Waking Her Tiger (4 page)

“I could give you a lecture on shifter evolution and how our presence is a response to the wholesale slaughter of beasts around the world, but I will let your mate tell you all about it.”

Maddy released him, and he slumped with relief before getting to his feet and taking his leave.

When he was gone, the remaining fey applauded and grinned at her. She walked around the table and returned to her seat. Suran helped her settle and poured her another coffee.

“Thank you. I didn’t think that bodyguards were good at table service.” She smiled.

He chuckled. “My duties have been many and varied, but Larion can take care of himself.”

The forest fey were looking at him nervously, but the dark elf was smirking. Nemro seemed to be a little more down to earth than the others, or he wasn’t afraid of Suran. Either way, they formed a conversational trio when the others left.

Nemro played with the fruit tray that Teebie brought in. “So, are there many women like you in your community?”

Maddy snorted. “No. I am a random. A shifter of a different species that appears in set bloodlines.”

Suran cocked his head. “So, none of the members of your family are what you are?”

“Nope. I am the only one like me in that bloodline.”

Nemro looked at her with a smile. “What are you?”

Maddy barked a laugh. “That is like asking a human woman what she weighs. It is fairly personal but really obvious.”

Suran nodded. “Would you care to go for a walk this morning? The sun is bright and the wind is cool.”

She stared at him. “Um, I suppose so. I gave myself a tour at three in the morning, so seeing something outside of town would be nice.”

“I would be honoured to show you around.” He got to his feet and held out his hand.

Nemro chuckled and inclined his head, standing up as well. “It seems I was not fast enough.” His rueful smile was charming, and she held out her hand when he raised his to her.

He bent low over her knuckles, and she could swear that he was sniffing her skin. “I wish you luck with your courtship, lady.”

Maddy looked to Suran with an arched brow. “A walk outside constitutes a courtship with the fey? With shifters, it just means that we have been inside too long.”

Suran shrugged. “I have never engaged in a courtship before, and among my clan, kidnapping a bride was more common than anything mutual. Of course, you had to be careful of the woman you chose. Being lit on fire when she gained control of herself again was a definite possibility.”

Maddy was on her feet and moving toward the door with Suran at her side. “That sounds like it wasn’t that great for the women.”

He grinned. “Djinn women are rather aggressive specimens. The capture events were usually arranged marriages that the woman’s father was too nervous to explain to her. It was left to her husband to explain that he had been able to get past her father’s defenses because he had put them down.”

“Their brothers didn’t sound the alarm?” She blinked in shock.

“No. He was given a direct path to her, and it was up to him to take it.”

“That is bizarre. My brother and cousins would scream an alarm if anyone came into our territory.”

“Scream?”

She shrugged. “Bark, really.”

The sun was surprisingly warm for early morning. Suran led her down one of the streets and toward a wide and empty meadow.

“You were raised with gophers?”

Maddy smiled. “Prairie dogs. There is a difference.”

He chuckled. “But you are not one of them.”

“They are my family, my friends, my relatives and my people, but I am not one of them.” She shrugged.

A line of cabanas was pointed toward the open expanse of the meadow.

“If you would like to take a run, I would be happy to join you.”

Maddy stopped in surprise. “You shift?”

“I have an animal form, yes.”

“Do you want to go for a run?”

He grinned. “If you would like to. For me, it is not a being behind my eyes, it is simply a shape.”

She could tell that he wanted to run. She knew that expression. She saw it in the mirror every day.

“One quick run and then we continue the tour.”

Suran bowed his head and waved her to the cabana nearest them. As she hesitated, he shifted into a huge black cat. The species didn’t have a name, but the features were obviously desert based. The ears were huge and pierced with the same silver links that Suran wore in his djinn shape.

He flexed and lashed his tail. Maddy entered the cabana, stripped and shifted. She didn’t step out; she bounded out and streaked across the open meadow.

She could sense him right behind her, and the rustle of grasses confirmed what her tiger was telling her. He was fast.

Her beast poured on the speed and bolted for the far end of the meadow. He was fast, but she was faster.

When she turned and charged back the way they had come, she bumped into him as she passed, sending him tumbling into the grasses.

The extra time gained by his skid into the soil meant that she was back in the cabana, breathing hard with her clothing on and shoes in her hand when he skidded up to her.

Maddy curtsied. It seemed appropriate. “Thank you. I haven’t been able to run like that for quite some time.”

He shifted back into his normal form, all dark-blue skin and pointed ears. His black button-down shirt masked what she imagined was a fairly impressive torso. His jeans didn’t hide much at all. She licked her lips and quickly made eye contact.

“I just have to put my shoes on, and then, we can continue this walk.”

He chuckled. “May I assist?”

She thought he was going to kneel down, but instead, when she nodded yes, he flicked his fingers and her sandals were suddenly neatly buckled in place. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure. I would have done it myself, but I am told that shifters and djinn have a strange reaction when they have contact.”

She nodded as if she understood. “Like the fey contact.”

He chuckled. “So I have been told.”

“I touched Teebie; there was a spark.”

“Teebie has shifter blood. Her ancestor was a mythical shifter, and they are outside the standard rules.”

“You know her?”

They were walking down a path through the forest. Suran made a sound of confirmation. “Everyone knows her family. The djinn lines are even smaller than those of the fey. We are in tight families that do not easily mix with others unless it is through marriage, and even then, the woman becomes part of her husband’s family. Before we entered the public eye, we were hunted, confined, prized and held in the courts of the nobility. Now, we are honoured advisors and the world has changed. It is too late for us to recover, but there are options for us, and Teebie’s family led the way.”

“Wow. Is that why you were sent to Larion’s service?”

“I was sent there because I am the last of my line, and they wanted it to stay that way. My people value power but too much power can be terrifying.” He shrugged.

“Something tells me that there is another sentence behind that one. Why are the djinn more dangerous if they are the last of their line?”

They crunched on the path, and he sighed. The sound of a brook heralded the next stop in their walk.

The forest path widened suddenly, and they were standing in a small glade with a brook and stones bathed by sunlight. He beckoned for her to join him on a stand of rocks. Her tigress saw the logic in lying in the sun.

Maddy settled decorously with her skirt spread around her.

Suran leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “The problem comes with our magic. We were powerful when our kind began, and the power remained in our bloodline. When we mix with humans, it takes centuries to bring the magic back to the surface, but it always rises. When a bloodline dies out, the last member bears all the magic of those who have gone before. Our magic stays in the blood of our family. The fewer we are, the stronger we are.”

“So, you carry the power of your entire line?”

He shrugged. “So the elders of the other families tell me. I am too powerful to mix with their bloodlines and add their power to my own.”

It suddenly made sense. His line had the potential to outlive all others; his children just had to take in one member of another clan per generation. Eventually, his bloodline would encompass them all.

“So, they are scared.”

Suran chuckled. “You could say that. The djinn live even longer than the fey. Our magic comes from the universe around us, from matter itself. The fey power comes from nature, and when nature dwindles, so do the fey.”

“And the shifters are given the souls of dead animals or animals that were never allowed to live because of human encroachment. That is the theory anyway.”

“What do you think it is?”

“I think it is nature asserting itself and reminding us that we all have basic needs and instincts. It is when we deny that those things exist that the imbalances begin.”

“So, the further humans get from nature, the more shifters there will be?”

She shrugged. “That is my hypothesis.”

“Doesn’t anyone know?”

She shook her head. “While we keep some records at the council hall, the shifters have only recently begun to gather in multi-species groups. Until this point, we have been keeping to ourselves.”

“So, when you told Mary Alice you didn’t hear about this particular project...”

“I was telling the truth. The town hasn’t had a representative at the guild and council hall in two decades. We just go along and tend to work at the municipal airport. Our community sense tends to lend to working together and communicating across minor distances.”

“I watched you before we announced ourselves. You work fairly autonomously.”

“It is the side effect of being a predator among rodents. I really want to chase them and sink my teeth into them, but then, I have to take out library books the next day and killing the librarian would not be wise.”

He chuckled. “That would make things awkward.”

“I am also the only random in our town this generation and for a few generations before that. It makes their efforts to include me in the human-style stuff rather sweet.”

“You never felt excluded?”

“There were a few times. There had to be a few times. I couldn’t be with them in their beast forms. They burrowed underground and I was left topside on watch. I am proud to say that the local coyote population has not even tried to grab one of my people in the last ten years.”

He smiled then sobered. “What will they do if you go?”

She paused and rubbed her neck. “I don’t know. I have never thought of that. Every day was like the next and the future was going to be more of the same.”

Maddy waited and then asked, “What did you envision for your future?”

“Life at Larion’s side until someone tries to kill him and I am unable to keep myself alive. Basically, more of the same.” He sighed and stared into the woods.

She flexed her fingers and reached out for him. “I think we have found a bit in common.”

He looked at her small hand and arched his brows. “Are you sure? This might be pyrotechnic.”

“I am sure. At least we are in the woods and no one is around.”

He nodded in reply, and without warning, he engulfed her hand in his.

Violent electrical jolts ran up her arm, but when her body couldn’t contain it, it rippled outward in a wave of wind. He was an elemental. She had heard of them in old references but had never imagined that he was a real, live elemental with all elements in his control. That was what the shoes had been about. Air moved them, earth slipped them under her feet and wind fastened them again.

Light flashed, electricity wrapped around her and ran through her. Underneath the power, there was heat and that heat sank into her bones and hummed quietly.

She stared at him in surprise, and his eyes lit with energy and his own share of shock. He was feeling what she was carrying within, and it obviously was more than he expected.

Maddy was staring at his pale eyes, and behind him, everything was growing brighter, vibrating with colour. She heard shouts and the brightness began to dim. Teebie appeared at her side and slowly removed Suran’s hand from hers.

The moment they lost contact, the magic stopped flowing. A woman who radiated power caught Maddy, and Teebie kept Suran from trying to touch her. Maddy leaned back, and the woman holding her whispered, “Stay still until he calms down. You had him to the edge of his control.”

The man with the dark hair edged Suran off the rocks and to a safe distance. Maddy was with the stranger, and Teebie was talking quickly in a language that Maddy couldn’t understand.

Suran nodded, breathed in deeply, and the magic returned to his body.

Everyone in the glade relaxed.

“Well, now that that is over, I suppose you two are safe to resume your date.” The woman patted her shoulder.

“Um, okay.” She eased to her feet and practiced not swaying. Her body was still tingling with magic that wasn’t hers.

“And so you have met your first true elemental, Madeline Black. The other fey have aspects of it, air, water, earth or fire, but a djinn carries it all within.”

The woman had a kind expression on her features. Maddy put it together with what Spike had said. “You are Teal.”

“I am. I am also glad to see that you are up and around.”

“Me too. If you don’t mind, I have to walk some of this off.” She flexed her hands.

“Please, go ahead. Suran can join you as soon as he calms down.” Teal pointed down the path. “Go that way for half a mile and you will find a park of sorts.”

Maddy took the hint, nodded to Teebie and left the clearing. Sometimes, males needed the female out of their sight before they would calm down. That might be the case with djinn.

* * * *

The moment Maddy was out of earshot, Teebie hissed at Suran. “What did you do?”

He blinked in confusion. “I don’t know. We wanted to make initial contact, so I took her hand and my control vanished.”

Teebie wanted to kick him. “She is carrying a portion of your magic already. Even if you two are not compatible, you are now bound.”