Taken for the Tiger Read online

  “What’s happening?” she gasped, blinking in confusion as she tried to look past him at the ocean—which seemed to have mysteriously disappeared, leaving nothing but a wall of black.

  A wall of black that was moving.

  Moving towards them.

  “Everett!” she screamed, her heart almost stopping when she saw two massive red eyes staring at them from the wall of black. This wall of darkness was a creature, she realized! Some kind of sea monster! With scales and tentacles and talons . . . and wings?! “It’s a . . . it’s a dragon! A dragon, Everett! We need to run! Everett? Everett? Everett!”

  2

  Everett felt the dragon’s sharp wingtip pierce him from behind, driving right between his shoulder blades, deep into his tiger’s heart. It didn’t seem real, and he just frowned as he looked into his mate’s big brown eyes. He could tell she was screaming his name, but he couldn’t hear a damned thing. It was so quiet. So peaceful. So beautiful.

  He smiled as he reached out to touch her face. God, she was beautiful! Pretty round face like an angel’s. Brown eyes that made him feel like he could see her soul, see the woman in her, the animal in her, the love in her. And curves that made his tiger purr like a housecat one moment, roar like the beast it was the next! Was she really his? Hell yes, she was! She’d always been his! She would always be his! Now and forever! In life and in death!

  But then suddenly his senses returned, and his eardrums almost exploded when he heard the bloodcurdling screech of what could only be a dragon. He’d heard a dragon before—Murad’s Black Dragon—so he knew what they sounded like. But this wasn’t Murad. He knew the Sheikh’s scent, and although this dragon smelled like the salt of the ocean, its native musk was female. Definitely female. A female dragon. Dark. Deadly. A cold killer.

  “Everett!” came the scream of his mate, her voice cutting through the roar of the ocean. He just smiled at her, wondering why she was so upset. They’d found each other! This was their fate! There was nothing to worry about! That’s what fate meant, right? Meant-to-be? Destiny? The inevitable!

  But the pain ripping through his powerful body seemed to be saying something else, and finally Everett followed his mate’s horrified gaze and stared at the dragon’s razor-sharp wingtip sticking out of his chest like the first shoots of spring. His heart was still pumping, but the blood was pouring down his bare chest and stomach as his mate howled and tried desperately to stop the bleeding with her hands.

  “You’ll cut yourself,” he heard himself say through the blood-red dream world that seemed to be pulling him in, pulling him away from his mate, away from his fate. “Be careful, Eliza.”

  “My name’s Tracy,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks as she tried to pull him away from the dragon’s deadly barb. She was crying, but Everett could see the bobcat roaring inside her, its rage rising as if it was preparing to face this female dragon that had dared to interrupt a fated bonding! “And this dragon-bitch is about to get her red eyeballs ripped out. Hold on, Everett. Don’t you dare die on me.”

  Wait, am I dying? Everett thought as he felt the real world slip away from him. He’d never believed he could die, and he didn’t believe it now either. Yeah, he’d been stabbed through the heart, but he’d heal, wouldn’t he? Sure.

  “It’s just a flesh wound,” he grunted. “Just a scratch. I’ll handle this, babe. You get your arse out of here. Change now and run for it. Go find your sister. Find Darius. I should be fine by the time you get back.”

  But Tracy didn’t Change into her bobcat, and Everett frowned when he saw the confusion in her eyes . . . confusion that was turning to panic.

  “I . . . I can’t,” she stammered, her brown eyes going wide. “My cat won’t come out! It’s . . . it’s not afraid. It just refuses to come out! I can’t Change, Everett! I . . . I . . .”

  She stopped speaking just then, and Everett roared when he felt the dragon’s wingtip drive deeper through him like a spear, its sharp head effortlessly pushing into his mate as he watched like this was some horrible dream. He grabbed her arms and tried to push her away, throw her backwards so she could get to safety. But he felt her resist, felt her lean into him, like she didn’t want to run, like she couldn’t run, damned well wouldn’t run!

  “What are you doing?” he roared, his eyes burning bright as he tried to summon his tiger, call forth his animal, fight whatever was happening. But then he realized he couldn’t Change either! Was it magic?! No. He knew what dark magic felt like—he’d experienced it being around Magda the Dark Witch. This wasn’t magic. This was his Tiger straight-up refusing to come forth! What the hell was happening?! Had both their animals turned into pussycats when confronted by a dark she-dragon?

  Relax, came his Tiger’s inner voice just then, bringing back that strange, peaceful feeling that had washed over him when the dragon had first plunged its barb into him. We have found our mate, and we can never die. Relax and follow your fate. We cannot fight a dragon with tooth and claw in the world of flesh and blood. But we can fight it from the world that lies beyond. Fight it from within. It is the only hope. His animal paused, and Everett sensed that it was hiding something from him. The only hope for all of us.

  And then Everett felt the air rush past him as the dragon pulled both him and his mate back towards the ocean, towards its open maws, swallowing them whole like they were morsels of meat on a skewer.

  3

  Tracy knew she should be panicking, but for some reason she was calm. Was this what death felt like? Dead calm? Maybe, she thought as the sun disappeared behind the dragon’s open maws. She knew she’d been stabbed through the heart, but it felt like a pinprick. She’d felt Everett try to push her away, but running hadn’t even crossed her mind. The thought of being separated from him scared her more than death, dragons, or anything in between. Wherever they were going, they were going together.

  She looked up, her eyes widening at the sight of rows upon rows of savagely sharp teeth. Was this crunch-time, she wondered absentmindedly. Would Dragon-bitch fry her fat ass with dragonfire before eating her? Would she taste salty? Spicy? Would she give the dragon indigestion?

  But the dragon’s jaws stayed open, and Tracy frowned as she felt it slide its wingtip out of her and Everett like it was plucking a couple of cherries off a toothpick. The next moment it had closed its jaws and simply gulped them both down, whole and unbroken!

  “What the hell!” Tracy shouted, not sure if she was terrified or exhilarated. She could feel herself tumbling head over heels, rolling down the dragon’s massive gullet, her mate roaring as he tumbled alongside her. “Wheee!” she screamed, holding her arms up above her head like this was a roller-coaster in some surreal theme park of the underworld. “No hands!”

  She heard Everett laugh alongside her, and she blinked in the darkness as she rolled to a stop, her body landing on his, the two of them deep in the dragon’s gullet. It was pitch dark, but soon enough her bobcat’s vision came to the rescue, and she grinned like a fool when she saw her mate’s blazing eyes looking back at her.

  “Are we dead now?” she asked, feeling his hands pull her close to his body. “I don’t feel dead.”

  “I don’t feel dead either,” said Everett. “But I don’t know what feeling dead feels like, so maybe we are dead. Ouch! Did you just pinch me? What the hell?!”

  Tracy giggled as she pinched him again in the darkness. “Nope,” she said. “You don’t feel dead.”

  But as she spoke she realized that although the first pinch had felt like a pinch, when she did it again, Everett’s flesh felt different. She blinked as she summoned more of her bobcat’s night-vision, and then she almost cried out loud when she saw that her fingers were passing through her mate’s thick arm like he was nothing but air, like he wasn’t even there!

  “But you are here!” she gasped, trying to touch herself and then realizing that shit, she was nothing but emp
ty space too! She could see herself just fine, but she couldn’t touch herself! She couldn’t touch her mate! “What’s going on, Everett?! Oh God, what’s happened to us?!”

  Everett seemed to have realized that they were now either spirits or holograms or something in between, and he clenched and released his fists, looking quizzically down along his naked body like he was trying to make sense of what they were, where they were, who they were, perhaps!

  “We’re mates, and we’re together,” he said firmly, looking up at the roof of the cavernous belly of the female dragon that had pierced their hearts and then swallowed them whole. “But I’m afraid we are indeed dead.”

  Everett’s voice was calm and steady, and while earlier that voice had made her weak in the knees, right now Tracy almost lost it. She wanted a drink of warm tequila. She wanted the open mountains of Colorado. She wanted her sister. This wasn’t how she envisioned her happily ever after. “OK, you need to stop talking like you’re some British Professor of Dramatic Bullcrap!” she snarled, looking down at herself and realizing that the wound between her breasts was suddenly gone. That didn’t surprise her. If her body was now just a figment of her imagination—or some manifestation of spirit-sauce or magic-dust or whatever—then sure, it made complete sense that the wound was gone and she was still dead! Why the hell not?!

  Everett just raised an eyebrow as he stopped examining the innards of their new home in a dragon’s belly. He looked down at Tracy and smiled. “Actually, I am a British professor. Well, I was—before Caleb the Wolf recruited me into Murad’s Shifter Army.” His smile widened and he shrugged again. “I taught World Mythology, which I suppose you could say is the study of ancient bullcrap. Stories made up by ancient civilizations all over the world.” He took a breath—which seemed strange, since Tracy figured they didn’t need to breathe—and turned in a slow circle, arms stretched out wide. “And this, my dear, is one of the oldest stories of them all.”

  Tracy sat down on her ass, crossing her legs as she wondered if she could summon up some clothes to hide her nakedness. Nope. No magic powers. No clothes. No . . . animal?

  She frowned as she tried to summon her bobcat, but although she could feel it out there somewhere, still connected to her, still a part of her, it also felt like it was a world away, like in another dimension or something. A flash of panic went through her as she hugged herself. She couldn’t call forth her animal?! She was alone?! Alone and dead!

  You aren’t alone, came the thought as she looked up at Everett, who was once again examining their cave like he was looking for a door or something. You’re with your mate. A British Professor of Dramatic Bullcrap with a magnificent ass and a body you can’t touch. Shit, this is hell, isn’t it?!

  “Well,” said Everett, finally breaking away from the alluring gizzards of the mighty undersea lizard, “it appears we are indeed trapped inside a dragon.”

  “How can we be trapped if we’re dead and have no bodies?” Tracy demanded, both eyebrows twitching as she frowned up at her mate who seemed infuriatingly calm. “Answer that one, Dr. Genius.”

  “Actually, I don’t have a PhD,” said Everett with a grin. “So you can’t officially call me Doctor. Professor is fine, though.”

  Tracy closed one eye and scrunched up her face. “Wait, don’t you need a PhD to be a college professor?”

  Everett grunted. “Usually. But I just bullshitted my way into the job.”

  “So you’re a fake professor. A liar. A fraud.”

  Everett shrugged, seemingly undisturbed by her accusations. “I’m a real professor. As for being a liar and a fraud: Guilty as charged. I was a liar and a fraud. I denied my true self for years, denied my animal nature, that other part of me. I devoted myself to expanding my mind while trying to hide from what my body was telling me about my true nature.”

  Tracy blinked, surprised at the ease with which Everett was opening up to her, revealing things about himself that most men would be ashamed to talk about—weaknesses, vulnerabilities, parts of themselves that were less than perfect. Who was this man? Tiger Shifter, British Professor who’d bullshitted his way into the job, soldier in some Shifter army?

  “Who’s Caleb the Wolf? What Shifter Army? Who’s Murad?” Tracy said, the questions making her feel sick even though she shouldn’t be feeling anything at all, right?

  Everett opened his mouth to answer, but his voice was drowned out by a horrific screech that made the dark walls of their living cage shudder. It was the female dragon, and Tracy could feel its rage, hear its anger, sense its fury. The dragon had been quiet thus far, but something had riled it up. What?

  “Murad is the Black Dragon,” Everett said, frowning as he looked around as if something was just dawning on him—the same realization that was coming to Tracy. If Murad was a male Black Dragon and this was a female Black Dragon, then wasn’t it possible that . . .

  Again the dragon let out a cry that shook Tracy to the core, and she braced herself against the walls of its belly as it dove deep into the ocean. For a moment Tracy panicked, wondering if the dragon would open its mouth and swallow half the ocean, flooding its belly with saltwater, drowning her ass in like three minutes! But then she reminded herself that she was dead, and so she couldn’t drown.

  “How is it we can see each other, see our own bodies, but . . . but . . .” Tracy said when the dragon finally leveled off somewhere deep beneath the surface.

  “But can’t touch each other?” Everett said, his grin fading as he looked down along her body and then back into her eyes. He touched his own chest, frowning as if he’d suddenly realized that his own wound had disappeared too. “I don’t know. I mean, we’re clearly dead. But we’re still here. Still conscious. Still . . . alive. Quite curious, really.”

  “Maybe we’re hallucinating,” Tracy muttered, rubbing her eyes and beginning to pace. She stared down at her bare feet as she walked along the floor of the dragon’s belly. It looked smooth and clean. It felt cold. Lifeless. “I mean, if this is a dragon’s belly, shouldn’t there be all kinds of stuff in here? Fish, goats, bones, flesh . . . whatever it ate for lunch before swallowing us like strawberries? And where are its . . .”

  “Innards?” said Everett, crossing his arms over his chest and then rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “This dragon’s belly does seem awfully empty and surprisingly clean. Maybe it’s on a purge. Some kind of new-age diet to cleanse itself?”

  Tracy stared at Everett in disbelief. “Is that a joke? Do you really think this is the time and place to be making jokes?”

  Everett shook his head. “No. You’re right. We should be meditating on our sins.”

  Tracy’s eyes went even wider. Who the hell was this guy? Was her mate a madman? Was this hell? To be trapped for eternity with some British dude with a droll sense of humor?

  “Please don’t tell me you’re some nutcase,” she growled, clenching her fists and wishing she could reach her bobcat. Where was that feline, anyway? Was her animal dead too?! “I had enough of that growing up.”

  “Me too,” said Everett, smiling and then looking up at the dark roof of their living cage. “Which is why I can’t ignore the symbolism of what’s happening to us.”

  “What symbolism?” Tracy said grumpily.

  “You ever read the story of Jonah and the Whale?” Everett said softly, his eyes narrowing in a way that made it quite clear he wasn’t joking.

  “Dude gets swallowed by a whale? Sure. I vaguely remember it.”

  “It’s a story that appears again and again in the world’s mythology. It was in the oldest primitive mythology, and it’s also part of the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Quran—the Holy Book of Islam,” Everett said, his eyes shining with excitement.

  Tracy paused when she looked into his eyes. She could see his intelligence like it was a living, breathing thing. He had a sharp mind, and clearly he took pride in it. Tracy was sharp-
witted too, but she’d never paid much attention in class, never given a shit about grades or exams.

  “I thought you didn’t have a PhD,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “That sounds pretty . . . um . . . professorial.”

  A shadow passed across his handsome face. “The only reason I don’t have a PhD is because I lost my funding and was kicked out of the program.”

  “And why was that? You skipped class or something?” Tracy asked, suddenly interested in his past more than the puzzle of what the hell was happening to them.

  Everett took a long, slow breath, his eyes shining with the energy of his tiger. Could he reach his animal, Tracy wondered. Could he Change and rip his way through this dragon? Oh, wait, no. They were dead. Oops.

  “I probably should have skipped class that day,” Everett said, his voice coming out as a low growl.

  “Why? What happened? Ohmygod, did you Change into your tiger and freak everyone out?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” growled Everett. “Can we get back to the topic at hand, please?”

  “Actually, we don’t have hands,” Tracy retorted, swiping at him and marveling at how her seemingly solid right hand passed right through Everett. “Should we talk about that? OK. You first, Einstein.”

  “Jonah and the Whale,” Everett said after clearing his throat pointedly. “So the story is that God gave Jonah a task, but he refused to do it. He denied his responsibility. Fled from his duty. And so—”

  “Ohmygod, are you seriously giving me a lecture about some old parable?!” Tracy shrieked, closing her ears as if that would solve anything. “Can we focus on getting out of here, please?!”

  “That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Everett said.

  “No, you’re not! You’re totally denying the situation we’re in! This isn’t some intellectual puzzle that you can solve with your almost-PhD mind! We need to Change to our animals and rip our way out of this . . . this beast!”