Taken for the Tiger Read online

  “All right,” Everett said, shrugging and then leaning against the dragon’s belly like he was posing for Gentleman’s Quarterly. “Go ahead and Change.”

  Tracy almost screamed again as she reached for her animal and remembered she couldn’t get to it.

  “Can’t do it, can you?” said Everett. “Me neither. I can feel my Tiger somewhere out there. But that’s the point—it’s out there while we’re in here. We’re just humans in here, Tracy. Human spirits. Man and woman. Whatever task that’s been set for us has to be completed by the humans in us, without the help of our animals.” Everett pushed himself away from the pulsating walls of their cage, his eyes once again shining with excitement. “Tracy, how old were you when you first Changed, when your animal first came forth?”

  Tracy shrugged. “I dunno. Young. So young that I barely even remember my first transformation. My animal was always there. I was Changing back and forth almost before I could walk!” She frowned as she thought back. “In fact, I’m pretty sure my animal came forth before my sister’s did. So much for her being the older one!”

  Everett nodded. “Same with me. My first transformation happened when I was a kid too. My tiger’s always been there. I’ve always had the strength and power of my animal. It made me reckless, made me believe I was invincible.” He looked down at himself, blinking as if he was trying to come to terms with what they were. “I still believe I’m invincible,” he said slowly, clenching and releasing his right fist like he was checking to see if he could feel himself. “I mean, we’re not ghosts. I can clearly see my body.” He looked up at her, taking a long, slow breath as he gazed upon her. “And I can clearly see your body,” he whispered.

  “Yes, clearly,” said Tracy, placing her arm across her boobs even though it seemed silly if her boobs weren’t really there. “Could you not stare like that, please?”

  Everett blinked and looked away. “It’s hard not to,” he muttered, shaking his head as he began to pace. “You’re my mate and I want to claim you. But I can’t. We can’t. We’re forced to just sit here and . . . and talk!”

  Tracy raised an eyebrow and put her hands on her hips. “I didn’t realize talking to me was such a pain in the butt,” she said hotly, even though she could feel her own frustration at being naked near her mate but unable to actually touch him, unable to feel his touch.

  “That’s not what I mean,” growled Everett, his eyes narrowing as if his temper was rising along with his own frustration. The initial panic of what had happened on the beach was now giving way to the grim realization that this might well be hell or purgatory, a place where they’d be trapped for all eternity, unable to satisfy their basic needs. “I mean there’s a reason this has happened to us. There’s a reason this dragon swallowed us whole. We need to figure out what that is.”

  Tracy took a breath and nodded. “All right,” she said softly. “Back to your story of Jonah and the Whale. So you’re saying that God or the Universe or Fate or Destiny has put us in this spot for a reason. What’s the reason? What’s our task?”

  “It has to be something we’ve denied about ourselves. Some responsibility that we’ve been hiding from,” Everett said softly.

  Tracy snorted. “Shit, I’ve been hiding from responsibility my entire life! Where do you wanna start?”

  Everett chuckled. “All right. Maybe I’ll go first.” He paused, his grin fading as his expression darkened. “Though my life was also an exercise in avoiding responsibility. I just did what I wanted, when I wanted, without any real direction. Not until I joined Murad’s Shifter Army. That gave me a purpose. It gave me a—”

  But his words were drowned out by the dragon’s scream, and Tracy gasped when she realized this was the third time they’d mentioned the name Murad, and the third time this female dragon had almost gone berserk! She’d suspected it earlier, but now she was sure.

  “OK, I think this is Murad’s mate!” she shouted as the dragon turned and twisted beneath the ocean, tossing them around like ping-pong balls in its cavernous belly. “And she’s pissed off about something.” Tracy listened for a moment as the dragon’s screams turned to what sounded like a droning wail. “Pissed off and . . . and . . . sad? Lonely? Maybe that’s our task? To reunite this dragon with her mate?”

  Everett snorted, and then he blinked in surprise as the dragon suddenly calmed down. He stared at Tracy, cocking his head and frowning. “Murad’s mate,” he whispered, slowly beginning to nod. “You might be onto something here. See how she calmed down when you talked about reuniting her with Murad?” But then Everett shook his head. “But this she-dragon would be able to find Murad on her own. She’d be able to seek out her mate without our help. Hell, I don’t know where Murad is anyway! Why would it believe we have anything to offer?”

  Because you are mated Shifters, came the answer from the dragon, its voice rumbling through the beast’s body like thunder, making Tracy almost fall down in shock. Mated Shifters can travel between Light and the Darkness. I am all Darkness. I cannot go to the Light. You can, and so I need you to go to the Light and do something for me. Find something for me. Carry a message for me.

  Tracy’s eyes went wide as she stared at Everett. Suddenly she realized she was smiling, and Everett was smiling too! It was like they’d unlocked something, solved a piece of the puzzle!

  “That was Jonah’s task in the myth,” Everett said as his smile widened. “To carry a message!”

  But then her smile faded as she went over what the dragon had just said.

  “Actually,” she said, glancing at Everett as she thought back to that kiss they’d shared on the beach, “we aren’t . . . mated. Not really. Not in the . . . um . . . Biblical sense at least.”

  You must be, whispered the dragon. You were enveloped in Light. I was drawn to you both like a moth to a flame. Since my creation I have seen nothing but Darkness—seen nothing at all, in fact. Just black. Just dark. And then I was drawn to your light, and I had to possess it. Now go the Light. I cannot wait any longer. I am manifesting in the physical world, and I will consume it all as I yearn for balance. I will consume all the Light in the world unless you re-unite me with my human, the human soul that was lost when Murad Turned me. Bring back the woman I once was, the mother I once was, the wife I once was. She is in the Light, and you two must bring her back to me. Now go. Go! GO!

  4

  Go! Go! GO!

  Everett felt a flash of the darkest despair go through him as he listened to the dragon speak. He could sense its turmoil, feel its anguish, almost taste its yearning for what it called the Light! He blinked as the pieces fit together in his mind: Tracy had guessed right! This was Murad’s mate! But the dragon had said Murad had tried to Turn her! That . . . that wasn’t possible!

  “Dragons can’t Turn humans,” Everett muttered as he glanced at Tracy and saw that she was frowning hard as she tried to figure out what exactly this she-dragon wanted them to do—if they could do what it wanted them to do! “That’s why the dragons are almost extinct. Any attempt to Turn a human simply results in death for the human.”

  “Well, that’s what happened here too, it seems,” Tracy said, still frowning. “But it also created a new dragon. So it kinda worked.”

  “Worked to create a wholly unbalanced Black Dragon,” Everett growled, bracing himself against the smooth walls of the dragon’s belly. “All Darkness. A dragon that’s never been human. That isn’t human.” He shook his head, reaching once again for his Tiger that still seemed a world away—perhaps a million worlds away! “Tracy, a dragon that has never had a human side isn’t a Shifter. It’s a goddamn demon! We have to kill it! Destroy it! Send it back to Hell!”

  Tracy shook her head furiously, her jaw tight, her pretty round face scrunched up as she thought. “It already is in hell, Everett! Don’t you see? It’s yearning to find its human, to connect with the woman that was lost when this beast was born! That m
eans there is some connection to the Light! This poor dragon isn’t all Darkness! There’s hope for her!”

  “Stop calling it a her!” Everett snapped. “This isn’t a person. This isn’t a woman. This isn’t an animal! It’s an abomination, a freak, a mistake of nature!”

  “That’s what humans say about us, you know,” Tracy said, her eyes narrowing, her hands balling into fists. She was angry, he could tell, and so was Everett. He was about to snap back, but his words caught in his throat when he looked at his mate and suddenly realized he couldn’t see her body clearly anymore! It looked misty, like it was fading!

  “What the hell?” he muttered, looking down at himself as he realized that the same thing was happening to him! He was disappearing! “Tracy, do you see me?”

  “No!” Tracy shrieked. “Hold me, Everett! Hold me! Oh, God, hold me!”

  Everett roared as he tried to reach for his mate, but she was gone. And so was he. He’d never panicked before, but he was getting damned close to it as he roared again, shouting for his mate. He swore he could feel the dragon’s anguish in that moment, and he wondered if this beast was somehow doing this!

  He felt movement, like he was being pulled, and then Everett realized that he could still feel Tracy’s presence. He couldn’t see her or smell her or even hear her. But he could feel her. It was the strangest thing, but it calmed him down as he focused on that connection with his mate. Soon he realized that she was pulling him along, taking him with her. They were indeed bonded—bonded by just one kiss! Nothing could separate them—not even death! Fate was real! Magic was real! Destiny was real!

  Of course, we don’t know what our destiny is yet, he reminded himself as he felt them being pulled somewhere, like they were rising through clouds, white clouds, shining with light brighter than the sun itself.

  And then suddenly vision came rushing back, and he shouted in surprise when he landed hard on his arse, the smell of clean grass and healthy trees invading his senses even as it hit him that if he’d just landed on his arse and felt it, then he had an arse! A body! Had they been reborn? Had they come alive again? Did they wake from their hallucination?

  “Everett!” he heard her scream, but now the panic was gone from Tracy’s voice. “Everett, look!”

  He looked, his mouth almost hurting from how wide his grin broke, his heart almost bursting when he saw his mate in the flesh again, rolling around in a sea of green grass that glowed with what could only be the light of . . . of heaven? Was this where they were?

  “Not quite,” came a voice from Everett’s left, and he whipped around to see who was talking. At first he didn’t see anyone, but then he squinted and made out two shadowy figures walking towards them from a cluster of trees that looked strangely dark in comparison to what felt like light everywhere else.

  “Who are you?” Everett growled, leaping to his feet and standing in front of his mate. He watched as a man and woman approached them. Both were tall and broad, and immediately Everett knew they were Bear Shifters. He sniffed the air, ignoring the delight he felt when he realized he had his sense of smell back. They smelled familiar. Yes, he knew that scent. It reminded him of Bart the Bear, who’d spent a year at Murad’s castle, helping Caleb train the wild Shifters who’d been recruited into Murad’s Army.

  “Correct. We are related to Bart the Bear. We’re his parents,” said the woman with a smile. She was a large woman, with creases around her brown eyes and deep wrinkles lining her face. Everett wondered why anyone living in heaven would have wrinkles, but he blinked away the thought and moved closer to his mate. There was something strange about these two. They weren’t evil, he could tell. But there was an unsettling darkness that lingered behind their tired eyes. It was like they hadn’t slept in years. Like they were in a perpetual state of stress and worry. And what the hell was that curious cluster of dark trees from which they’d emerged? And why were there trees in heaven, anyway! And grass! And . . . and . . .

  “In the Light, you see what you want to see,” said Papa-Bear, his eyes flashing with a wistfulness that shook Everett. “What do you see?”

  Everett frowned, feeling Tracy stand close behind him. He stood naked, but he could feel that Tracy had clothes on. Just a robe or a gown, but something that had spontaneously appeared. Sure, it made sense that she’d want to cover herself in the presence of strangers. Everett, of course, didn’t give a damn about who saw him naked. In fact he thrived on freaking people out with his brazen self-confidence, his supreme delight in strutting around in his birthday suit.

  Everett looked around, taking a slow breath as he savored the aroma of the wild savannah. “Tall, beautiful elephant grass. Green and yellow. Plains flat as my palm stretching for miles. A mighty river in the distance, flowing lazily through the even land.”

  “Um . . . no,” said Tracy from behind him.

  The two Bear Shifters smiled at each other and then glanced over at Tracy. “Tell him what you see,” said Mama Bear.

  Tracy stepped out from behind Everett, and Everett gasped when he saw her in the flesh, a yellow sundress covering her curves while revealing just enough to make him want to finish what they’d started on the beach in Morocco.

  “Mountains,” she said, spreading her arms out wide and making a slow turn, hesitating for a moment when saw him standing there naked and hard, shameless and proud. “Tall and thick, with beautiful peaks.”

  “Why, thank you,” said Everett with a grin as he glanced down at his own peak. “What else do you see?”

  “OK, we’re with company,” Tracy said, her round cheeks blushing red. “Can we . . . you know . . . not disgust them with your . . . um . . .”

  “Don’t worry,” said Papa Bear, his eyes crinkling with amusement. “We also see what we want to see. Or, in this case, we don’t see what we don’t want to see.”

  “Your privacy is secure,” said Mama Bear. “We see you as figures of light. As for what you two see of each other . . . well, that’s your business.”

  “Excellent,” said Everett, reaching out and sliding his fingers beneath the shoulder-straps of his mate’s yellow sundress. He leaned close, feeling his need rise up so suddenly that he couldn’t give a damn about these two Bear Shifters, didn’t care about whether they were alive or dead, didn’t want to know if this was heaven or hell or an alien spaceship. “So can we dispense with this sundress,” he growled against her neck, inhaling her intoxicating scent as he felt his hardness push against her soft rear.

  Tracy gasped, and Everett could smell her sex beneath her dress. He knew she was hot for him, wet for him, ready for him. He wanted to take her now. These bears could wait until they were done. This couldn’t wait. The need was too strong. Too fierce. Unstoppable. Uncontrollable.

  “Everett, are you insane?” Tracy whispered, pulling away from him even though he could tell it took some effort. “We don’t know what’s happening to us, where we are, what we are! And all you want to do is . . . is . . .”

  “Go ahead,” Mama Bear called out to them, her eyes narrowing as if she knew something they didn’t. “We’ll wait.”

  “We’re very good at waiting,” said Papa Bear, putting his arm around his mate’s shoulder and posing like they were in a surreal postcard.

  “We’ve been waiting for a long time,” said Mama Bear, her voice dropping to a whisper as Everett felt his hand slide up beneath his mate’s dress from behind, cupping her beautiful round bum as she backed up into him.

  Everett’s head began to spin as he felt his need take over. Tracy was whimpering out a protest, but he could tell she was being drawn by her need as well. The whole thing seemed oddly dreamlike, with those two bears standing there, arms around each other, waiting near those dark trees.

  “You see mountains all around us?” Everett asked, suddenly remembering what Tracy had said earlier. “Seriously?”

  “Yes,” said Tracy, turning to face
him, her eyes unfocused, like she was as confused as he about what was happening to their bodies, their minds, perhaps their souls. “Snow-capped mountains. Rolling foothills. Rocky terrain. Just like in Colorado. My home. My safe place.”

  “Your safe place is with me,” Everett whispered, leaning in to kiss her but stopping just before his lips touched hers. His need to claim her was real, but it felt different than it had when he was in the flesh, on the hard sand of that beach, on the firm ground of Earth. What was this place? Was she really safe with him? Without his animal, could he protect her? Could he trust these odd bear-Shifters, even if they were Bart’s parents? Not that being Bart the Bear’s parents made them trustworthy—hell, hadn’t he overheard Bart and Caleb talking about how Bart’s parents had worked for the government in some secret research lab . . . working to destroy Shifters?!

  “Kiss me,” came Tracy’s whisper through Everett’s swirling mind, and when he blinked himself back into focus, he saw the need in her eyes. It wasn’t so much the need of her body as much as it was a burning need to just find clarity, to reach for the one thing she could be sure of: Her mate. Her man. Her tiger.

  Again he saw those two bear-Shifters standing in the background, patiently waiting like they’d been painted into the scenery. The more he thought about it, the less sense it made, and finally Everett just gave in, deciding to focus on the one thing he was sure of: His mate. His woman.

  So he leaned in to kiss her, smiling as he anticipated how good her warm lips would feel against his. Hey, this was heaven, wasn’t it? He saw the vast plains of the savannah, with elephant grass swaying in the breeze. She saw the snow-capped mountains of her home in Colorado. And those bears saw two figures bathed in cosmic light merging into one. Sure. That sounded like heaven. Go for it, Everett.

  But the moment his lips touched hers, the background disappeared like a light had just gone out, and suddenly Everett found himself being pulled along with his mate . . . pulled like how they’d been pulled from the dragon’s belly to the Light . . . except now it was along what seemed like a dark tunnel.