Here There Be Tigers (36 page)

Nila swallowed down her panic along with the
bile in her throat. Tears filled her eyes, leaking down her cheeks
slowly. What the hell was she going to do now? She couldn’t run,
she had no weapons, and the only potential help she had might be on
the point of death. Swiping away the tears on her cheeks, she tried
focusing, concentrating on where they were going, and on the men in
the cab with her.

There was nothing she could do right now. But
she was still alive.

She just had to figure out how to stay that
way.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE

The shiny, silver metal barn glared in the
sharp sunshine. Nila squinted at it as if she could see inside but
afraid to imagine what might be there. The truck pulled behind the
structure so it was hidden from the road. There were no nearby
houses or other barns visible beyond the surrounding woods. At
least not from the direction they’d been driving. She couldn’t be
sure if there were neighbors closer on the other side, but she
suspected not. Petrov wouldn’t bring her to a place where screams
would attract attention.

The silent man with dead eyes left the truck
without looking at her. She felt the vehicle rock with the other
two climbing down from the flatbed. Stephen was the last to exit.
He stood just outside the truck door, looking around, his head
raised. Then he looked back in.

“
Come on,” he grunted, motioning her
out with his gun.

She looked for the other men as she climbed
out. If she could surprise them, get to the woods before they shot
her, she might be able to reach the main road and help before they
had time to shift and chase her. Stephen must have sensed her
intentions, though, because he grabbed her arm in a bruising grip
before her feet touched the ground.

He set the gun to her forehead. “Petrov wants
to kill you himself,” he said against her ear. “But he’s promised
some of the tigers they can play with you first. So I’d rather not
have to shoot you yet. Believe me when I say I will, though, if you
try anything at all. I’m willing to face Petrov’s
displeasure.”

He held her tight against his chest as he
sniffed her neck. The gesture made Nila snarl in disgust, but
jerking away would move her toward the gun so she held
still.

“
Estrous,” he muttered. “You really
are a mixed breed.”

She held her tongue even as she continued
scanning the area, looking for a way out, biding her time. The two
human men from the back of the truck had moved inside the barn. The
other tiger waited a few feet away, staring at them with his
emotionless gaze.

Stephen flicked his tongue out, tasting her
skin. Nila clenched her jaw to keep from reacting. Her muscles were
tight so she forced herself to relax. She wouldn’t be able to move
well if she was too tense. She watched the dead-eyed tiger for
reaction. Nothing. He just stared.

Stephen finally raised his head and pushed her
forward. “Petrov is right to kill you,” he said as they headed
toward the small door inset in the larger barn doors.

“
Why?”

The other tiger fell in beside them. He had his
gun in his hand, but he held it down against his thigh, his finger
along the side rather than over the trigger.

As they reached the open door, Stephen finally
answered her. “You’ll destroy our species.” Then he shoved her into
the dark interior.

Inside, the barn was much cooler than she’d
expected. She’d been assuming all that metal in the sunshine would
leave the place sweltering. Goose bumps rose on her arms as her
eyes adjusted to the darkness. There were only a couple open
windows, high up near the ceiling, so the space was twilight dim.
When she could see enough to assess the area, she realized it was
wide open and clean, the cement floor beneath her smooth and gray.
The place looked brand new, but there was no indication what the
barn would eventually be used for.

“
Do you like it?” a deep and
unfortunately familiar voice asked.

The sound echoed in the open space. She waited
where she stood, just inside the door, flanked by Stephen and the
dead-eyed tiger as Petrov walked toward her. He wasn’t as tall as
she’d expected, maybe six foot, and lean but in a coiled,
well-muscled way. His blond hair was almost white, his eyes a
piercing blue. Given Vlad’s appearance, she’d expected Petrov to be
darker. Anaya’s traits must have been dominant. At least with the
oldest son.

She wonder what Petrov’s tiger would look like.
Maybe a white Amur to match his white hair and eyes? Or did such
things carry into their tiger forms?

“
The barn,” he clarified when she
didn’t respond to his question. “A fortunate find, don’t you
think?” He stopped in front of her, close enough to touch, and
stared into her eyes. “Do you speak?” he asked with a slight
smile.

He studied her face up close. She watched his
blue eyes, his mouth, his expression, looking for hints to his
state of mind. She saw anger there, tightly controlled, and the
slight twitch of his lip into a faint snarl gave her a clear sign
he felt disgust. But there was something else that passed over his
expression as he stared, something she couldn’t identify.
Unfortunately, whatever it was didn’t look gentle or
forgiving.

“
You look like her,” he
murmured.

He spoke so quietly, she wondered if he’d meant
for her to hear that. “Everyone tells me I look like my
father.”

His expression froze. Nothing changed in the
way he looked at her, but she saw he held the expression with
difficulty. The creases around his eyes deepened slightly, the only
indication of a reaction to her statement.

“
You’re small,” he said, “and weak.
So was your mother.”

She had no response to that, so she just stared
back, refusing to drop her gaze or rise to his bait. He wanted her
dead and she was seriously outnumbered, but he seemed to want to
play games with her rather than just putting a bullet in her brain.
That meant she had time—to plan, to escape. She just had to avoid
pissing him off further and forcing him to act.

But she had no intention of being cowed by her
mother’s mate either.

After a long moment, he finally nodded to
Stephen. “The restraints.”

Stephen grabbed her arm and hauled her toward
the opposite side of the barn. She looked around for escape options
and noticed the two human men were nowhere to be seen, but she
didn’t see another door. There was no sign of Vlad, or either of
the tigers she’d shot.

She scanned the floor. There had to be a cellar
entrance, someplace for the humans to have gone. Despite her
search, though, she couldn’t spot anything. The space was huge
though and the ground near the walls was difficult to study as
Stephen walked her in a straight line down the middle of the barn.
There had to be another exit somewhere, something she might be able
to use.

Her thoughts jumped to Mitch. Were some of
Petrov’s men following him and the others? Was he walking into a
trap of his own? Or would Petrov leave him alone now that he had
her? Not likely. He seemed too ruthless for that. But maybe Irina
had managed to get help, to warn Mitch.

Halfway across the huge space, she finally
looked up and noticed at the far end of the barn a set of leg
manacles set into the cement and a matching set hanging from the
metal wall. They gleamed silver in the dim light. The chains
attached to the manacles had links the size of her fist. Those
restraints were designed to hold someone a lot stronger than a mere
human woman.

She balked, stopping her forward progress. If
they chained her with those things, she was dead. There would be no
escape. Stephen shoved her hard in the middle of the back, making
her stumble a few steps forward and drop to her hands and
knees.

“
Up,” he ordered, snatching a
handful of her hair and jerking her head back.

She hissed at the pain and grabbed at the base
of the clump he had to keep him from ripping her hair out. She rose
awkwardly to her feet. With his hand still wrapped in her hair, he
pushed her forward again. The closer she got to the chains, the
harder her heart hammered.

“
Why chain me?” she asked. “You’ve
got me outnumbered and outgunned. Not to mention you’re a lot
stronger and faster than I am. Where the hell am I going to
go?”

“
You got away from me once before,”
Stephen said against her ear. “Not gonna happen again. And as I
said, Petrov wants to play with you first.”

She shuddered and ground her teeth together to
hold in her fear. “He killed her,” she murmured. “He killed Anaya.
She didn’t commit suicide.”

Stephen didn’t respond, just jerked her hair in
a hard tug that almost sent her sprawling again. It mattered to
him, how Anaya had died. She was sure of it. He wouldn’t have told
Irina that Anaya killed herself if he cared one way or the other.
Petrov had lied to him. Knowing that might just get her out of
this, though she wasn’t sure how yet.

She needed to convince him Petrov had lied. But
how? Especially when she didn’t have any proof. One thing she was
sure of, though. After staring into Petrov’s eyes, at the violence
and disgust there, Nila had no doubt he’d killed Anaya.

And he would kill her, too.

Her feet barely obeyed her commands to move the
last few yards to the manacles. Panic made her breathe faster, and
despite the pressure Stephen used to push her forward, animal fear
had her trying to scramble away from the chains. Her terror lent
her strength. She managed to throw Stephen off balance and get
around behind him before he jerked hard on her hair again. This
time, she did end up falling, landing hard enough on her ass to
momentarily push the air from her lungs. Before she could suck in a
breath, Stephen and the dead-eyed tiger had both of her
arms.

They dragged her backward to the manacles. She
fought, thrashing and kicking, even slipping free from Stephen’s
hold once, but he caught her up again. She couldn’t shake them both
off, not with their superior strength. She hated that her fear was
driving her to this. She had to stay calm, she had to remain aware,
but the thought of being helplessly chained triggered all her most
basic animal instincts to flee.

Despite being half their size and nowhere near
as strong, it still took both men to get her slammed up against the
corrugated metal and the manacles snapped around her wrists and
ankles. She fought and struggled until the last wrist restraint
clicked into place. Even then she jerked at the bindings. She could
barely move her legs and her arms where spread far enough apart,
she had no leverage.

She only stopped struggling when Stephen took
her face in his hands and set his nose against hers. The shock of
his closeness made her jerk away, bouncing her head hard off the
wall. That stupid move was enough to stun her into a momentary
quiet.

When she’d calmed down, Stephen said, “Struggle
more and you’ll bleed to death slowly from the wounds you’ll
cause.”

“
I’m a dead woman anyway,
right?”

“
True. But you can choose to die
quickly, when Petrov’s ready. Or you can continue to fight the
inevitable and make your death a lot more painful. Up to
you.”

“
Bastard,” she snarled, unable to
help herself.

“
I’m not the half-breed
here.”

“
No. You’re not good enough for
that.”

His hands tightened on her cheeks, and for a
brief flash, she thought he might break her neck. To her surprise,
the dead-eyed tiger grabbed his wrist and forced him back. The two
men exchanged a long look. Then all of Stephen’s muscles relaxed
and he walked away without another word.

The dead-eyed tiger watched him until he left
the barn by the same door they’d come through, then he looked at
her.

“
You do look like Anaya,” he said in
his low gravelly voice, but with absolutely no emotion in his
tone.

She couldn’t tell how he felt about her
resemblance to her mother, if he felt anything at all.

“
Stephen ran for Anaya. He caught
her once. But Petrov succeeded in getting her pregnant after
Stephen failed.”

“
Then how can he help the man who
killed her? How can you?”

“
You’ll ruin us,” he
said.

Again his tone was so flat she had no idea if
he cared about what he was saying. “I’m just one woman. I can’t
destroy your entire species.”

“
Yes, you can.”

With that, he walked away. She jerked at her
chains and called to him, but he ignored her. She wanted more
answers. She wanted to understand why these others were helping
Petrov. Did the dead-eyed tiger think she was an abomination, too?
What of the lie Petrov had told them about Anaya’s death? Was that
buying their loyalty?

So many questions. She jerked at the chains
again, biting her lip when the manacles cut into her wrist and she
felt blood drip down her forearms. She knew she had to calm down,
to think and try figuring a way out of this. But as the dead-eyed
tiger left the barn and she realized she was alone, chained to a
wall by binding she couldn’t budge, panic once again took hold, its
fist tightening around her throat.