Here There Be Tigers (25 page)

He didn’t close the door when he left so Mitch
did. “No lock,” he said without surprise.

“
Would a lock help?”

“
No.” He faced her and nodded at the
two beds. “They’re not exactly subtle are they?”

“
And that comment about someone
always being awake? They obviously want us to know we’re being
watched.”

“
Even if there weren’t guards inside
the house, the guards patrolling the area would be hard to get
around.”

“
So we’re…what…prisoners here? Under
the guise of being protected?”

He crossed to one of the beds and sat down,
holding a hand out for her to join him. “I think we already knew
that.”

“
Even if your friend shows up first
thing in the morning, will we be able to get out of here without a
fight?”

“
It depends on who my grandmother
sends.”

Nila took his hand and let him pull her down
onto his lap. “I’m not going to sleep tonight,” she said. “I keep
thinking someone will sneak in here and try to kill you in our
sleep.”

He tilted his head back to study her, brushing
her hair behind her ear. “You’re worried about what they’ll do to
me? What about you?”

“
They don’t want me dead, so I’m not
the one in immediate danger.”

“
They do want you, though. And I’m
afraid some of them wouldn’t object to force.”

“
Gregory?”

Mitch nodded as he let his hand caress down her
arm.

“
During that weird conversation by
the fire, you two had some underlying thing going on. What was that
about? He said something about other ways beside the Run to choose
a mate. He wasn’t talking about those death matches that happened
before the Run, was he?”

“
Before the population crisis,
challenge fights were highly ritualized and most males didn’t
die.”

“
That doesn’t exactly answer my
question.” Nila tried not to panic. “Gregory challenged you to a
fight, didn’t he? Would he fight to the death?”

“
I don’t know. Yes, he was
challenging me. For you.”

“
And you accepted?” She smacked him
on the arm. “You idiot. Why the hell did you do that?”

“
Ow,” he said with a half grin,
rubbing his bicep. “Don’t worry. The challenge was for future
reference. He was basically telling me that at some point we will
fight, and I told him I did not intend on backing down.”

“
He’s crazy. Why on earth would you
fight with an obviously crazy person?”

“
To keep him from hurting you,”
Mitch said, his voice quiet and sincere.

Nila’s righteous anger withered and her insides
turned to mush. She cupped his cheek in one hand. “I do not want
you dying for me,” she whispered. “I like you as you are. Very much
alive.”

“
Same,” he said.

He tunneled his fingers into her hair and
pulled her close, kissing her, his mouth soft, his touch gentle.
She settled her hands on his shoulders, feeling the tension in his
bunched muscles. But none of that strain showed in his kiss, only
languid warmth and seduction. With a sigh, she pulled back and
touched his lips with her finger.

“
I wish we could do more of this,
but I keep imagining Sanjay listening at the door.” She couldn’t
sense him there with that newly developed ability to know where the
shifters were, but she’d had trouble with that since entering the
house. There were just too damned many of them and all she felt was
her own tension and anxiety.

Mitch grinned. “You’re not too far off.
Remember we’ve got excellent hearing. Most of the tigers in the
house will be able to at least hear the tone of our conversation if
not our words.”

“
Oh, good. So they all know I’m
weirded out being here.”

“
If they didn’t know that already,
they’re blind with no sense of smell.” He kissed the tip of her
nose. “We’re talking quietly enough that most will only hear our
tones. The tiger they’ve stationed down the hall will know what
we’re saying.”

She glanced at the door. “Before we got here, I
realized I was feeling the other shifters—Petrov’s
people.”

“
Really? Is that new?”

“
It must be. Or if I was able to do
it before, I didn’t know what I was doing since I didn’t know tiger
shifters existed. Can you sense me?” She’d never thought to ask. He
couldn’t sense humans, but she wasn’t completely human.

“
Not the way I can other
tigers.”

“
Huh. Interesting.”

“
Potentially useful.”

“
I don’t know how useful. Since
getting here, I haven’t been able to pinpoint individual shifters
anymore. I think my fear is interfering. Or maybe it’s just the
number of them.” She leaned in and murmured against his ear,
“You’re sure there’s someone as close as down the hall?”

He nodded.

“
Can they hear me when I talk to you
like this?”

He murmured back in her ear, “No. But having
you whisper in my ear is a little too sexy for our present
circumstances.”

His comment surprised a chuckle out of her. “So
now what?” she said, pulling back to look into his face.

He frowned slightly as he wrapped his arms
around her waist and his gaze drifted to the wall behind her. Then
he leaned close and against her ear said, “I smelled rain coming
when we were outside.”

“
You can smell that, too?” she
whispered back.

He nodded. “We have a choice. We can stay here
and wait for my grandmother’s backup to arrive. Or we can take our
chances and use the rain to cover our tracks.”

“
How do we get out of the
house?”

He shifted so he could meet her gaze and
mouthed, “Jump.”

Nila widened her eyes. “You’re
serious?”

He moved his mouth back to her ear. “I can make
the jump easy enough. It’s not that far for me. Then I’ll catch
you.”

She was shaking her head even before he
finished speaking. “You can’t. I know I don’t look that big, but
you cannot catch a full grown woman falling from a second story
window while you’re standing on slopping ground in the middle of a
rain storm.”

His breath brushed warmly against her ear when
he chuckled. “You’d be surprised at what I’m strong enough to do,”
he said.

The promise in his words made her thighs
clench. No time for sex, she reminded herself. “Are you sure? We
won’t get far if I break you in the fall.”

“
I’m sure. But you need to be
prepared. It’ll be dark and hopefully the rain will be strong.
Running won’t be easy. How are your legs after this
morning?”

“
Mostly recovered—food and rest
helped, and I’m in good shape, for a human.” She took time to
consider their options. Staying in this house was not safe. She
knew that in her bones. Gregory had some of the young males out
there patrolling, and Petrov’s tigers were still around somewhere.
On her own, she’d never be able to outrun a tiger if one caught
their trail. Plus whatever help Elizaveta sent would no longer be
able to find them.

The question was could they risk missing the
opportunity presented by the rain? Or was it ultimately better to
tough it out here one night and leave tomorrow?

Then again, what if help didn’t arrive
tomorrow? What if Gregory, or Petrov for that matter, was able to
intercept whoever was coming and send them away…or
worse?

“
What about the guns?” she
mouthed.

They were both still downstairs. After dinner,
Nila had tried to collect hers only to have Richard insist she
wouldn’t need it and set it to one side in the main room. She’d
forgotten to grab it on the way upstairs, which was a stupid thing
to have done, but it was too late to fix the mistake now. She just
wasn’t used to thinking about needing a gun, and she resented the
fact she needed one with real ammunition in it now. A tranquilizer
rifle was one thing. Using a weapon to cause harm sucked. It went
against everything she’d spent her life doing. Yet she’d be stupid
if she refused to use the only weapon she had in this
fight.

Mitch glanced back at the door. “Going for the
rifles now would tip our hands. If we were going to use them, we
should have brought them up with us.”

“
I can’t believe I forgot. I still
have a pocket full of ammunition.”

“
I could make some excuse and go get
them.”

“
No, you’re right, they’d get
suspicious. If we do run, we’ll need as much of a head start as
possible.”

He nodded. “Are you decided, then?”

“
We have time for me to think a
little more?”

“
Yes. Running will be difficult.
Don’t fool yourself.”

“
But staying could be
worse.”

He shrugged. “Possibly.”

“
What do you think we should
do?”

“
I want to get out of this house as
soon as possible. I want you safe.”

“
Yeah, me too. On both counts. As
well as keeping you safe. How much longer will these men hold off
on attempting to get you out of the way?”

“
Not much longer.” He made a face
and squinted at the wall behind her again. “I need to tell you
something, but it’s going to upset you.”

“
Oh, good.” She shook her head. “I
doubt you can tell me anything worse than what I’ve already
heard.”

“
You’re in estrous.”

She blinked. Then she blinked again. She
scowled at him, as if narrowing her eyes and frowning would somehow
make his words make sense. A full minute passed before she shook
her head. “No. I’m on birth control, an IUD, and I’m not cycling
right now. Even in my ordinary human way.”

“
Well, more of your mother is
showing because your scent is like nirvana at the moment. And if
I’m affected, all those males downstairs are being affected,
too.”

“
It’s not biologically possible.
It’s just not.”

“
Did you think tiger shifters were
possible a few weeks ago?”

“
Well, no, but…”

“
You’re unique, Nila. As far as we
know, you are the only one of your kind. You can hear, see, and
smell better than a human. You can sometimes sense tiger shifters.
Why wouldn’t other elements of your biology also be
different?”

“
This is bad. What do I do? How long
has this been going on?”

“
I caught a hint of the scent
earlier today, over lunch. It was faint, but it’s gotten stronger
all evening.”

“
Then why were the other males so
much more relaxed around me this evening? I thought estrous would
start a mating drive or something. It’s a trigger in most
animals.”

“
I think they relaxed because
knowing you were in estrous confirms you’ll probably be able to
conceive with a tiger. And technically, I’ve won the proverbial Run
this time around. They’re conditioned to wait until your next
cycle.”

“
They’re socially programmed to do
that, but will they? They don’t seem to want to observe the current
rules.”

He grimaced and held her closer as they
whispered. “This is another reason I want you out of this place as
soon as possible. Gregory might not bow to my claim on
you.”

She narrowed her eyes and leaned back to stare
at him. “You’re not telling me something? What?”

Pulling her close again, he said, “They’ll be
able to scent you from farther away while you’re in estrous. The
rain will cover that. Water dilutes and muddles the scent. But when
it stops, if we’re not far enough away, they’ll still be able to
track us.”

“
Great,” she mumbled. “You’re sure
this is tiger shifter estrous and not just my normal human
cycle?”

“
The scent of human women doesn’t
affect us the way female tiger estrous does. The difference is very
clear.”

“
But you said I’m
unique.”

“
You are. Your smell is uniquely
powerful and delicious. You’re in estrous, like a tiger shifter
female.”

“
Shit. So we stay? If they can track
me even easier now…”

His cheek brushed against hers. “Dangerous.
They may decide I’ve won for this night, but the way Gregory
thinks, he may demand you pick someone else for tomorrow
night.”

“
I am not—,” she started, loudly,
before cutting herself off. With an effort she lowered her voice to
a barely audible whisper and spoke through clenched teeth. “I am
not fucking any of those men just because some crazy tiger thinks I
should.”

Mitch kissed her cheek. “Good, because I had no
intention of letting you fuck anyone else but me.”

She unclenched her teeth. “Good.
So?”

“
Estrous normally lasts about three
days. If we put enough distance between this house and us tonight,
and keep moving tomorrow, we should make it hard for them to find
us. We’ll keep you away from everyone until your estrous ends.
It’ll mean roughing it. I didn’t want to force that on you,
but…”