Hiring the Tiger Read online

  The merchant—and that’s all she was, not some goddess of sex, not some witch who could control his senses—fiddled with one of her knots and the rope slithered off his right hand.

  Nav had the room and the ability to untie the other. What he lacked was the focus. And the steadiness of hands. Why was he shaking so much?

  She didn’t help. “For a tiger, you make a very good slave.”

  Ten minutes ago—hell, ten seconds ago—he would have thanked her. Now he sat hating her, empty and used and…

  He felt pathetic when she came over and with a few darting tugs and one swift jerk, unbound his other hand. He was pathetic, and the scent of her made him ache.

  No. All her slaps and bites and pinching made him ache. The lying on the floor while she whipped his back and sides and stomach made him ache. The part of him that enjoyed her insults and her power over him made him ache.

  He rubbed his freed wrists. He hadn’t been bound since he was last arrested for highway robbery. Why had he let a woman imprison him?

  “Do you always hang around this shop, tiger?”

  “I have a name.”

  When Jasprite smirked at him, Nav knew he was asking for her cruelty, but he went on just the same. “It’s Navarro.”

  “Well, Navarro.” She reached into the chest and pulled three gold coins from a little black purse. “I leave in … a few days. If I see you afterward and I remember your name, I’ll give you four gold coins. Don’t get your hopes up, though.”

  Nav blushed with a crippling shame. He hated her cruelty, hated that she had bought the right to be cruel, hated himself for going through with any of this. What the hell did he need three gold coins for? No one in the village except maybe Yenna had the money to make change for gold. And he was too ashamed to tell Yenna where he got it.

  “You should be careful throwing this kind of money around,” he muttered. “There’s bandits in this village and they’d kill you for what you have in your little black purse.”

  “Ah, my whore money?” She chuckled and tossed his trousers over to him. “I just made a full-grown tiger my bitch. You think I’m afraid of highway robbers?”

  Nav sneered at her.

  Jasprite crossed her arms over her breasts and leaned her hip against the dresser. She watched him put his pants on with a slow-burning lust. “Will you come back tomorrow?”

  Nav lifted his eyes. “Come back?”

  “Yes. If you’re strong enough.” She grinned.

  He snarled a little at her, and he knew he’d be back.

  Chapter Four

  The first night, Jasprite most admired the tiger’s calm. He was mad with lust, his need breaking through the calm like an otter surfacing for air, but then it would disappear into his cool eyes and handsome half-smile.

  The second night, she decided his pride was what she liked best. He instinctively kept his head raised and met her eye. He obeyed not from fear or broken lust, but in the spirit of a game he enjoyed … for now. When they’d both been sated and she debated sending him away or keeping him around for another bout, he’d talked about the village, the mountain, the grassland with the ownership of a king. He was more regal than some lords she had met, and he could not hide it behind his false modesty. She kept him until the early hours of morning.

  The third night she discovered a deep tenderness and vulnerability to the man. She wanted him in the shackles, but he’d very quietly explained to her his fear of unbreakable metal, how even that bastard Ramsay only used chains in extreme situations, how cruel witches tormented their creations since a shifter’s body would not transform when the metal would break it, but the spell insisted on trying anyway and the resulting warping of bone and muscle was excruciating. She respected his decision.

  Normally she tired of men after two or three nights, but on the fourth night, Jasprite still watched him slink down the stairs. She felt a flush of heat looking at his broad back, the tight globes of his ass. He’d just left, and she already aching for the next time she’d have him.

  The fifth night would be the last. She couldn’t afford to waste any more of her time, the men were restless, and it wasn’t fair to keep them waiting, not for something as selfish as good sex. She had to leave the tiger behind.

  Or…

  The idea hit her like lightning, as brilliant as it was dangerous.

  He could join her.

  Chapter Five

  In the five nights he’d come to her bed, they’d never actually used the bed. He’d fucked on her on the dresser, on the floor, bent over her travel chest. She’d tied him to her closet and to the wall sconce, even to the door frame—he’d nearly broken through Yenna’s door when he twisted in his ropes and pounded her against the bamboo. The lady seemed to reject the comfort of a soft mattress until tonight.

  And tonight, as he lay sweating in the pillows, dazed by the afterglow of sex, he was frankly amazed she hadn’t managed to break it. He could still hear the echoes of the thudding headboard, the tormented frame’s creaks and moans.

  Jasprite still sat on his thighs, leaning into his raised knees as if his body had been fashioned as a chair for her small frame and wide curves.

  He liked the way she lounged on his legs, liked the way her breasts fell as she leaned back, and the way her cunt cradled his spent cock. The scents of their sex saturated the air, and it made him happy and drowsy. He would have liked to scoop her into his arms and sleep, but he knew Jasprite well enough by now to know she’d scream if he tried anything so intimate.

  She touched her belly leisurely with one hand, tickled his cock with the other and asked softly, “Have you ever been to the city?”

  Nav both loved and feared these conversations. They meant she wasn’t through with him yet, wasn’t ready to dismiss him. But it also exposed him to her judgment, to her temper, and worse, her amusement.

  He stretched his arms, careful not to disturb her perch as he unbuckled the collar. “Three times.”

  Jasprite smirked. “Let me guess. Once as a boy to see the lantern festival—”

  “Nope.” He smiled lazily and extended his bound wrists so she could release him.

  “How dull.” She obliged him. “All three times, you went as a merchant’s guard? Was it always silk or did you occasionally transport interesting art?”

  His face reddened because she was right. “Twice silk. I don’t know if plates are considered interesting…”

  Jasprite grinned, pleased with herself, but moved away from his humiliation rather than dwelling on it, which was unlike her. “Did you like the city?”

  He’d been overwhelmed by the strangeness of it, too many scents and smells and experiences. “There wasn’t anything for me there. Why?”

  She ignored his question. “You weren’t looking hard. There’s plenty of opportunities for a young man like you. Serious money to be made as a guard. Just by virtue of your … breed, do we say?”

  “I’m fine with the work I do at home.”

  “Then all means, be a night laborer.” Something in the idea made her frown sourly, and she ran her hands over his chest possessively. “With the right clientele, you’d be rich as a prince in a year.”

  Nav grinned. She was jealous. “If you mean to forget my name, why the interest in my future?”

  Jasprite smiled, a rare sprig of warmth in her cold face. He trembled in the light of her kindness. “Because I want you to come with me, of course.”

  The sky of Nav’s world broke open, and the tiny rays of joy he’d managed to catch through his life exploded into a bright day of hope. Come with her? In a heartbeat. He’d be ready by morning.

  She leaned over his body, kissed his cheek and ear. “You can be a guard in my caravan. Remind me of your name when I get lonely at night.”

  He’d have her as a guide in the city, across the whole damned world. He always dreamed of leaving, though each time he strayed too far from Yenna it had been disastrous, and now this awe-inspiring woman—a woman who could make him
lose himself so much to lust that he let her bind and beat him—offered to escort him out personally.

  “Holy Hades…” he muttered. What could be more perfect?

  In the silence, he faintly heard Porter howling on the porch three floors below. The laughter of all three wolves rolled like a cloud over the sky, and he sank into the grayness again. There wasn’t room in her offer for three wolves, even if they could be convinced to leave their territory.

  So Nav shook his head no. “Thanks for the offer, but—”

  Her face broke with surprise and shame. She demanded. “Reconsider.”

  “No.” He hadn’t much practice in telling her no, and it sounded fainter than he meant. He tried to strengthen his case, to remind himself why he stayed. “There’s plenty of reasons why I’ve got to—”

  “I don’t care much for your reasons.” Jasprite threw herself off the bed and stalked to the dresser to snatch her robe.

  He smiled. “You really want me to go with you.”

  Jasprite turned to face him. If she smiled and confessed the depth of feelings he feared lurked in his own heart, he would accept, the wolfpack be damned. If she looked embarrassed and offered to deal, he would mention the wolves.

  Instead, she tried to be cold, but the attempt burned in the fires of rejection. “I don’t want you more or less than any other man I’ve had.”

  It warmed his heart to see through her chill. “If you love me, Jasprite, you should tell me.”

  “You think very highly of yourself.” She snorted and pulled on her kimono. “I simply don’t like watching you make the mistake of a lifetime. You have until tomorrow when I leave to correct it.”

  Nav wondered if he could change his own mind before the caravan left.

  “Well, go on.” She waved her hand. “Get out. If you’re going to be a fool, I’m done with you.”

  ****

  In the morning, Navarro watched her leave and hated every second of it. One of her team carried the red chest down the stairs, in two hands. Nav snorted at his weakness. Jasprite watched them work in silence.

  If she spoke to him, he’d agree. Nav knew he would, and he waited for her to approach the table. The wolves sat gathered around him and he could leisurely tip back in his chair, looking at Jasprite, but nodding to the pack. “Think there’s work for them, too? Loading, unloading, hunting in the forests, protecting the caravan?”

  And because she wanted him, because he would offer to take a reduced pay, because he mattered to her and he was worth making a deal, she’d agree. Then he wouldn’t have to face the city alone, feeling like a rube, knowing he’d abandoned his friends.

  But Jasprite didn’t approach the table and demand his final answer. She didn’t come over with her black velvet pouch and her icy smile. She paid Yenna, thanked her for her hospitality, nodded to the wolves on her way past, and gave Nav one last glance as she stood by her wagon.

  He saw in that glance all the desire, the memories, the dreams between them. But Jasprite did not speak to him. She climbed into the driver’s seat of the wagon at the head of her caravan and clucked the dragon into the air. The loong uncurled and pulled away. The other wagons followed dragged by magic after the beast.

  The mistake sat like a stone in his mouth that he dared not spit out or swallow. The opportunities, his path to the city, the most beautiful and powerful lover he’d ever enjoyed … the road to the mountain took them all and left him with the still morning heat.

  “Well, that’s breakfast done.” Porter said. “Should we head back to the tea field before the sun gets too high?”

  ****

  Around midnight and after drinking all the moonshine he could afford, Nav wallowed in the fey wheat, glaring at the mountain road. His low burning rage made his tail twitch against the dry stalks. When the path caught the moonlight correctly, Nav could see a lonely three wagon caravan winding up the rocky slope pulled by a single long dragon.

  He scented Sock prowling through the field and thought very little of it. Sock was upwind so if he was looking for the tiger he would not find him.

  But when he heard Ramsay stumbling through the grass, he growled low in his throat.

  The sound startled Ramsay, and his musket rolled off his shoulder and was aimed at the tiger’s head before Navarro could skulk away.

  One good thing about Ramsay, he was quick to aim but slow to fire. “Navarro, is that you?”

  Nav raised and lowered his head in an exaggerated nod.

  “Bloody hell, I could have shot you.” Ramsay demanded, angrier than he ought to be on account of a miscreant tiger. “What are you doing out in this field so late at night?”

  Indulging in loneliness. Nav didn’t try to answer only turned back to look at her tiny caravan on the looming mountain. She was probably sleeping, maybe counting her money.

  The captain laughed. “Holy Hell, you’re still watching that woman leave, aren’t you?”

  Ramsay leaned on the musket, and Nav wished it would go off and blow the man’s elbow to bits. “That’s terrifically pathetic. You know what’s more?”

  Nav guessed he was going to find out whether he liked it or not.

  “I bet out of all the bastards she’d hired along her route to fuck her, you’re the only one stupid enough to think it actually meant anything.”

  Nav growled.

  Ramsay chuckled. “Growl all you like. Not going to change her mind about you. You’re just a tea-plucking, crate-carrying peasant. Young and pretty enough for her to throw a few coins for now. If she wasn’t such a slut, she’d never even have noticed a man as poor and pathetic as you.”

  Nav wasn’t thinking when he sprang, claws out.

  Ramsay didn’t have time to raise his gun. Lucky for him, he didn’t need to. Before he could sink his teeth into the soft flesh of the human’s throat, something small and silver haired slammed into Nav’s side.

  Nevertheless, Nav landed gracefully to the left of Ramsay. Sock hit the ground much harder after smashing his body against a fully-grown tiger. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  Sock staggered to his feet, but to Nav’s surprise he was talking to the captain. “Why are you baiting a goddamned tiger? There are easier ways to kill yourself.”

  “I…” Ramsay was as surprised as Nav, but he regained his sternness fast. “I ought to instate a curfew on you animals. Keep you safe and indoors so no patrol accidentally shoots one of you.”

  Nav crawled under his cloak and sat up in his human form. “Let’s go home, Sock, before I do something I regret.”

  Ramsay couldn’t let it go, though. “Was that your grand plan for the wolves, tiger? Seduce a lady for her money so you could all be better than highway robbers, someday? Pathetic.”

  Nav growled, and Sock took his arm. “Come on. Ignore the asshole.”

  They wandered back toward the village in silence until Nav asked, “What were you doing in the field, Sock?”

  “Look for you, of course. What were you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  Sock rolled his eyes. “Look, Nav, I don’t mind telling you, I’ve been scared of you for most of my life. I know when you’re not right, and you haven’t been right all week. You weren’t actually watching the caravan, were you?”

  “No.” Nav snorted.

  “Oh, fuck a duck, you were.”

  “I said I wasn’t.”

  “Are you gonna follow her?”

  What was the point of following her? Nav hated it, but Ramsay was right. Even if Nav had gone, she would have tired of him because he meant nothing. He had no way to keep her. No way to show her he was worth anything.

  “Are we gonna rob her or not, Nav?”

  The little wolf’s nervous question jarred Nav. Sock didn’t understand the actual reason he watched the caravan leave.

  Rob her?

  Sure. Running easy they could get to the merchant pass by dawn and at her pace Jasprite’s team wouldn’t reach it until noon. If a good bandit got his way, t
hey wouldn’t get to the pass at all. They could cut her off, take everything. Start somewhere fresh with money and no fucking Ramsay.

  “Oh, shit we are.” Sock chuckled. “I’ll tell the boys.”

  Nav nodded and looked back at the mountain. She’d find out his worth, all right. He wasn’t someone to abuse and forget.

  Chapter Six

  Dreams always befuddled Jasprite. One moment she wove her magic in the marketplace, peddling a new gem she’d discovered and called True Tiger’s Eye. It wasn’t the polished brown-striped stone, but a pure green gold, like Navarro’s eyes. Wide and lustrous. Then after a jolt, she curled up in her bed traveling over a mountain. A wolf howled in the distance, but she ignored it and cuddled into her pillow. Then Nav, dressed in a sharp tailored suit, carried a heavy glass crate filled with the True Tiger’s Eye after her. He set it down at Jasprite’s feet and bowed like a gentleman to both her and the queen, then stood to a side while the ladies of court coyly admired him and Jasprite haggled with the queen.

  Kimjim, the dragon, shrieked, and she was torn from the dream. Jasprite bolted upright and wrapped her kimono around her nightgown “Chan? What’s wrong?”

  When Jasprite peeked out, Chan was unconscious, slumped low in the driver’s seat. God, she hoped he was unconscious. Kimjim dangled from a tree branch, its wings tangled in a net. The poor dragon jerked between the wagon and the thick branch. A wolf barked behind, and to her left Horace cried out in pain.

  Someone she did not know shouted. “Get down. Put your hands on your heads and no one will be hurt.”

  “Like hell they won’t.” Jasprite grabbed her musket and climbed out of her wagon.

  Before she could find the leader and take aim, a terrible great sound shivered the air. The roar made Kimjim flap even more desperate to escape.

  The tiger soared through the air. Caught mid-lunge the great beast looked like it was flying, like it could land in the air and propel itself to the stars. Jasprite didn’t have time to dodge, before the beast slammed into her body. She fell, pinned beneath the great cat’s huge mass. The musket clattered useless under the wagon. She waited for teeth and claw to tear her apart, then saw the tiger’s eyes.