Hiring the Tiger Read online

  He murmured in her ear. “You did leave me, maybe not bound with your damned collar and ropes, but trapped the same. I was going out of my mind without you.”

  Jasprite shuddered. If only she could keep his confession in a box, to hear it on command, to see its shine whenever she wanted. “Why didn’t you come with me?”

  Navarro shifted away, and she jerked at the ropes, instinctively trying to hold him inside. He stood and looked over at her body, no doubt admiring his handiwork. She hung off the stone. Their cum slid down her thighs, and her breast and sex still throbbed with the desire she feared would never be fully sated without him.

  “I don’t know how to go along with you and leave it behind.”

  “You sit in the caravan.” She smiled. “And watch it disappear a mile at a time.”

  Jasprite meant to be sweet and sincere, but he scowled.

  He walked behind the stone, and after a moment the ropes on her ankles loosened. “Porter is coming down the slope.”

  “Oh, you don’t want the wolves to see me bound and at your mercy?” She laughed.

  Nav paused, considering it. Then he freed her. “Go on and tie up your robe. He’s going to know what we did, but he doesn’t need to see—”

  Jasprite heard the clomping steps and shook the ropes off her wrists. She tied her robe and stood on unsteady legs. She leaned on the stone when she saw the wolf, the biggest one, burst out of the dark slope.

  “Nav!” The wolf glanced at her—Nav was right. He knew at once, though he had more pressing issues. “One of them escaped. With the dragon.”

  Jasprite grinned. “That’s Chan. He used to be a performer in a traveling show, you know. He can wiggle out of all kinds of knots.”

  “Well, shit.” Nav growled, then shook his head and made his decision without hesitation. “Get the pack down here, Porter. I’ll get you some money and the three of you will go out on the boat.”

  The wolf looked at Jasprite and then at him. “You mean, the four of us?”

  “No. The three. That’s where we went wrong last time. I’ll lead the guard in another direction. Nice clean trail before I lose them.” Nav crouched by the water and yanked on a chain, then nudged Jasprite out of the way and wrapped the chain around the stone.

  “No,” Porter said, nervously. “Where we went wrong last time was in not slitting throats and burying bodies. That’s what you said on the chain.”

  Jasprite swallowed her sickening fear.

  “Don’t be stupid.” An old boat sliced through the water. “You fellas couldn’t hurt a house cat.”

  “I’ll tell what us fellas couldn't do—leave you behind to get arrested.” Porter hurried over and helped him jerk the boat onto the cave floor.

  “Porter, you should be half up that slope.”

  “How’s this for a plan? Half-Ear and Sock can slip off in the boat and I’ll go one way and you go another way. We’ll all meet up at Yenna’s and bribe her with—”

  Jasprite hadn’t predicted how swiftly the tiger could move until he’d struck the wolf’s head and the man crumbled. Nav caught him and laid him on the cave floor.

  As Nav crouched by the wolf and bound his hands and feet together loosely, he noticed her gaze and smiled faintly. “That’s the problem with packs. You keep them around long enough, they start thinking of their own plans, getting ideas for themselves. They leave you no choice but to knock them out and send them down river.”

  “Chan will bring the guards.”

  “If he finds Ramsay, Chan will bring a militia.”

  “You’re that much of a troublemaker?”

  “I have been.”

  Jasprite hummed and considered the tiger. He didn’t go with her to stay with his friends. Then he’d endangered his friends to have her. Now he would risk being captured to save his friends. It was quite noble … in an exceedingly poorly thought out way.

  “You stayed for your wolves?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I didn’t think tigers formed packs.”

  “They don’t.” He hoisted the unconscious wolf onto his shoulder and carried him to the boat and set him gently inside. God, the muscles on that man. “But humans form families. And I’ll take on a militia to keep mine safe.” Nav looked at her darkly. “Why? You gonna stop me?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  But already she was calculating her next move.

  Chapter Seven

  Nav rested on the top of Jasprite’s wagon and waited to see Ramsay’s team.

  Sock and Half-Ear were easier to persuade, especially when they saw Porter tied up in the boat. He’d given them Jasprite’s black purse and told them to go to the jungle’s edge until Yenna’s was safe. They’d left with obedient nods and nervous goodbyes.

  Jasprite agreed to remain unbound, and he could see her at the mouth of the cave, separated from her men who were still tied up. The six of them watched him with great fear, and none had tried to speak to him since he’d emerged growling without their mistress.

  Such a goddamned mess. The kind of proper cock-up that came when you chased after beautiful women out of your league. When a man thinks he can have everything, he loses everything.

  The only way to protect the wolves—he suspected Porter saw his intentions—was to be caught. He was the prize, not a scrawny pack of wolves.

  His ear perked when he heard a scratching in the cave. He lifted his head and saw Jasprite pushing dirt with a stick. She looked at him and said, “What? Can’t I doodle to pass the time?”

  Nav growled and turned on the wagon’s roof pacing back the other way and glaring at the sky. He saw a fast-moving cloud, the hazy fog of a water-witch at work.

  If he intended to run, now would be the time. Instead, he pretended to see nothing and lay down on the wagon roof and closed his eyes as if he were asleep. He sighed, breathing in the cool mountain air, enjoying the fresh chill, because down there back in chains it would be sweltering and miserable.

  He remained still, even when he heard the undeniable flapping of dragon wings and the creak of drawn arrows. If he intended to lead them away, now was the time to bolt, leap from the roof and skid down the north face of the mountain to the jungle below. The pack was far down river by now and would come out on the south side.

  But Nav remained, because it was the surest way for the wolves to escape blame. They didn’t need any more trouble because of him.

  Nav lifted his head because he heard bowstrings closer than Ramsay’s air patrol. Something round and red soared over his head. He sniffed the wind and smelled only the militia, then in a weak cross breeze, Porter.

  Jasprite came from the cave bellowing at the sky. “You call that a proper response? What the hell is wrong with you? Take off that silly cloud.”

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then the fog dissipated leaving a very confused water-witch staring up at Ramsay. He had about twenty guards with him. Some with muskets, most with nets and magic in their bows. The driver and the dragon were peppered with red berries splatters.

  “Really, Captain Ramsay all that bluster and arrogance and it takes you this long?” Jasprite scolded.

  Nav stared from Jasprite to the cage in the sky and grinned inwardly at her cleverness.

  “Look at that splatter. If this were a real attack, your dragon and driver would be dead. The tiger would have murdered all my men by now, and done God knows what kind of atrocities to me in his lair.”

  Ramsay looked both angry as hell and desperately confused. “This isn’t…”

  “Come off that ledge, my dear wolves.” Jasprite’s tone softened, and she tossed Nav’s trousers and cloak casually to him.

  Half-Ear, Porter, and Sock slipped down, tripping on the stones.

  “And you!” Jasprite’s men recoiled as she turned her rage on them. “Not a single one of you went into that cave to see if I was all right? Or alive? Not a single escape attempt while the bloody tiger was napping? I’m ashamed of all of you.”

  Ra
msay was still lagging. “Miss, this wasn’t an attack?”

  “Lady. Lady Doughton, you dolt.” She corrected him with an exaggerated sigh. “The guild of merchants charged me to test the guards in this area, and I’m frankly appalled. Though I thought my own men would do slightly better at protecting me.”

  Nav crawled under the cloak, and when he changed slipped into his trousers. He climbed down to stand near the wolves. He grinned at Ramsay. “Evening, Captain.”

  “Tiger.” Ramsay scowled in his floating cage, annoyed that it would remain empty today. “How you plan this?”

  “Pretty slapdash. She heard about our old career, hired us to attack her caravan and not hurt anyone. Didn’t figure you bitches would get involved or I would have asked for more money.”

  “Neither did I, frankly.” Jasprite glared at her men. She turned to the captain. “If there’s a fine for wasting your time, I’ll pay it, but my God, we would all be dead by now. How can I possibly expand my route over these mountains with such inept guards?”

  “Miss, Lady Doughton, we do our best.” Ramsay was turning green with humiliation.

  “Can’t grow a thriving trade without proper law and order. You ought to have a station at the merchant’s pass. You would have been here in a matter of minutes not … when did Chan leave?”

  “‘Bout an hour ago,” Nav answered, lying.

  “And he did that unprompted,” Sock said. “Slipped right out from under our noses, Ms. Jasprite, I swear he did.”

  Half-Ear snorted. “Not that we couldn’t have shot him out of the sky, but you know…”

  The three wolves rolled their eyes together and bemoaned. “Do no harm.”

  Nav glanced over to the etchings on the dirt floor and caught that phrase written in the dirt. She’d been writing messages to the wolves.

  “I’ll register your complaint with the local lord,” Ramsay said.

  “Do, yes. Tell him he can take it up with Lady Doughton if he has any questions. Though I imagine he’ll hear from the merchant’s guild as well.”

  Ramsay said nothing, just glared at Nav. Then at last, he jerked his head for his militia to fly away.

  Sock breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Well, that’s the state of my team, gentlemen.” Jasprite turned to the wolves. “And they are the best team I could assemble. Would one of you be a dear and untie them?”

  Porter and Sock went obediently.

  Jasprite stepped closer to Nav. “What kind of protections will I need for expanding trade through the mountain?”

  The wolves looked at Nav, bewildered, and he played it cool. “We can talk about it on the way to the city later after I show you the river route.”

  Half-Ear exclaimed. “What? You’re giving away the lair?”

  “Did you have plans for it? And I’m selling it, actually,” Nav said. “The plan is for an operation like Yenna’s got right up here on the mountain. Isn’t it, Jasprite?”

  For a moment, the tiger was worried he’d pushed her too far, that she’d think he was trying to pin her down to one spot. That she’d run.

  Jasprite let him writhe a moment, before she answered disdainfully. “I think I can hire someone to manage it a little better, but yes. Would be nice to have a place not in the city to rest between journeys. I loathe staying in the city too long.”

  Nav grinned at her. “See, boys, I told you I’d get us something better than highway robbing, some day. If this goes right, we’ll be rich men.”

  “Well, rich by your standards I’m sure. Though partnering with me is sure to have many benefits.” Jasprite gave him a smile that sent a shiver down his spine and right to his cock.

  Then she looked over at her three wagons and her men rubbing their wrists and looking chagrinned. “I don’t suppose you gentlemen are available for hire, Mr. Navarro. I could use a tiger and a pack of wolves to escort me into the city.”

  Nav saw the wolves tense up with a mix of delight and fear. “I think it’d be our pleasure, Lady Doughton.”

  The End

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