The Dark-Hunters (320 page)

Wren ground his teeth as he looked away from the white tigers. They were the number one attraction at the zoo here. His mother hadn’t been wrong.

He hated her for that.

Pushing those thoughts away, he turned back toward Maggie. “Why are you here?”

She gave him a winsome smile. “I told you I have a thing for tigers.” She looked past him, into the pit where the white tigers were playing. “I think Rex and Zulu are the most beautiful creatures I’ve ever seen and I love to come over and watch them.”

Her words amused him. “You like white tigers, huh?”

She nodded. “I would give anything to pet one.”

He smiled at the irony of that. Little did she know, she’d already done it. “They’re not so hard to tame.”

She laughed. “Yeah, right. They’d probably eat anyone dumb enough to go near them.”

Maybe, but not when the hand stroking them was one as gentle and delicate as hers. Any tiger would lie down at her feet.…

At least he would.

Wren took those beautiful hands into his. Her skin was like warm velvet against his, and it reminded him of just how soft the rest of her body was. He could sense a deep sadness inside her, and it made his own heart ache for her. “Why aren’t you studying?”

She sighed as if the weight of the entire universe was on her shoulders. “I couldn’t concentrate. I had a crappy call with my father a little while ago and I was trying to zen myself into some semblance of a happy place.”

His stomach shrank at her words. He hadn’t meant to disturb her. “You want me to leave you alone?”

She shook her head. “No. I found my happy place the minute I saw you.”

His heart stopped beating as he heard words he’d never thought to hear from anyone. This was such an impossible relationship. Were-Hunters didn’t choose their mates; the Fates did that without any input from them.

Whenever a Were-Hunter was to be mated, a mating mark would appear on their hands. It almost always appeared after sex, which was one of the reasons why unmated Were-Hunters were promiscuous. The more they slept around, the more likely they were to find their mate. But there was no visible mark to show him that Maggie was his.

The only mark was the one in his heart that craved her.

He didn’t speak as she bicycled their hands with her fingers laced with his. The smile on her face warmed every part of him.

Her hair was pulled back, with a single strand of it loose to fall down the side of her face to her neck. He longed to brush his lips against that spot so that he could inhale her precious scent.

Her eyes were full of passion and caring. She was without a doubt the most beautiful creature he had ever seen in his life.

A group of schoolkids ran past them, laughing and shouting as they saw the two male tigers.

Wren barely noticed the kids. “What are your plans today?”

She shrugged. “I’m open. What about you?”

“It’s my day off.”

“Really?”

He nodded, then gave her a devilish grin. “Want to go get naked?”

Marguerite squeaked at his offer as she felt heat scald her face. But the truth was, she wanted nothing more. “Is that all I am to you?” she asked in a teasing tone.

“No,” he said with sincerity burning deep in his eyes. “You’re much more to me than that.”

She swallowed at the deepness of his voice. At the needful look on his face. She was completely captivated by him. He let go of her hands to cup her face and tilt it up toward his. Marguerite closed her eyes in expectation of his kiss.

His lips brushed hers.

Until a scream rent the air.

“Help! Oh God, someone call the zookeepers! Hurry!”

Wren pulled away from Marguerite as the children started screaming and people began running all around them.

“What happened?” she asked.

A lady was shrieking a few feet away. “Oh my God, that kid is in the cage with the tigers!”

“They’re going to eat him!”

Marguerite couldn’t breathe as she turned to see a boy around the age of eight in the cage. His face bloody and clothes torn from his fall, he was crying and screaming as he tried to climb back up to the fence, but the concrete wall kept him from it. He splashed around in the water, drawing even more attention from the tigers.

Worse, the tigers were growling and hissing as they stalked down their landing toward the water that separated them from him.

She was sure the kid was dead, as was everyone else in the crowd.

Suddenly, Wren bolted past her, toward the wooden railing that kept the visitors from the fence. She watched in horror as he vaulted over the fence and barbed wire into the cage, to land in a crouch not far from the boy on one of the concrete pads that formed small islands in the water. With his head bent down in that familiar feral pose, Wren rose slowly to his feet and turned toward the child, who was screaming and crying.

She covered her mouth with her hand as she expected the tigers to kill them both.

Wren moved carefully toward the child, who obviously had been hurt from his fall.

“It’s okay, kid,” Wren said in a calm, even tone as he waded through the water to reach the boy. “What’s your name?”

“Johnny.”

Wren reached up to pull him from the concrete pad, but the boy wouldn’t let go.

“Trust me, Johnny. They’re not going to hurt you. I won’t let them.”

Johnny was crying as he reluctantly let go of the concrete. Wren cradled him to his chest as he looked around for a way to get the boy to safety. With Wren’s animal strength, he could easily jump back up to the spectator area above their heads, but that would most likely clue in the people watching them that he wasn’t quite human.

Not that they wouldn’t have some suspicions anyway, since he was going to get out of this cage without either him or Johnny being bitten or mauled. Wren ground his teeth as he realized a number of people were taking pictures.

Damn.

Turning his face away, he glanced around. The best way to get them out of this would be through a gate in the back that the zookeepers probably used to feed the tigers. Wren moved toward it.

Rex and Zulu came closer, roaring and prancing in warning to him. Wren turned around and glared at them. They wanted to attack him, he could sense it, and yet they were confused by his human state and tigard smell.

He hissed at them.

They backed up.

Johnny screamed.

“Sh,” Wren said calmly. “Don’t be afraid. They can smell it, and it’s that scent that makes them want to attack you. Pretend they’re nothing more than pet kittens.”

“But they’re tigers.”

“I know. Pretend you’re a tiger, too. Pretend that they can’t see us at all.”

The boy’s tears slowed. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

Wren nodded. “That’s it, Johnny. Be brave.”

The tigers came closer but stayed back long enough for Wren to reach the gate. A group of zookeepers were already there to unlock it. As soon as Wren handed Johnny to the female keeper, one of the tigers ran for him.

“Run!” the keeper screamed.

Wren didn’t move as the tiger leapt at him. He caught the tiger and rolled to the ground with him. Rex only wanted to play with Wren. He lay on the ground with the tiger on his chest as Rex nipped teasingly at Wren’s skin. He patted Rex’s head playfully.

“You better let me up, Rex,” he said quietly. “Otherwise they might trank you.”

The tiger licked his face before he bounded away. Wren got up and went back to the fence.

“What the hell was that?” the keeper asked.

“I grew up around tigers,” Wren said. “They’re just big cats.”

“Yeah,” the keeper said in a disbelieving tone. “Right. You’re lucky you weren’t lunch.”

Wren stepped out of the cage.

As the keeper locked the gate behind him while another keeper tended to the boy, Maggie came running up to Wren. “Are you okay?”

He nodded.

She held him at arm’s length to examine him as if she couldn’t believe he was completely intact. “I thought you were dead when that one tiger ran at you.”

“He just wanted a playmate.”

“Yeah, and hell is just a sauna. You could have been eaten alive.”

He smiled at her concerned tone. “Eaten alive’s not so bad, depending on who it is doing the biting.”

A rich blush covered her face. “How can you make light of this? What you did was incredible.”

People were starting to come up to them, asking questions that Wren had no intention of answering.

“C’mon,” he said to Maggie. “Let’s get out of here.”

She nodded before she took his hand and led him toward the exit. They had to dodge a lot of people wanting answers before they could safely make it to her car.

As soon as they were in it, Marguerite drove him back toward her house. “Were you really raised around big cats?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“In New York?”

By her tone he could tell she didn’t quite buy it. “You don’t believe me?”

“Well, New York isn’t exactly known for its wilderness areas.”

Wren gave her a wry grin. “Okay. The truth is I’m like Doctor Dolittle. I can speak to all animals. I know what they’re thinking at all times. I jumped into the cage and told the tigers to back off. They obeyed me because I’m one of them.”

Marguerite rolled her eyes. “Now you’re being ridiculous.”

Wren let out an exasperated sigh. He couldn’t win for losing. Even when he told her the truth, she refused to believe it. “Then you tell me, Maggie. Why didn’t the tigers kill me?”

“Were you ever around lion tamers?”

He laughed at that. “I’m around you. I could easily classify you as a tiger tamer.”

“Oh, forget it. I can’t get a straight answer out of you, can I?”

Ironically, she’d been getting them, she just didn’t want to hear them. Not that he could blame her. In her world, people were people, they weren’t animals in disguise. Her kind didn’t belong in his world. Very few humans could even begin to understand, let alone survive in it.

“I’ve missed you, Maggie,” he said in a hushed tone. “You’re all I’ve been thinking about for days. I lie in bed and all I can think about is being with you, touching you.”

She pulled into her driveway and turned the engine off. He sensed irritation and unrest from her.

“I don’t get you, Wren,” she said as she faced him. “You’re one of the richest men in the country and yet you live like you’re penniless and work as a busboy in a biker bar of all places. You tell me you don’t want to see me anymore at the same time you tell me all you want to do is get naked with me. That you’ve missed me even though I haven’t had one word from you in days. What is the truth of you? Are you just playing with me? Because if you are…”

“I don’t understand me, either. Okay? I never have. Until the night you came into Sanctuary, everything was basic. I got up, I ate, I worked, and I went to bed. Now … I don’t know what I want.”

That wasn’t the truth. He knew exactly what he wanted. He just couldn’t have it.

“I know I’m bad for you, Maggie. If I had a brain in my head, I would walk away and leave you alone, but God help me, I can’t. I just want to be with you even though I know it’s wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

He ground his teeth in anger, wishing he could tell her the truth and have her believe it. But he couldn’t. Telling her would most likely get her killed. “I don’t belong in your world.”

“
I
don’t belong in my world.”

He scowled at her. Now she was the one being ridiculous. “Of course you do.”

“No, Wren, I don’t. I might wear the clothes and drive the car, but my heart isn’t in my life. I hate that I let my father make me feel like I’m somehow unworthy of what I have. I hate that I’m living here in the house Daddy picked out because he was afraid that if I lived in a dorm—which is what I wanted to do—I’d be hanging out with the wrong kind of people. There have been so many times in my life when I prayed that I’d have the courage to run away from all this. And yet here I am, still in Daddy’s house, still taking classes I hate, and all because I don’t know what else I should be doing with my life.”

Her sadness reached out to Wren in a way nothing ever had before.

“If you could be free of your father, what would you do?”

She let out a slow breath. “I don’t know. Travel maybe. I’ve always wanted to see all the different cultures of the world, but my father won’t allow it. He says it’s too dangerous and he’s afraid I might get caught in some scandal that could backlash onto him or his career. I can’t imagine being you and having no one to answer to. What’s it like to have that kind of freedom?”

Wren laughed bitterly. “It’s lonely. No one cares what happens to me. Had I been shot dead the night we met, they would have buried me without a tear and that would have been the end of it. And I’m not as free as you think I am. There are a lot of people who would have rejoiced had the bullet hit me a little further to the left and pierced my heart. People who would love to see me dead.”

“Why?”

Bitterness swelled inside him. “Money motivates, and there are several people who would be a lot richer if I were no longer here.”

“Well, there’s one person I know of who would be a lot poorer if you vanished.”

Wren’s heart clenched at her words. He leaned forward to capture her lips with his. She tasted of woman and sweetness. Of pure decadence. But most of all, she tasted of heaven.

She wrapped her arms around him as they embraced in the tight confines of her car.

His cock hardened with a primal need that only she could fulfill. It wasn’t just sexual. She touched something else inside him. Something both human and animal.

Breathless, Wren pulled back to stare at her. He could use his powers to take them from the car to the bed, but that would be really stupid.

The last thing she wanted to know was that she was sleeping with an animal.

Wanting her more than he’d ever wanted anything, he reached across her and opened her car door.

Marguerite practically fell out of her car. Wren crawled over to come out of the car behind her on her side. Before she could even catch her breath, he scooped her up in his arms and virtually ran with her toward her house.