In Like a Lion (20 page)

Fuck.
He’d been bitten.

The poison stung like tiny spikes as it moved into his bloodstream.

He knocked the still-striking snake off the rock with a clawed paw. The serpent flew several feet away and disappeared into the desert.

Anjali’s face was white, her eyes round with terror. “Jake!”

She knelt at his side, running her hands over him, searching for the injury. “Tell me it didn’t bite you.” Her voice sounded rough as frayed rope.

It bit me.

Anjali thrust her hand into her purse. “There’s got to be something I can use to slit the wound . . .” Her words trailed off and she slapped her palm on her temple. “Of course! Jake, your gunshot wound healed when you changed.”

What do you mean?
He began to feel woozy and had trouble following her logic.

“The poison is a foreign object, just like bullets or your clothes. If you turn human, the poison should be ejected when you reform.” Her hands were shaking and her words flew so fast, he could hardly keep up, but he nodded as understanding drilled through the fog beginning to encase him. The pain spread further with every beat of his heart. It was getting hard to talk. If he was going to do something, he would have to do it soon. He focused on his human body, hoping to trigger the metamorphosis.

Nothing.

He tried again, reaching for the feel of individual fingers, the sensation of standing on two feet.

Still nothing.

Gray dots danced in front of his eyes. Soon whole chunks of his vision were missing. The landscape shifted around him. He dug his claws into the ground.

“What are you waiting for?
Change
.” Anjali’s voice rose with desperation. Her face wavered like a mirage as he fought to stay conscious. He hated to disappoint her, but the ground heaved up to smack his chin and darkness closed over him like the surface of a murky pond.
I can’t.

Chapter 25

Jake slumped to the ground in a boneless pile of sandy fur.

The burning pain that sliced through Anjali’s heart at the sight scared her as much as his collapse. Despite the oppressive heat, she felt chilled. How had it happened? How had he become so important to her in such a short time?

She fell to her knees beside him. His huge chest rose up and down. A wave of relief washed over her, making her joints liquid. Trembling, she let her dizzy head bow forward until her forehead touched the dirt.

He was alive. But for how long?

Tears wet her cheeks. She was a medical doctor, but she’d never practiced. Snakebites were beyond her experience.

The air felt thick. Her heart raced in tempo with his.
Probably another aspect of the mate bond.

She dismissed the useless information and concentrated on what she knew about snakebites.

Cut the site and suck the venom
, they used to say, but the latest wisdom said suction proved ineffective. Anjali stood and paced, scattering pebbles as she traced and retraced her steps.
Think, think!
Moderately tight bands above and below the wound and waiting to keep the venom localized before hiking out was recommended, but Jake had been bitten on the chest.

If the venom was a neurotoxin it could paralyze his lungs. A hemotoxin would damage blood and tissue, but his rapid loss of consciousness probably indicated a neurotoxin.

What he really needed was antivenin. She snorted. Fat chance on finding that in the middle of the desert. A rangers’ station might have some, but without a map, Jake would be dead before she could find it. She could make some sort of distress symbol, but Kincaid’s man was way too close and time was ticking away.

A shaft of pain lashed through her, shredding her veins like boiling acid. She tamped down her feelings. She wouldn’t care. She couldn’t. But, God, she’d never felt so inadequate. Even if he survived, she couldn’t move him. They were, as Jake had said earlier, ‘sitting ducks.’

A huff wracked her body. She was thinking like a human, and she wasn’t exactly human anymore.

She glanced at the piercing blue of the sky and closed her eyes. Her animal side was incredibly strong. It had been all she could do to regain her human side the first time, but the risk of staying here with the hunter God-knew-where was too high.

The lioness could drag Jake once she found the energy to change. The dragon . . .

The dragon could move him, but she’d never tried that form.

She gnawed her lip with her teeth, ignoring the coppery taste of blood as she broke the skin. Flying was out. Things in the air were visible for miles in the broad openness of the desert. One thing was for sure—a dragon carrying a lion would certainly be conspicuous.

She dashed away her tears and reached for an empty can. She couldn’t sit here and do nothing while the venom destroyed his organs and tissue.

One thing at time.
Knees weak with fear, she cut above the wound with the razor-sharp lid, pressed her lips to the wound, filling her mouth with poison and blood, then spitting the deadly fluid out onto the dirt, creating a dark spot on the ground.

She sniffed, sifting through the scent for the venom. The odor of blood called to the lion inside her and Anjali panted, forcing aside the distraction.

She memorized the bitter odor of the poison and returned to her task, rinsing her mouth after each mouthful of blood and poison. When the liquid filling her mouth became only blood, she crawled a few feet away and threw up.

Throat burning, chest aching with anxiety, she collapsed beside Jake’s massive body, praying what she had done would be enough. The urge to explain away her feelings beat at her as fiercely as the desert sun on her dark head, but the impulse floated away on the wings of her exhaustion, and she fell asleep, plunging into a fever dream.

The hunter scanned the horizon and crouched beside the paw prints, wincing as his bruised muscles protested. Seeing nothing, he set down his useless rifle then grabbed his sat phone.

“Kincaid.” The voice on the other end sounded eager, and the hunter’s eyes narrowed.

“You told me you had one shape-shifter. You didn’t tell me you have two.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying”—He probed the sore place on the back of his head and winced—“A lioness flattened me. I was almost killed.”

Silence.

“Kincaid?”

“Change of plans. Make sure you dispose of Finn, but bring Dr. Mehta back to the Group.”

“My rifle was damaged. Send someone to meet me with a new one at these coordinates.” He rattled off the numbers on his GPS.

“Very well, expect the weapon soon. With all the news helicopters in the air, I doubt one more will attract too much attention. Wait—” Kincaid’s voice became muffled. He was speaking to someone else in the room. There was a brief exchange the hunter couldn’t quite make out, but two things were clear from the cadence of the conversation, the other person was male and Kincaid was exasperated by whatever the other man had said. After a moment he spoke back into the phone. “It seems my associate has some connections in the area. If they can’t do the job, they’ll flush them your direction.”

The hunter opened his mouth to argue, but the voice on the other end cut him off. “Don’t worry. You’ll be paid either way.”

The hunter again fingered the field dressing on his head. “You’re sure you want her alive? I have a score to settle.”

“Harm a hair on her head and our contract is void.” Kincaid’s normally urbane voice grew rough. “You can take your revenge out of Finn’s hide.”

The hunter smiled. “With pleasure, sir.”

Anjali ran in the dream, but not as a human. Her large paws struck the uneven bricks of a Mumbai street.
Home
. It was night and the streets were full of people, honking cars, and hungry dogs, but no one glanced her way.

She gazed up at the building she still owned. A mango tree towered beside the monsoon-stained concrete building that rose five stories. Each of the floors belonged to one of her uncles. Vinit had lived on the third floor, right below her. She could lean down over her balcony and shout for him to come up.

Suddenly, she knew if she entered she would find him. Find them all. Her aunts in their kitchens directing their maidservants, the sticky air laden with oil and spices. Her father reading the paper before supper, a steaming cup of
cha
by his elbow.

She charged in the open door and up the stairs. In seconds, she was on the landing outside Vinit’s parents’ flat. The door was open. In life, the carved wooden door would have been closed and locked behind a steel grille, but it didn’t concern her. This was a dream, after all.

She entered and padded through each room, finding a dark pile in the middle of the living room. To her horror, she recognized her uncle. His lifeless gaze stared past her into the dining room. Her aunt sprawled there, as if tossed like garbage, her sari twisted around her, blood haloing her head like some Madonna in a Christian church.

Whirling, Anjali raced into Vinit’s bedroom and found him dead, murdered, like the others, his clothes red with blood.

Without thought, she was upstairs. Her parents’ apartment door hung open and she drifted in. Her father was in the compact living room. Not reading the paper as she had imagined, but lying next to another body—her mother, dead, blood pooling by her shoulder from a wound on her neck.

Her father’s eyelids flew up and he glowered up at her, eyes accusing. “You did this. You killed her. You killed them all.”

And somehow she was human, but just a child, crouching to hide her dirty feet beneath her western-style dress and shaking her head, letting her hair swoop forward to cover her face. “No, Pappa. No.”

He lurched at her, grabbing her skirt. “Hear this, Anjali.” His gaze burned into hers. “Everyone you love will die.”

Something shocked her awake. With a gasp, she jack-knifed, sitting up under the blazing sun, her face wet with tears. A bird, another raven, had landed on her. She yelped and scrambled back, shooing it away, almost grateful to it for freeing her from the snare of the nightmare.

She propped herself on her elbow and groaned. Her muscles ached from sleeping on the hard ground. How long had she been out?

The dream had seemed to last forever.

She scanned for clues. Jake’s body had shaded most of her, but her arm hadn’t been covered and a band of pink had been seared into the exposed skin of her forearm above her wrist.

Without her phone, she had no idea of the time, but the shadows were beginning to slant, long and skinny across the rocky landscape, and the heat made her feel less like a chicken thigh in a
tandoori
oven.

She stood and got some water, then took a long gulp and brought a cup to Jake.

His paws twitched. He seemed to be dreaming. A shudder wracked her. Had he shared her dream? God, she hoped not.

Worrying her lip, she sighed. Part of her lingering sorrow was remorse. Burying herself in school and work had numbed the guilt but now it flowed back in an inexorable tide. Why had she survived when everyone else hadn’t? If the test had been one week earlier, she and her mother would have attended the wedding. If the thugs who’d killed her mother hadn’t known she was a doctor, they might not have broken in. She closed her eyes and took a fortifying breath.
You don’t have time for this, Anjali
.
Pull it together.

She knelt beside Jake’s tawny length. “Jake. Wake up.” She patted his golden-furred cheek gently. His pelt was soft on his face, but his whiskers prickled her palm. She was suddenly awed by the realization she was touching a lion, well a chimera in lion form, but still . . .

Laying her head on his chest, Anjali attempted to check his vitals, but she had no idea at what speed his heart should beat or what his temperature should be. She believed animals in general had higher temperatures than humans.

He stirred slightly and she tried again. “Jake.” Her hands fisted in his fur, she shoved him hard enough to rock him slightly, but he remained unconscious.

Had she removed the venom in time? Would he ever wake up? A knot in her chest ballooned to rock size.

Shit.
She wouldn’t care if he died. She
refused
to care. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, go down that path again. She swiped at the tears coursing down her cheeks, and ignored the voice inside whispering,
too late
.

Searching the sky for a helicopter, she poured water into his open mouth and listened for any sound of pursuit.

But the desert was scary silent.

Growing up, there was always a sound, hammers pounding, horns honking, shouts, barking, the tooth-aching shriek of marble being cut. Even after midnight there had been a watchman, banging with his stick as he made his rounds or the sounds of street dogs fighting over territory.

Night was coming. The dark would make it more difficult for their pursuers, but there were other dangers here and not just scorpions and rattlesnakes.

Not to mention they would be out of water soon.

Apprehension shadowed her. She shivered under the broiling sun, rubbing her arms, wincing when she encountered the burned patch.

A rabbit dashed in the distance. A sound she wouldn’t have been able to hear, let alone identify only hours earlier. She flinched.

Don’t be such a wimp, Anjali. You’re a chimera, too
. She stood.

She rubbed her wrist where her bangles normally were, returning to her earlier plan. Should she try to take dragon form? It was chancy. Jake had been bigger than a mini-van. She’d certainly be visible, but she could carry him somewhere, find water, a shelter.

The question was—did she dare?

If the lioness’ instincts had had been alien and overwhelming, how much worse might the dragon be?

She glanced down at Jake and sniffed. Did she have a choice?

Both their lives were at stake. She couldn’t just sit here and wait for Kincaid’s goons to find them.

Anjali stripped and piled her clothes neatly next to Jake. Amazing how fast she’d ceased feeling odd about being naked outdoors. Of course, there was no one for miles.

She closed her eyes and tried to construct the image of the dragon.

Imagining the mythical creature was much harder than the lion. She’d seen lions both in the flesh and on TV her entire life. Dragons weren’t so easy. What kind of dragon should she envision? A Chinese dragon? A Harry Potter dragon?

What did Jake look like in dragon form? She just couldn’t picture it clearly enough. Then she remembered Jake talking about letting the beast out of the cage.

She turned inward, seeking the dragon. She found her waiting, but no matter how hard she tried to bring her to the surface, she wouldn’t form.

Anjali’s face tilted to the heavens. Why wasn’t this working? How had she changed into the lioness?

Then it struck her. Conscious thought had had nothing to do with the transformation. The fury and panic of seeing Jake about to be killed had triggered the change.

Frustrated, she scooped up her clothes to re-dress, then paused. She did have some experience with the dragon. She’d joined with Jake this morning as he flew. It might not have been her body, but she’d shared the experience nonetheless.

She closed her eyes. God, she’d felt so strong, so free. The wind in her face, the exhilaration of powerful muscles in play. She wanted that again.

When she opened her eyes, she was much higher than before with a far, far different field of vision. She laughed. The laugh echoed on the slopes. She’d done it.

She resisted the impulse to take to the sky, taking stock of her new form. Her dragon was smaller than Jake’s but she still covered as much ground as a full-size sofa, not including her tail.