Tiger Bound (16 page)

“Everything’s fine.” She leaned against the porch post. “Ian left a little while after you did. I’ve been shifting appointments and working on next week’s kennel club presentation.”

His face twitched at a new trickle of blood. She reached out to wipe gentle fingers across his cheek, and instantly plunged into an intensity of seeing—
pungent scent...flash of green and spinning, grizzled gray...slash of wicked white tusk...

Power. Surging strength, self-aware prowess...the coil and stretch of muscles honed to perfection, reflexes sharp.

Katie found herself looking into eyes of tiger-green, her breath coming fast, her cheeks and body flushed.
This,
she realized suddenly, was what it was to be predator. What it was to be
Maks.

“Katie Rae?” he said, and his voice was calm amid all that wild. Controlled.

Because, she realized, he was comfortable with it. With it and with himself.

“Fine,” she said, if somewhat breathlessly, still bemused by the vision and still bemused by the fact that it had hit her at all—still captured by its effect on her. “Maks, I—”

He wasn’t so oblivious as all that. He lifted her right off the porch to him, the one arm giving way ever so slightly, and when he said, “Katie Rae,” again, his voice was entirely differently. A little lower. A little catch that she could hear from the inside out, the feel of it a delicious scrape against her senses.

“I wish I understood—” she said desperately, clinging to his shoulders and swamped in that rise of warmth, reveling in it...confused by it. Knowing Maks would likely pay if she acted on it. “I don’t know you,” she said. “Not really. So what I felt when I saw you in the woods...was that real? Or is it driven by what I see? What I’ve
seen?
”

“Is that how the sight does things?” His hands lingered at her waist, settling lower so his thumbs caressed her hip bones while his fingers curved around behind, gently and unmistakably possessive. “Because why, then, would I feel it too?”

She sucked in a breath at the sharp pull of him. “For a man of few words,” she said, “you sometimes choose them damned well.”

His smile curved a little. “I try not to need them at all.”

She groped for balance. “You’re hurt again.”

“Yes,” he agreed, and didn’t move. He merely stood there, with her, his hands quietly possessive of her—until she realized, with some surprise, that it meant something to him. Just this.

“You’re
being,
” she said, voicing the surprise.

He made an agreeable sound from deep in his chest. With some hesitation, she closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of his body, breathing lightly of his mixed scent, the pines still hot from the sun. She allowed the underlying tingle of trepidation from the deer; she found the delighted little quiver of response in his presence and didn’t judge it or try to do anything about it.

There was no vision, no healing in process, no trickle of connecting power. There was just them. Her heart beat faster, kicking up a notch.

Maks made another little sound in his chest...satisfaction. Katie’s eyes fluttered open so she could see his face and absorb that, too. She had the impulse to run her fingers across his mouth—to feel its warmth and definition.

Maks smiled faintly. It struck tender little sparks across her body, and he must have discerned that, too, for his smile widened—

And then he stiffened, the breath turned to a sharp, swallowed inhalation, his eyes flying open to green and wild and—

Frightened.

Confused.

She felt it, too—the tight pull of fear, the tangle of not understanding, being jarred out of the sweetness of the moment into—

She felt that, too—just a hint of it. His pain.
Again.

::Maks?::
she sent him, instinctively reaching out in a way she’d so far avoided. So personal, the mind-voice, so hard to hide the truth of what one was.

In response, she felt a quick buffet of denial, a strong impression of dismay; she gasped at it. Maks gave her a startled look, closed his eyes on the wild green, and stepped back. One step, so deliberate and purposeful.

The pain faded; the sense of him muted.

“What—” she said, barely more than a whisper.

He shook his head. Blood trickled down his slashed cheek, and though his brow drew from the faintest of frowns, she knew it wasn’t directed at her. She took a deep breath...and let it go, if only for the moment. She made her voice matter-of-fact. “What happened out in the woods?”

“The Core.” Short words, hard-spoken. His glance went out to the woods. “They’re back.”

Darkness and the stench of corruption and suffering—

She pulled herself away from memories—still haunting him, still trickling through to her—steeling her voice and her restlessness. “You found them?”

His expression darkened. “I found what they have made.”

“It’s real? The creature?”

The look on his face was answer enough.

“I’d convinced myself it wasn’t,” she admitted. “It’s not like people haven’t been hunting it—that they haven’t taken out dogs and tromped the woods.”

He said simply, “I knew where to look.” He barely gave her time to absorb the implications of that statement before he added, “The Core has workings.”

Understanding bloomed. “Keep-aways,” she said, thinking of what Ian had said about a Core rogue.
Not playing by the rules.
“No dog would cross that line. No human, either—they wouldn’t even recognize it.”

Frustration crossed his features; he shook his head. “Exactly where they hide...” He let his voice trail away, and simply shook his head. “I never did know.”

Sorrow assailed her again, coming to her from him no matter that he’d stepped away, glimpses of a woman gaunt and fierce, not so very much older than Katie was now. Running as the woman, running as a tiger—not so massive as Maks, wounded...determined. Someone else’s blood streaking her pale throat.

Strong, throat-clamping grief—there and gone again.

Maks turned away.

She cleared her throat—still not asking.
Not yet.
“I know that you’ve got to report this...you’ve got to eat—”

He interrupted with a shake of his head, barely perceptible.

She said faintly, “You grabbed something to go, I take it?”

“And I already talked to brevis.”

“How—?”

“Annorah,” he told her. “On the way back. She listens for those of us in the field.” He waited for her to take it in, then added, “She wants you to know that they understand—there, at brevis—that this is bigger than they expected. They’re gathering a team. Until they come...we stay quiet. I’ll keep you safe.”

“Nick still wants you back in Tucson, I bet.”

Maks didn’t answer, which was answer enough.

Katie buffed her hands over her arms, feeling the tingle of her own distressed energies—gathering them up, flicking them off her hands like water. “Maks,” she said, “I need to understand what happens between us when I touch you—”

Except then she instantly blushed with annoying intensity as he raised his eyebrows in a very clear
Don’t you?

“I
mean,
” she told him, “the
other
thing that happens. The energy I feel, the distress it seems to cause you. I want to try a healing—a controlled one. I have no intention of letting that cheek scar for lack of treatment, for one thing—and I want to see...” She trailed off, bit her lip, and hunted for the words that would say what she meant.
I want to see if I get caught up in you. I want to see if I end up kissing you. I want to see if I can manage myself.

Maks made a noise that didn’t quite sound like laughter—closer to the chuffing sound the tiger might make. “If you touch me,” he said, “I’m going to want you. You know that.”

She lifted her chin, and her smile was less a smile than the faintest baring of her deer’s tusks.

Not that those, in the best of times, were anything to fear.

He nodded at the woods. “Be with me, then. Work on the tiger.”

Her whole body froze at the prospect.
In the woods. With the tiger.
With the night falling softly around them and the air scenting up with a hint of dew.

“Run with me,” he said, and he was utterly serious...genuinely hopeful. As if for a moment, he didn’t get it. Didn’t understand that her reaction came from the thought of being deer beside tiger.

But he’d defied brevis for her. He’d fought for her. He’d touched her and let himself be touched by her.

She took a deep breath, acquiescing. “The edge of the forest?”

He held out his hand. This time, he waited for hers.

This time, she gave it to him. She came with him when he moved away from the porch, barefooted in the scruffy grass and inevitable prickly weeds.

There, in the darkness just inside the tree line, he released her. Blue lightning flickered around him, enveloped him, licking out to brush her with its energies. The tingle of it rushed across her skin. Displaced air poofed out to stir her hair and clothes.

And there he was.

Just so casually as that, tiger.

And the tiger yawned, and stretched again, offering a short, raspy refrain that this time served as a harsh purr. He lowered himself to the ground, rolling over to one side.

She remembered to breathe again. She remembered who she was, what she was: Katie Rae Maddox, who could put her hands on bone and flesh and give it ease.

She knelt behind his shoulders, resting her hands behind his ruff—surprised to find the hair slicker than expected, coarse and stiff and lying smooth.

He rolled that massive head back to look at her, one front leg reaching for nothing in particular, the great paw spread to briefly knead air. And he made his little chuffing sound again, rasp-rasp-rasp, and Katie had the distinct impression he was laughing.

“You,”
she said, and poked him.

He subsided, but his whiskers still twitched.

“You,”
she said, more of a murmur this time—as, kneeling there, she sank her fingers into his pelt and sank her being into her healing place.

Into Maks.

Chapter 12

T
igers didn’t purr. Not like house cats; the tiger throat was made for a roar. But a tiger had a rasping faux-purr exhalation, a conversational chuff...an expressive groan.

Maks used them all.

She kneaded his shoulders, his spine, his legs...she even kneaded his toes, spreading his paws to check each joint, stretching and flexing. Utter luxury. When she was done he offered the first one all over again, stretching the toes wide without extruding his claws...a tiger’s flirt.

She laughed, and when he rolled halfway to his back with his front legs splayed, utterly without dignity, she took him up on the invitation and scratched his chest and the base of his throat. “Not done yet,” she told him. “It’s going to take a little more to deal with your face.” She crossed her legs and patted her lap. Maks rolled to his chest to stare at her. “Yes, I mean it,” she told him. “I need to concentrate, so get comfortable.”

He eased closer, draping his neck over her leg and letting the weight of his head settle in her lap. She stroked along his jaw; she felt along his ears, petted his whiskers...dared to lift his lip and touch a tooth. He flicked an ear and let her have her way.

Truth be told, he nearly fell asleep.

He woke fully from that doze when the energies grew strong, tugging at his face—burning. He flattened his ears back, lifting his head—or starting to.

“Don’t be a baby,” she said, absent words in the throes of deep concentration. He smacked his tail against the ground, offended, and settled back down. After a time, the tug and burn eased. She took a deep breath and stroked from his broad nose along his cheeks and up by his ears, a gesture of finality.

His tension ebbed away; he breathed out a deep rumble of satisfaction and pushed his head gently into her hand.

She leaned over his ear. “Men,” she murmured, the teasing already evident even in that one word. “You’re so easy.”

His ears flattened; he rolled to his feet, and her gasp of surprise changed to understanding as the bright, shifting energies of the change bloomed around them. By the time he came to his knees he had fully become the man, barefooted, pine needles clinging to flannel.

Easy?

But he didn’t have to say it; she saw his aggrieved expression and laughed out loud.

As the laughter faded, she reached out to stroke his cheek. Still tender, but no more than that. “Maks,” she said. “It
worked.
I didn’t know if I could do that without...” She trailed off, smiled, and shrugged. “Without getting lost in you.”

Maks gave way before her, reaching out with his wordless, wild inner voice. He sent her his confusion, his desire...he sent her the very essence of who he was. Neither predator nor prey, but just Maks...and more vulnerable than she might ever guess.

* * *

Katie jerked as unexpected emotion washed through her—a wistfulness, a gentle touch of invitation...blatant honesty, but full of confusion and admiration and even pride.

None of which were hers.

“Maks?” she whispered.

He cocked his head slightly, and the emotion shifted to relief—to something of gratitude.

“That’s
you?
Those...feelings? It’s been you all along?” Those moments when he’d seemed silent, and yet during which she’d gotten some strong sense of him regardless.

Not silent at all, apparently. Just not full of formed words. Maybe not such a surprise as all that, given how few of them he used in general.

She touched his cheek again, where the wound was closed but still pink, readily discernible in her clear Sentinel’s night vision. He pushed against her hand, just a hint of pressure—the tiger’s gesture. His wordless voice touched her with a warmth—not so much a promise as an offering.

“Maks,” she said again, barely audible.

She’d insisted on this healing not just for him, but for her—to know, for certain, that she could indeed still work without losing herself in her patients...or in
him.
And now she knew. Whatever kept happening between them—the spark of desire, flaring hot and sudden, the clear flood of emotion and images, it wasn’t about her healing process.