

He frowned and she remembered he couldn’t sense
humans, only tiger shifters. Petrov had already used humans. If
he’d brought one or more with him, Mitch would only be able to pick
them up when they got near enough to smell or hear.

“
Tigers prefer to kill up close and
personal,” he finished. “Petrov will want to kill you the old
fashioned way.”

Since she knew exactly and in great detail how
tigers killed prey, she didn’t ask for more information. “I trust
your instincts and knowledge, Mitch. If you say they don’t have
guns, they don’t. But we should stay low while we’re up here. Just
in case.”

“
Fair enough.”

“
By the way, why didn’t we do this
from the cover of the house?”

“
Too many ways in that we couldn’t
cover simultaneously.” He shrugged. “Plus, they could always just
set the place on fire and force us out.”

“
Shit.” She sucked in air, trying to
replenish her deprived oxygen levels, and studied the tree line
back the way they’d come. Mitch swiveled to watch their
backs.

Movement in the trees made her raise her gun.
She caught a faint flash of striped fur in the shadows, but it
disappeared in the next breath. The tiger camouflage worked well in
this setting, tricking her eyes so seeing them was difficult even
for a trained observer like herself. She’d never actually had a
tiger hunt her before, but she’d had to pick them out of dense
forest. Allowing her long honed instincts to guide her, she
pinpointed two of the animals pacing just inside the trees,
crossing paths as they guarded the direction back to the
cabin.

“
Two are there,” she murmured,
nodding toward them.

“
I’ve spotted the other three. I
smell blood on two of them. They’re wounded. That works for
us.”

“
How many shots will it take to kill
one? Is it just a matter of aiming better? How much damage can they
take?”

“
A lot,” said a deep voice from off
to the left.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

“
Gonna come out in the open,
Petrov?” Mitch called.

Nila swallowed loudly and flicked a glance in
the direction of the voice, but she kept her concentration on the
two pacing tigers in front of her.

She wasn’t sure if Mitch was guessing or if he
knew what Petrov sounded like. But the idea that the man who wanted
her dead was just a few yards away was terrifying. Somehow having
the attackers in tiger form had made this easier, less personal.
She’d seen tigers hunt and kill. It was natural and part of their
survival in the wild. But hearing Petrov’s all-too-human voice
brought home the otherworldliness of the situation, the impossible
odds of trying to go against five enemies who could hunt and kill
like tigers, think with the logic and cunning of a human, and were
stronger and faster than either species.

“
Did he shift or has he been in
human form?” she murmured to Mitch. If he’d been human this whole
time, he might have a gun.

“
Shifted,” Mitch whispered back, his
voice so low she was grateful for her excellent hearing.

Shivering, she readjusted the rifle so the
barrel was more firmly pointed toward the two tigers she
watched.

The sound of the man’s laugh made her skin
crawl.

“
Would you like to see my human
form?” he called out. “Come down. And I’ll make your death quick,
easy.”

“
No,” Mitch answered for
her.

“
If we have to come and get her,
we’ll kill her slowly and painfully. Over several days. After I’ve
let my boys have her a few times.”

She resisted another shiver of revulsion. The
taunting man really was Petrov. Which meant two of those “boys”
were her half brothers. Yuck. Her stomach turned and bile rose in
her throat. Mitch’s answering growl was quiet, so quiet she
wondered if Petrov heard it, even with his excellent
senses.

“
Ignore him,” she murmured. “He’s
trying to upset you.”

Mitch stiffened beside her. Though she wasn’t
looking, she felt his muscles tensing and releasing in a slow,
rhythmic way.

“
You’re not changing are you?” she
hissed. “You can’t use a gun as a tiger.”

“
Just reigning in the anger,” he
whispered, his voice harsh.

“
Oh, Nila, won’t you talk to me?”
Petrov said, his voice singy-songy. “I was your mother’s mate after
all.”

Nila refused to rise to his goading. Petrov had
heard enough from her already. She had to concentrate on the other
tigers because it was obvious, even to someone like her, that
Petrov was acting as the diversion. She knew Mitch recognized the
same thing because he didn’t answer Petrov either. She felt him
swiveling as he studied the area around their perch.

“
What, no more conversation? Pity.
But pointless. You’re both dead. It’s just a matter of
time.”

She held still, trained by years of waiting and
watching large cats in both captive and wild environments. With
effort, she concentrated on slowing her breathing, focusing her
senses, and ignoring Petrov’s continued attempts to distract
them.

Her focus on the two cats she watched saved her
from having to take a wild shot. She saw the animal change
directions abruptly, sighted down the barrel of her rifle as it
charged their position, and fired in the general direction of the
huge animal’s head. Chambered another round, and fired
again.

The tiger dropped. She didn’t look too closely
at the damage she’d done. She’d seen the results of poachers, which
was why she hated guns, but she worked hard to turn off her inner
revulsion and fear. Now down to a single round left in the rifle,
she carefully reloaded, in case she didn’t get another chance. She
concentrated on breathing in and out so her hands wouldn’t shake
and opened her senses to the remaining tiger so she could keep
track of him.

There were growls and chuffing barks from the
trees, the sound of Petrov and the sharp retort of Mitch’s rifle,
but she didn’t turn to see what he’d fired at or if he’d hit his
target. On the gentle breeze, the scent of blood mixed with dry
earth carried to her.

The tiger below hadn’t risen, but she couldn’t
tell if it was dead or not. She didn’t really want to know or think
about that yet. Hell, what if that had been one of her half
brothers? She forced down a distressed whimper. She’d break down,
probably throw up, and cry about all this later. If they
survived.

The animal in the woods started convulsing and
horror washed through her. “Damn it, this one is shifting,” she
muttered, hoping Petrov didn’t hear her. She’d had a hard enough
time shooting a tiger—awful and painful to shoot one of the animals
she’d spent her life trying to heal—but she balked to near
immobility at the thought of shooting a human.

“
Remember they will kill you if they
get up here,” Mitch whispered, his tone so low she was sure no one
else heard him. “He will happily rape you, and torture you, and
then slit your throat. If you’re lucky.”

Nila swallowed hard. Well, that put things into
perspective, didn’t it? Shooting a man out to hurt her that badly
didn’t seem quiet as impossible as it had a moment
earlier.

She lifted the barrel and braced her arm on her
raised knee.

The wait felt interminable but finally, the
shape that had been a tiger stood taller and stepped into a patch
of light so she could see the man. He was naked, tall, muscled,
with dark hair. She couldn’t make out his features clearly, but
something about his baring reminded her of Vlad.

“
You wouldn’t kill your brother,
would you, Nila?” the man called, confirming her fears.

She didn’t answer, though his comment made her
think the tiger she’d shot actually wasn’t one of her brothers.
There as more relief in that realization than she should feel for a
man trying to hurt her.

Behind her, Mitch whispered, “You
okay?”

She nodded, then realized he probably wasn’t
looking at her. “Fine. I’ll fall apart later.”

Tracking the new man as he angled closer,
moving just up the edge of the hill, she wondered how close she’d
let him get before firing. Swallowing, she rested her finger
against the trigger.

Not very close at all, she decided.

“
I suggest you tell your son to back
off,” Mitch shouted. “She has no tie to him, Petrov.”

“
Even if you shoot him, Nila, he’ll
just keep coming,” Petrov said, amusement in his tone. “It takes
more than you have to kill a shifter. He’ll reach you and after we
kill Mitch, we’ll make you suffer. A wounded tiger is a terrible
thing.”

She actually knew that part already as she’d
seen her fair share of wounded cats. But she was prepared to keep
firing as much as it took to keep these men away from her. The
tiger below, the one she’d hit twice, still wasn’t
moving.

Unless he’s playing dead, her traitorous mind
thought. Shit, shit, shit, shit. Cursing in her head didn’t do as
much as cursing out loud, but she didn’t want Petrov knowing she
was upset. The less he knew about her mental state the
better.

The man below her took another long stride up
the hill. Nila fired.

Her first shot hit something because he
screamed. She chambered another bullet, the sound of the bolt
dropping reassuringly powerful, and fired again without looking too
closely at the details of her target. Her ears rang as she readied
her third round, but before she could fire again, a new sound rose
from around them. The shouts of men and the roar of tigers filled
the area.

Not more! They were already surrounded and
outnumbered. Now, it sounded like more than a dozen animals circled
them. They’d never survive, not against those odds.

Nila raised her rifle, prepared to go down
fighting because she’d rather die fast than fall into Petrov’s
hands. Then another sound reached her.

The growl and roar of a tiger fight.

“
Mitch?”

“
The others are fighting Petrov’s
allies,” he said.

“
Who are ‘the others’? What do they
want?”

“
No idea, but they’re helping
us.”

“
Are they the Trackers your
grandmother sent?”

“
We’ll know soon. Don’t relax your
aim.”

She looked back to where her half brother had
fallen. There was nothing there but some blood on the grass. The
other tiger was gone now, too. Damn it, how had they moved away so
fast? Had she killed the one or not?

“
They’re both gone,” she hissed at
Mitch. “The two I shot. They’re gone.”

He gripped her shoulder with one hand, the
awkward angle proving he still wasn’t looking at her.

“
They’re wounded. They aren’t a
threat to us now,” he assured.

“
How did they get away? I looked
away for a few seconds.”

“
We can move fast. Really
fast.”

Not entirely sure how to respond to that
without sarcasm, she held her tongue and searched the trees for new
threats. The sounds of fighting, both man and beast, surrounded
them, loud in the otherwise quiet summer morning.

And then it was over. The noise cut off
abruptly. She heard movement in the trees. A moment later, three
tigers and a naked man moved into the clearing.

The man held up his hands. “Don’t shoot,” he
called. “We drove off the others.”

“
Who are you?” Mitch
said.

“
My name is Sanjay,” the man said.
“We’re here to help.”

“
Who sent you?”

“
No one. We heard about Nila and
wanted to help you protect her.”

“
You’re not Trackers.” Mitch stated
that as fact rather than a questioned.

“
No,” Sanjay said.

“
How did you get to us and the
Trackers haven’t?”

The man shrugged then must have realized Mitch
didn’t see him because he said, “News travels faster than people.
We were already in this area. Our territory is nearby. We heard the
fight and gunfire and came to investigate. We realized what was
happening when one of us recognized Petrov.”

Mitch held silent for a long moment. Nila
wanted desperately to ask him what he was thinking but now was not
the time. She kept her gun aimed toward the three tigers and one
man below and waited for him to make a decision. He knew this
world, these people. She had no idea if they could trust the
newcomers or if this was some complex ploy.

Finally, Mitch said, “We’ll come down. I’d
prefer to see everyone in human form. But Nila…hasn’t seen a lot of
shifting.”