“That’s all very nice,” she said. “But still, all I’m hearing is about how people want to use Tiger. Walker is helping him, but he’s still trying to figure out what Tiger is and how he can be useful. You think Tiger’s the perfect guinea pig, and you believe you’re being nice by taking him home and sitting on him while you try out your Collars. You all want him for your own benefit. You don’t want him for himself.”
“I like him, Carly,” Liam said in a patient voice. “I want to see him happy. I can’t believe he’ll be happy running wild in northern Mexico, having to hunt for his food.”
“How do you know?” Carly glared up at him. “Have you ever once asked Tiger what he wants?”
Her eyes blurred with sudden tears. Having Carly near him had made Tiger calm and happy. Knowing she’d started a cub had made him happy.
“He’s a hard one to understand, I admit,” Liam said. “I truly want to find him to keep him from harm. And to keep others from being harmed by him.”
Carly wiped her eyes. “He won’t attack. Not unless someone deserves it.”
“And how can we be sure he’ll understand whether someone deserves it? Or when that line won’t be clear for him?”
“He knows.” Carly met Liam’s gaze without fear, and she spoke with conviction. “You could trust him, Liam. Let him go. Let him be free.”
Liam let out another long breath. “Love, if the humans find out I’ve lost a Shifter, hell will rain down upon me.”
Carly had no sympathy, not anymore. “Liam,” she said, “suck it up.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Liam stared at Carly in shock, then he started to laugh. “Are you related to my wife, by chance? When Kim knows she’s right, can she ever scold.”
“Are you saying I’m right?”
“I’m saying you can shake your finger in a man’s face and get your point across.” Liam stood up. “Sean,” he called, “bring back the others, will you?”
Sean turned around from the edge of the brush, moonlight shimmering on the sword slung across his back. “Why? Do we know where he’s gone?”
“No, we don’t. Go get Marlo, will you? Pass on the word that we’re going home.”
Sean stopped in surprise. “We are? You didn’t answer me why.”
“We’re letting Tiger go.”
Carly jumped up from her seat, shedding the blanket. “Thank you, Liam.”
“Go?” Spike snarled out of the darkness and then appeared, stark naked from a shift and covered with tattoos. “Are you saying you brought us all the way out here, away from our cubs and mates, to hunt him, and now we’re going to let him go?”
“Yes,” Liam said calmly. He shot Carly an amused glance. “Suck it up, Spike.”
“Shit.” Spike turned around and walked away, his back as covered with tatts as his front. The dragon across his back was impressive.
“I’m thinking Iona won’t be best pleased,” Sean said.
“I know,” Liam answered. “I expect I’ll get more scolding from her. But Carly has shamed me. Tiger needs to be left alone, without interference from any of us, to be his own . . . tiger. Besides, you think we have a snowball’s chance of finding him when he’s alone and not wanting to be found? If any Shifter can take care of himself in the wild, it’s Tiger.”
“Shite,” Sean said softly. “I’m already worried about him.”
“Me too. But I have the feeling that if he wants to be found again, he will be.”
“Damn it.” Sean started to walk away, off to find the others.
“Sean?” Carly called after him. “Rory? Really? He didn’t like the name.”
Sean turned around, walking backward while he spoke. “A bit of a joke.”
Carly held her thumb and forefinger up, half an inch apart. “A little bit.”
“’Twas what Andrea said.” Sean chuckled as he turned around again and vanished into the desert.
* * *
Marlo, a lanky man with thin hair who looked every bit as dangerous as any drug runner, flew them back to an airstrip outside of Austin in his small plane. All except Walker.
“I’m going to keep looking for him,” Walker told Carly in his quiet way before she let the others take her to the plane.
Carly stared at him in dismay and anger. “I just talked Liam into letting him go. Why can’t you leave him alone?”
“Because I need to ask him for his help. If he can give it.”
“Help for what?”
Walker gave her an evasive look. “I have unfinished business. Tiger might be able to help me, I don’t know. Not until I find him.” When Carly continued to glare, Walker spread his hands. “I can’t hurt him, Carly. Not even with this.” He patted the pistol on his belt. “He can kill me a damn sight faster than I could him.”
That was true. Carly dropped her anger, stepped to Walker, and touched a kiss to his hard cheek. “If you find him, tell him I love him.” She sank back and squeezed his hands. “And don’t go AWOL.”
“Hope I don’t have to.”
Walker left her then to start up the SUV. He drove away, the headlights cutting through the darkness. His red taillights grew smaller and smaller, but could be seen for many miles, glowing back at them.
* * *
What was normal? Carly couldn’t find it anymore.
Normal wasn’t waking up alone in her house, brushing her teeth, donning her cute dresses, and driving to work. It wasn’t collecting money for her wrecked car from her insurance company and having Althea help her pick out a new car. It wasn’t pizza after work at what Zoë called the house of the Weird Sisters, or even meeting up with Liam’s mate, Kim, at a coffee house and catching up on how the Shifters were doing.
They’d never heard anything from Tiger. After a week, Walker returned, came to Carly’s house, and told her he’d never found a trace of him. While Carly was glad for Tiger’s sake, her hunger to hear something of him turned to stark sorrow. She knew she’d never see Tiger again.
Walker returned to his unit to be chewed out by his commander, because the tiger-man had disappeared while Walker had been on leave. Liam Morrissey was called in to the Shifter Bureau and questioned, and his house searched, but finally the Bureau concluded that Liam was as stumped as they were. Tiger had vanished, and Liam had no idea how he’d gotten out or where he was now.
That at least was true. Carly heard all this from Kim on one of their coffee visits, but it didn’t make her feel better.
Carly’s heart remained like lead in her chest, and about four weeks after Tiger’s disappearance, her morning sickness started, confirming Tiger’s claim that Carly was pregnant. Her doctor doubly confirmed it, but Carly decided not to announce the pregnancy just yet.
Yvette’s car, fortunately, had still been in the parking lot, intact, when Carly had returned to Austin, and Carly had driven it to Armand’s, leaving before she could do more than give the stunned Yvette the keys. Carly took the car she and Tiger had liberated to the Barton Creek Square mall and left it in a heavily crowded parking lot, walked away from it, and took a taxi home.
She’d thought Yvette would tell Armand to kick Carly out on her ass for taking her car and bolting in the middle of a busy workday, but Yvette never did. Carly didn’t find out why until she went to work one morning about a month after her return, fighting her morning sickness with soda crackers and weak tea. In an hour or two, however, she knew she’d be ravenous.
“You did it for a man,” Yvette said as she stirred her latte, the odor of the coffee making Carly’s nausea rise. “During my modeling days, when I was in so much demand from all the photographers and fashion houses, I met Armand. He was poor, a struggling artist—he had nothing. I had everything—career, money, luxurious apartment, rich boyfriends. But I’d never met anyone like Armand. I was enchanted with him. I posed for him, and he told me his troubles. We became friends and then lovers. But because he was so very poor, he did jobs for the wrong people, put himself in debt to them. He tried to
pay with his art when they came to collect, but they were philistines and did not want it. Armand came to me one night and said he had to leave the country. He wanted to go to America, and wanted me to go with him. We’d change our names so the bad people wouldn’t follow him. Start fresh.” Yvette shrugged. “So I did.”
Carly listened, the coffee’s scent becoming less sickening and more desirable. A latte with thick, luscious cream started to sound like heaven. She couldn’t have it, of course, but she could breathe in the aroma.
“You walked away from your life,” Carly said as Yvette fell silent. Yvette’s casual So I did meant she’d given up her career, her home, her family, and started over again in the States, all for Armand’s sake.
“We had to flee in the night,” Yvette said after a dainty sip of her latte. “I took whatever cash I could find and got us out of the country and to New York. Even that was too conspicuous, so we came to Texas, to Dallas first and then to Austin. I never modeled again. Except for Armand.”
“You must have loved him very much to do that.”
“Oh, I did. Still do. So you borrowing my car to help a man you love get away is understandable to me. My surprise is that you didn’t stay away with him.”
Carly’s eyes stung with tears. “He didn’t give me the choice.”
Yvette’s usual expression was cool and distant, she an elegant statue who looked with hauteur upon the world. When she saw Carly’s tears now, the hauteur melted away, Yvette’s eyes softened, and she gathered Carly into an embrace. “You poor darling.” She kissed the top of Carly’s head. “The heart, it is a fragile thing.”
Carly let herself relax against Yvette’s strong shoulder. She hadn’t broken down and cried, truly cried, since she’d come home. No time, Carly had told herself. And now she had a child coming. She had to be strong, like her mother had been strong for her.
But for a few minutes, she didn’t want to be strong. She let herself cry, heartbroken.
Armand came in as Carly’s sobs were quieting, and Carly straightened up, wiping her eyes. Yvette went to Armand and kissed his cheek. “Darling, I was just telling Carly our love story.”
Armand smiled, his goodness beaming from him. Carly saw why beautiful, elegant Yvette had fallen in love with this bearlike, rather homely man, and loved him still. Armand dropped a kiss onto his wife’s lips and squeezed her with one arm around her waist.
“I couldn’t believe my luck, Carly,” he said. “A nobody like me landing an angel like my Yvette. But my father always told me to seize the day, and I did. No regrets.”
“No regrets,” Yvette responded, and they looked into each other’s eyes. No regrets must have been a catchphrase with them, because their faces softened, and years fell away.
Carly sniffled. “You two are so wonderful.” She grabbed a tissue and wiped her eyes again. “I’m going for coffee.”
By the time she returned, Yvette and Armand were businesslike once again. Carly cleared her throat and sucked down her decaf latte—ah, sweet, warm cream.
“Armand,” she said. “I want to do something for the Shifter kids. I thought maybe a visit to the gallery, maybe an art class from you. You teach art classes for kids at community centers, right? Would you be willing to do one for Shifters?”
Armand looked surprised. “Are Shifter children interested in learning art?”
“I don’t see why not. They’re not allowed to do so many things, but no one has anything against them becoming artists. I checked. I thought some of the kids might enjoy it. Just a thought.”
“A very good thought. We will arrange it.”
Yvette said nothing, but Carly knew she approved. Yvette never kept strong opinions to herself.
Carly went back to work, more contented. A little bit. If she was carrying a Shifter cub, she wanted to learn all about Shifter kids. Besides, if she could put a little happiness into the eyes of a kid like Olaf, it would be totally worth it.
* * *
Lieutenant Colonel Sheldon looked Sergeant Crosby up and down as Crosby stood at stiff attention in front of Sheldon’s desk.
The young man was a machine, Sheldon thought, nothing more. Not like Walker Danielson, who had an idea or two in his head. Danielson was a good XO, but Sheldon preferred Crosby, who did what he was told and didn’t ask questions. No matter what Sheldon wanted him to do, Crosby figured the fact that Sheldon wanted it done was a good enough reason to do it.
Sheldon did not want to give up on the Shifter. The tiger was different, and the research on him had turned up astounding conclusions. Sheldon had seen great potential for either training the tiger or creating new Shifters from him—a body of soldiers who didn’t need much food, water, or sleep, who ran straight at enemy fire without quailing, and whose bodies adapted to survive that enemy fire. Shifter soldiers who could be controlled by the shock Collars they already had.
If Sheldon could produce one of these Shifter soldiers—or better still, a platoon of them—it would make his career. Promotion, commendations, field commands—all would come his way.
Sheldon didn’t know how more Shifters could be created, either through artificial insemination or the usual way, but he didn’t care. That was for the scientists in their white lab coats to piece together. He just wanted it done.
But now the Tiger had gone. Walker Danielson thought Sheldon didn’t realize that Walker must have something to do with the disappearance. Sheldon was keeping Walker on a long leash, and when he needed to, he’d reel him in.
Meanwhile Sergeant Crosby stood at attention like a vacant statue, awaiting orders. Sheldon had sent the PFC who was his clerk off to stock up on needless supplies so he could be sure of speaking to Crosby alone and uninterrupted.
“DNA,” Sheldon said. “We leave it everywhere we go.”
Crosby said nothing, though he clearly didn’t know what the hell Sheldon was talking about.
But if Sheldon could get some of the tiger’s DNA, his scientists could do something with it, like analyze its chain or make clones of this tiger person. Again, Sheldon didn’t know how those things worked; he only knew that if you wanted something done, you gathered people smart enough to do it and told them what you expected. If a person didn’t fulfill your expectations, you fired them and found another, until you’d pulled together a crack team.
“I need the tiger’s DNA. I want you to search Carly Randal’s house, top to bottom, for anything of the tiger’s—a strand of hair, his clothes, a hat. If you find nothing there, search the house in which he used to live, in Shiftertown.”
Crosby’s eyes widened, the statue flickering the slightest bit. “In Shiftertown, sir?”
“The woman’s house is the least dangerous, which is why I’m sending you there first. But you can handle Shifters, Crosby. You’re trained for it.”
“Yes, sir,” Crosby said.
“Fine. That’s your assignment. Dismissed. Oh, and Crosby—don’t mention a word of this to Captain Danielson. On your honor.”
“I won’t, sir.” Crosby saluted, turned on his heels, and marched out of the room.
Of course he wouldn’t, Sheldon thought as Crosby banged the outer door shut. Crosby never disobeyed. If Sheldon told Crosby to shoot himself in his own head, Crosby would probably do it, no questions asked.
* * *
The evening after Carly had had her talk with Yvette, she went home, cooked a large meal, ate it, then went upstairs to take a bath.
She thought over Yvette’s story, how the woman had willingly turned her back on a potentially brilliant career to help the outcast man she loved. A sweet, romantic tale. Yvette had made her choice, and thirty years later, she still was content with her decision.
Tears filled Carly’s eyes as she lay back in the warm bath. Outside, a torrential rain poured down from clouds that had been threatening the city all day. The rain pattered on the roof and beat on the windows, rain rolling down the panes in streaks like tears.
She remembered Tiger saying good-bye,
how he’d looked straight into her eyes.
Mate of my heart. You always will be. No matter what.
Carly’s stubborn resolve fled as though blown away by the gusts outside. She put her hand over her face and cried.
* * *
The watcher waited until the lights went out in Carly’s house, then he eased back into the shadows and took up his vigil.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Carly needed more food. She’d had dinner, a snack after her bath, and then something at bedtime to tide her over. She woke after midnight, stomach growling.
“Geez, you eat a lot, kid,” she said, touching her abdomen. “I bet you’ll be just like your dad.”
That thought brought fresh tears, which Carly had believed she was done with, and also a fear. Tiger was such an unusual Shifter. What if Carly’s human body wasn’t strong enough to carry his child?
She needed to talk to Liam, to tell him, ask his advice. At the same time, Carly feared to. What would the Shifters do when they learned she was pregnant? Ask her to get rid of the baby? Or to go ahead and have the baby but leave it with them to raise?
Carly refused to contemplate either choice. This cub belonged to Tiger and to her, no one else. She wouldn’t give it up to be confined, watched, tested, chained, tranquilized, drugged—all the things they’d done to Tiger.
As soon as she made it to the dark kitchen, she knew there was someone else in the house. A breath of air, a scent, a sound . . . She wasn’t sure what she sensed, but something had alerted her.
Carly reached for the light switch. At the same time, a male body barreled at her, a punch landed across her face, and Carly tumbled, insensible, to the floor.
She dreamed. She saw Tiger, his hard face and golden eyes, jaw covered with half-grown beard. He fought with a faceless assailant, then he was standing over Carly, touching her, lifting her.
Carly was safe in his arms, her mate holding her and keeping her warm. The dream dissolved, and Carly woke in her bed, the sun rising.