Here There Be Tigers (28 page)

Being surrounded and under threat caused her
muscles to tighten further and adrenaline surged through her
system. She scanned the hall, looking for options, weapons, but the
area was clean and featureless. Not even a pen she could grab off a
table.

Her guards led her through the main room to a
door near the kitchen. She looked around for her rifle—which
wouldn’t do her any good since they’d taken the bullets—but it had
disappeared, too. Ryan opened the door and revealed a set of
brightly lit stairs leading down. The passageway was narrow but the
wooden stairs were clean and dry. She balked at the top of the
steps, her every instinct shying away from the confined
space.

With a deep breath, she forced herself to take
the first step before the guard behind her tried making her move.
She did not want any of these men touching her. No point in giving
them an excuse.

The stairs switched back once. At the bottom,
they opened onto a large area the size of the main room above. This
space, however, was not prettily decorated. In the center, a giant
chalked circle filled the middle of the wooden floor, taking up the
bulk of the room. Around the circle, stood the other tiger
males.

Gregory was directly opposite the stairs and
the first to catch her eye when Ryan moved out of the way. He
smiled. She was starting to think of that expression as his cult
leader smile. That smile made her want to turn and run.

She didn’t run, but she did turn away without
acknowledging his greeting. Scanning the others for Mitch, she was
surprised not to see him. She realized as she looked at the various
human faces, she didn’t see Richard or Jim either, though she only
had a vague idea what Jim looked like. With a frown, she looked
back at Gregory.

He was still smiling. Sweeping his hand out to
the side, he moved a step to his left and revealed a chair. “The
seat of honor,” he said, loud enough for the comment to
echo.

She wanted to be brave, snarky, smart. But her
muscles refused to move. Her instincts screamed at her to run away.
Her feet refused to take her farther into the room. The longer she
stood in one place, however, the thinner Gregory’s smile grew until
it finally fell away. He nodded to the two males behind her and
they each grabbed one of her arms. The exact thing she didn’t want
to happen.

Their touches started a fine trembling of
terror in her stomach. She’d never felt so defenseless in her life.
She wouldn’t stand a chance if this group ganged up and raped her.
Oh, she’d fight. She might even surprise them since she was strong
for a human. But she wasn’t a trained fighter and she wasn’t a
shifter. She’d lose.

The thought brought bile up her
throat.

Swallowing back the need to throw up, she took
the first step forward without being forced. That was the only
power she had left. She refused to be dragged around. As soon as
she started moving, another look from Gregory had the men dropping
their grip.

Once freed, her nerve returned somewhat and she
managed to get to the chair without actually panicking and bolting
toward the stairs.

She didn’t sit, though, and she refused to
speak, despite the questions pushing at her clenched teeth.
Where’s Mitch? Why are you doing this? Who the hell do you think
you are?

Gregory held her gaze for a long, silent
moment. It was all she could do to remain still under his scrutiny.
Finally, he took her arm and eased her with gentle but unrelenting
pressure into the seat.

“
Thank you for joining us,” he said
with a straight face.

Again, she wanted to come back with a smart,
sharp comment, but her brain wasn’t working fast enough for
witticisms.

Gregory waited a beat for her to speak then
turned back to the room as her two guards flanked the chair. “Bring
out the combatants.”

A door near the stairs that she hadn’t seen
before opened. Jim and Richard walked out first, both completely
naked. Once they stood in the circle, everyone turned back to focus
on the door. She held her breath, waiting. A beat later, Mitch
stepped out.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN

Nila stared. Mitch was also naked, and like the
others, he didn’t seem conscious of his nudity. As he slowly walked
toward the circle, she realized he was moving a little stiffly, not
with his usual grace. Frowning, she looked over his body. He wasn’t
bleeding, but as she looked closely at his face, she could see a
faint shadow around his left eye.

“
You beat him already?” she hissed
up at Gregory. “Cowards.”

The room seemed to suck in a deep breath and
all eyes turned from Mitch to her. She didn’t care. She kept her
gaze on Mitch. His mouth lifted slightly at one corner as he held
her gaze. A growl from behind her made the hair on her nape prickle
but she didn’t turn or show the fear that trickled through her
system, ignoring the fact that everyone in the room could probably
smell it anyway.

Mitch glance up at Gregory, still with that
faint smile lifting his lips.

Nila practically felt the others holding their
breath. Gregory’s presence behind her made her skin crawl, but she
focused on Mitch. When Gregory finally spoke, the break in the
silence made Nila jump.

“
Richard, take your
place.”

Jim moved out of the circle to stand in the
middle of several of the other males. Richard passed around the
edge of the circle until he was standing opposite Mitch and a few
feet in front of Nila. She leaned to one side so she could keep an
eye on Mitch.

Mitch finally turned away from Gregory and
focused on her again. His smile lifted a little and he winked. Then
he mouthed, “Don’t worry.” Aloud, he said, “Nila isn’t used to
watching us shift. May she close her eyes?”

“
Of course,” Gregory said, all
politeness and chivalry. “Please, Nila, feel free to close your
eyes as you need to.”

She snorted but didn’t otherwise
reply.

“
Combat rules will hold,” Gregory
said in formal tones. “Begin!”

Richard started shifting immediately. Nila
tried ignoring the process, though he was only a few feet away, and
held Mitch’s gaze for a few seconds longer.

“
Close your eyes,” he murmured. “You
can watch me shift later, when you’re ready.”

She swallowed and nodded. She wanted to be
brave enough to watch this, but holding her sanity right now was a
fine, delicate thing. She closed her eyes and counted slowly to a
hundred. After watching Vlad shift, she knew the process took a
couple of minutes, at least going from tiger to human. She wasn’t
sure how long the reverse process took but figured it would take
close to the same amount of time. When she reached a hundred, she
allowed herself to listen to her surroundings. A slight noise in
front of her made her stomach clench and her eyes popped
open.

A huge male Amur tiger paced back and forth in
front of her, its body thick with muscle, its fur clean and
rippling. Under the bright cellar lights, his stripped orange coat
glimmered. He glanced at her during one of his passes, and she
shivered. The intelligence in his yellow eyes was sharp and aware.
She had the disorienting feeling of looking into a human’s eyes
while staring at the tiger’s face. No one who looked at those eyes
would confuse a tiger shifter for a real tiger.

Finally, she glanced across the ring to see
Mitch, for the first time, in tiger form.

He was also an Amur, a little larger than
Richard, his body a little bulkier, though not by much. He stood in
a half crouch, not pacing, not moving, the full force of his gaze
on his opponent. As a tiger, his eyes were still hazel green, a
surprising contrast to the otherwise classic tiger features. He
didn’t glance at her, not once as she stared at him, but she could
see that same sharp intelligence in Mitch that she’d seen in
Richard.

And more. She
saw
Mitch. Looking into
his eyes, she saw the man. Seeing him like this… He was
magnificent.

Pulling in a steady breath, she waited for one
of the tigers to start the fight and a part of her hoped they’d
just posture and call it a day. She’d seen tigers fight before, in
the wild and in captivity. It was an awesome thing to behold. Also
terrifying. In this case, the fact that one of these tigers just
happened to be the man she loved meant terror overwhelmed
awe.

Both males growled and chuffed as they took
each other’s measure. Finally, as if they’d reached an agreement of
some sort, both lunged at precisely the same moment. Nila bit back
a scream as they met in the middle of the circle, claws swinging,
rising up on their hind legs.

For a heartbeat, she lost track of which one
was Mitch as the two males swirled together, a flow of muscles,
claws, and teeth. But as they sprang apart to measure each other
again, she immediately recognized Mitch. From that point on, she
was able to keep track of him during the fight and she kept her
gaze on him, following his every movement.

He was a clever combatant, she realized. He
kept Richard off balance, drawing him close when he wanted him
there and forcing him back a moment later. There seemed to be
tactics in the way Mitch fought, not just pure animal instinct. As
she watched, it occurred to her that any human watching this would
recognize it was more than a normal tiger fight. There was too much
planning, too many moves that weren’t quite natural for a
tiger.

With a deep roar, Richard lunged and Mitch
swung out with his forepaw while neatly avoiding Richard’s claws.
Richard stumbled and was slow to turn. When he did, Nila saw the
jagged red line along his shoulder. Limping slightly, Richard
continued charging Mitch, but Mitch easily batted him away now,
taunting the younger tiger with his lazy movements and casually
inflicted hits.

Richard’s wounds left streaks of red around the
circle and filled the large area with the metallic tang of blood.
Nila held her breath as Richard lunged at Mitch again, a lunge that
left his underbelly completely vulnerable. Mitch slid under the
assault and in a move too fast to follow, he flipped Richard onto
his back. Almost gently, Mitch crouched over him and settled his
mouth around his throat. Richard held still and stiff for several
moments, growling quietly, then his body went lax.

Mitch rose and backed away, crouching at the
opposite end of the circle as Richard got to his feet.

“
They fought slowly so you could
watch,” Gregory said, leaning in close enough to speak in her ear.
“Richard underestimated Mitch’s skill at this speed. The next fight
will be faster.”

She didn’t respond. She had no idea what
Gregory was talking about as the fight had seemed to move pretty
fast to her until Richard’s wounds got the better of
him.

As Richard, still in tiger form, slinked out of
the circle, Jim in human form walked in. His body convulsed as he
began changing. She turned away, keeping her gaze on Mitch’s face,
working hard not to see what was happening in her peripheral
vision.

When Mitch stood, she took that as a sign she
could look. Jim was a large white Bengal tiger, his blue eyes sharp
with that same unnatural intelligence. His fur glowed in the
lighting, giving him an ethereal quality. He was leaner than Mitch
but equally tall at the shoulders.

She expected more of the growling, chuffing,
hissing, pacing she’d seen in the previous match. Instead, in a
move blurred by speed, Jim flew at Mitch. The two tigers rolled
across the ground, leaving the circle and coming up hard against a
wall. The sound of their bodies connecting with stone and wood made
her cringe. They were on their feet and flying at each other a
second later, again moving so fast all she saw was a white and an
orange streak tangling together, moving apart then swirling
together again.

Now she understood what Gregory meant. No real
tiger moved this fast. Nila blinked and they were halfway across
the room from where they’d been the second before. The fight moved
back into the circle after that first charge but the men
surrounding the circle had all taken several steps back, leaving
the combat area larger.

One tiger howled, another hissed, then a roar
shook the walls. Blood appeared, splashing across the circle, and
Nila half rose from her chair. Gregory’s hand came down gently but
forcefully on her shoulder, pushing her back into her seat. He left
his hand on her shoulder, which gave her a shiver of distaste, but
when she tried dislodging his touch, he refused to move. She wanted
to reach up and shove him away, but another howl and another streak
of blood kept her too focused on the fight.

Was that red mixed with white fur or orange?
Where they both wounded now?

Not being able to see the fight clearly made
her want to scream. Despite the speed, the battle lasted longer
than the previous one. Richard might have been a good fighter, at
least according to Ryan, but obviously, Jim was much better. Or
maybe moving slowly enough for her to watch had thrown the first
tiger off his usual game.

She didn’t care. All she knew was that Mitch
was right in front of her, trying to stay alive, and she couldn’t
do a damned thing to help. Even yelling would only distract him.
She ground her teeth together, keeping her shouts and cries of
distress as much to herself as possible. She couldn’t contain every
gasp and once she tried launching out of her chair again. But her
butt never left the seat thanks to Gregory’s continued
hold.