A Tiger's Bride (A Lion's Pride Book 4) (12 page)

If someone would have told Teena a few days ago she’d be dressed in a dead man’s castoffs, hugging her husband’s waist as they whipped through some Russian woods while being pulled by a team of dogs, she would have laughed and said never. That type of wild adventure was more Meena’s style.

Except Meena had nothing to do with this adventure.

Teena was the one living and enjoying this crazy new reality.

While mishaps continued to befall her, Dmitri stuck by her side. He took the bad luck in stride and even faced it with a grin.

He always had a grin, an adorable tilt of his lips that she could just kiss, again and again. She inadvertently hugged him tighter.

“Patience, little kitten,” he muttered over his shoulder, his words short-lived as the wind whipping their faces stole them away. “We will find true shelter soon.”

“Or?”

“There is no or.”

“You’re so optimistic.”

“Dwelling on the negative accomplishes nothing. Plotting victory, on the other hand, brings success.”

“What about when you fail?”

“Then you plan again. Failure only happens when you give up.”

An interesting philosophy. One that the humans hunting them also followed.

They also wouldn’t give up.

Their only warning was a crack and then a whizzing sound as a bullet flew past their faces and hit the bark of a tree with explosive results.

Splinters flew as the dry exterior shredded at the impact.

“Get down,” Dmitri yelled.

Down would provide some element of cover, or at least less of a target, but what of Dmitri? He stood straight and tall on the sled, his hands holding the reins with assurance.

Another booming sound as someone fired again. This one scored a line across Dmitri’s hand, yet crouched below him, she noted he did not cry out, merely sucked in a breath even though it had to hurt. He bled. She could smell it, and yet he did not allow his injured hand to relinquish its grip.

Hearing a shout, she turned to peer behind them. While the shadows made it hard to make out fine details, she noted the team of dogs barreling after them. A glint of pale moonlight off a barrel made her shout, “Behind us!”

With a snap of the reins and a sharp tug, their dogsled veered to the left, their rugged chariot tilting on one side before thumping down hard again as they raced in a new direction.

They hit a major bump, and she lost her grip. She went airborne for a moment. Then hit the bottom hard, and she felt herself sliding. She scrambled for a handhold, but they hit another lump, and this time when she soared, she ended up right out of the sled.

Splat.

Okay, so her landing in the snowy bank wasn’t puddle-wet, but the white stuff was clinging, and her location also put her in the path of the other dogsled!

Eyes wide, she stared at the approaching animals. Then she closed them. She didn’t have time to move and escape the certain trampling.

Huff
.
Puff
. The panting animals neared. Neared. Passed.

The sound receded, and she opened her eyes to see she lived.

Pushing to her knees, sinking a little farther, she shook her head to dislodge the sticky flakes. The air held its breath. Silent.

And lonely.

This probably wasn’t good.

Dmitri will come back for me.

If he could.

Wouldn’t it figure that once again, disaster had struck. But, this time, it really chose a doozy.

“Thanks a lot, Murphy.” She grumbled as she followed the tracks of the dogsleds. “I realize the universe wants to screw me of my happily ever after, but really?” She stopped a moment and glared at the sky. “If you were going to kill me, couldn’t you have done it at the beach instead of in the middle of some freaking cold woods?”

As if he didn’t like her reply, she noted the hum of an engine, a snowmobile engine, which meant it wasn’t Dmitri. The noise echoed around her, and she couldn’t tell from which direction it came.

She tried to run along the path, in the direction her husband had gone. Safety in numbers, or behind a broad back, as her daddy used to like to tell her with a wink when she was little.

However, the clear trail, while easier to travel, also acted like a guided map to whoever rode the snowmobile.

A bright light shone behind her, the glare blinding after all the darkness. She turned and headed off the path, but the snow proved deeper and softer than expected. She sank to her hips.

She couldn’t move. It made her inner feline practically whimper. Bad enough it was cold, but now trapped too?

The snowmobile approached, the growl of its motor loud and the light brighter than ever.

When it stopped, only yards from her, the glare proved so intense she had to throw an arm over her eyes.

But worse was knowing it wasn’t Dmitri coming toward her saying, “What do we have here?”

Dmitri’s first impulse when Teena flew off the sled was to stop and turn around, except there was no turning around, not here where the trees clustered making any kind of sharp veer dangerous.

Not to mention, their pursuers had bypassed his wife to come after him.

Let them come after me instead of her.
He’d have to trust she could handle herself while he took care of business. Speaking of taking care of…

He timed his jump just right, leaping from the moving sled to the thick branch hanging overhead.

Swinging onto it, he crouched, a predator in the dark waiting for his prey.

And there came his intended victims, their team of dogs leading the way, the sled slightly larger than his and carrying two men.

How sporting.

In silence, Dmitri dropped onto them.

Two humans against one cat.
Not great odds, for them.

Their shrill yelps of surprise were annoyingly short. He killed them too quickly.

Now how will they tell the rest of their friends I’m here and hunting?

He tossed their bodies from the slowing sled. The dogs without a hand guiding them on the rein trotted and then walked themselves to a halt.

Stripping the men quickly of their warm gear and weapons, he whistled at the dogs as he tugged at the lead. They turned at his command, obedient to the universal signals they taught instead of to a single person.

Before he could get them into motion and heading back toward Teena, a voice from behind stopped him.

“Hello there, kitty. Leaving so soon?”

Leave when someone begged for an ass-kicking? Never.

Dmitri dropped the reins and whirled to see someone clad in white and gray camouflage step from behind a tree, rifle aimed right at him.

“Here, human, human. Come to papa kitty,” Dmitri crooned.

In most opponents, this provoked a rage at his blatant disrespect. Not this fellow. He also didn’t play with honor or by the rules. He shot from a distance. Dmitri ignored the tiny sting. It would take more than that to fell him.

“Coward. Come closer so that I can smite you.”

But the human remained out of reach. And laughed. Laughed most mockingly damn him.

The blow to his honor almost staggered Dmitri. His mother would surely weep in disgrace. But only if he failed to kill the human insulting him.

Of course, murderous plans worked better if a tiger stayed awake. Several darts hit him at once, and while they weren’t bullets, they were tipped in a sleeping agent, enough to take his big ass down.

I think I understand now why little kitten was a tad annoyed,
the loss of control sucked, and nothing could stop the sucking darkness.

The “What do we have here?” was spoken by a woman, even if that wasn’t immediately discernible with the heavy goggles, Russian hat on her head, and thick fur coat with its fluffy collar.

“Are you going to kill me?” Teena figured she might as well get the question out of the way.

“Depends. Are you part of the plot to kill my brother?”

“Who’s your brother?”

Moving the goggles to sit atop her head, the blue-eyed woman bore a strong resemblance to a certain missing husband.

“You’re Dmitri’s sister.”

“Yes, I am Sasha. And you must be his new wife,” she said, eyeballing Teena with a frown. “Is it me, or do you look remarkably like my brother’s last fiancée?”

“Probably because I’m Meena’s twin sister.”

“Twin?” Sash snickered. “Trust my brother to not give up. And it’s true, you’re married?”

“Yes.”

“He mentioned he’d acquired a new bride, yet neglected to tell us who. I see why now.”

“It was kind of sudden,” was Teena’s reply.

“So I heard,” Sasha said with a snicker. “I am surprised to find you alone. Where is my brother? There is no way he’d allow you to wander off on your own.”

The remark might have stung if Teena didn’t sense the anxiety in the words. “I fell off the dog sled.”

“And Dmitri did not return for you?” Dark brows arched high.

“He was kind of busy trying to stay out of reach of the guys chasing him and shooting.”

Sasha took a moment to absorb this information before replying, “I see the curse that follows your sister also tags along with you.”

“Yeah.”

“Excellent. Dmitri could use a little excitement in his life. Now enough talk. I must go and rescue my brother. Stay here and wait. Another of my team will swing around to pick you up.” Sasha tossed her a black box she pulled from a pocket. “Hold on to this. It’s a tracking device. It will help them find you.”

“Why can’t I go with you?”

“With me? Why would we do that?”

“To rescue Dmitri of course.”

“You want him saved?” Blue eyes fixed her with an intense stare she knew all too well.

“Yes. Of course I do. He’s my husband.”

For some reason her reply seemed to please Sasha because she beamed at her. “Come, my new sister. Let us follow the tracks and see where they lead us.”

Where they led was to a trampled scene but no Dmitri.

Sasha grumbled as she surveyed the tracks. “Taken by humans. Mother will have a litter of kittens.”

Indeed, Dmitri’s mother proved less than impressed at the news. “The shame. The horror. My son, brought low by”—her lips curled—“humans. His father is surely turning in his grave.”

“You had him cremated, mother,” was Sasha’s reply.

They were currently in a large tent, made to withstand the cold. When a brisk wind and thick falling snow covered the tracks, they had to call it quits. They regrouped at the base camp Dmitri’s mother set up, a mother who was less than impressed when she met Teena.

“You! What nerve you have to come back after leaving my poor boy bereft at the altar.”

Teena sighed. “That wasn’t me. That was my twin sister.”

“No matter. Same family which means you will probably desert him too.”

“Actually, I want to help save him.”

“You want to help?” His mother snorted. “I find that hard to believe. More likely you would allow my poor little Dmitri to die that you might become a widow and escape him like your misguided sister.”

“I would never do that.” Teena didn’t need to feign indignation.

“Why not? You did not come into this marriage willingly. I will wager your family is actively searching for you, and that means you must have done something to trigger their unease. Perhaps you’ve secretly called them for rescue? Are they the ones behind the abduction and ransom of my son?”

“My family wouldn’t have done all those things. My dad might be a tad violent at times”— understatement of the year—“but he would never put me in harm’s way, just like he wouldn’t hurt my husband.” She hoped.

“Is he your husband?”

“More or less. I mean, we had a priest do his thing, and we signed the papers. We just haven’t gotten to the consummation part, which I assure you is not for lack of trying. Since I’m a virgin, Dmitri keeps insisting we do it right. Something about ensuring the experience lives up to expectation.” The brandy Sasha had fed her from a flask had done more than warm her chilled bones; it loosened her tongue.

“I don’t believe it,” Sasha interjected with a snort. “Big brother has stage fright. That’s priceless.”

“But not important at the moment. We must plan his release.”

Teena took another swig of the courage in a bottle. “How can we plan his release if we don’t know where he is? Did you receive a ransom or a clue as to his whereabouts?”

“There will be no ransom.” The mother waved a hand in dismissal.

“What do you mean no ransom? Don’t you have enough to pay it?”

“First, none was requested. And second…” Sasha looked at her mother, and they both burst out laughing. “Pay? We would never pay a single ruble to our enemies.”

“You’d let him die instead?” Teena wondered if she looked as appalled as she sounded.

“Bah. Dmitri isn’t going to die. We have a plan.”

Talking to these women was like pulling teeth. Slow and agonizing. “And the plan is?”

“We rescue him of course.”

So matter-of-fact about it all, and yet Teena foresaw one big problem. “How can you rescue him when you don’t know where he is?”

“We don’t know yet, but we will. We are waiting for the satellite to get in the right position again. GPS tracking in an organic host is still in the test phase. In order to render the chips small enough to avoid detection, they are harder to track and need a very directed satellite coordinate.”

“You had him microchipped? Like a household pet?” Teena gaped at Dmitri’s mother.

“Do not get her started,” Sasha muttered. “She thinks it’s appalling that not everyone chips their kid but will ensure the protection of Fido and Fluffy.”

“So how long before this satellite comes into position?” How long until they could go and rescue Dmitri? Funny how she harbored no thoughts about his demise or how easy it would be to let matters run their course. She wanted him back. Wanted to give this whole marriage thing a whirl.

Somehow in their short courtship, she’d come to forget he’d dated Meena first. Actually, the more she heard about Dmitri and her sister, the more she noted how unsuited they were.

No one seemed to approve of that pairing, and yet was it her, or did she and Dmitri share an entirely different rapport? Teena could easily admit she liked him, and she was going to go out on a limb and say he liked her, too. She didn’t care what her family would think or say.

He’d told her enough times and shown her in enough ways that she meant something to him. Even more astonishing, she got the sneaky suspicion that his sister and mother liked her, too, at least once they’d discerned she truly didn’t want him to die.

No dying allowed, which was why when Sasha said, “We should be able to grab his signal, if he’s not halfway across the planet, in the next eight hours,” Teena knew she had to act.

“Eight hours?” Teena couldn’t help but repeat. “No, we can’t wait that long. Who knows what they could do to him in that period of time?”

“Then what do you suggest? We already have teams driving in circles around his last known position. The storm is making it impossible to find him.”

Outside she heard a shout, followed by a sharp bark.

Teena stumbled from the tent, forgetting to zip her jacket or grab a hat. She didn’t want to delay, not if she’d heard right.

Stepping into the whirling mini storm, the flakes sticking damply to her skin, she blinked and then smiled.

“Hello there. Did you come find me?” Taking a few steps forward, she held her hand out to the leader of the dog sled. His one blue eye and one yellow one regarded her steadily.

She stroked her hand over his muzzle. “Such a good boy. Very smart, too. Smart enough to find me in a storm. And I’ll bet smart enough to find his way home.”

The low snarl from the pack leader wasn’t needed for Teena to know Sasha had joined her.

“What are these?” she asked.

Teena smiled. “These are our ticket to finding my husband.”