A Tiger's Bride (A Lion's Pride Book 4) (14 page)

“I was preparing to escape. You should have stayed where I left you.” Completely irrational, but he didn’t know what else to say. It both warmed him to the toes and appalled him that she cared enough to put herself in danger.

“I couldn’t stay where you left me, which I might add was in a snow bank due to your driving skills.”

“My skills are excellent.”

“Says the man who lost his passenger. And then got caught.”

Hold on. Did she roll her eyes at him? “I was drugged.”

“And how did you like it?” A sassy retort.

He gave her the look that never worked on his sister but did wonders with his mother. “Would a set of diamond earrings say I’m sorry?”

“Depends on if it matches the wedding ring I don’t yet have and the necklace.”

He blinked. Then smiled. “Done.”

“By the way, I met your sister.”

Her announcement totally derailed his train of thought—which involved her wearing glittering stones and gold, and nothing else.

“How the hell did you meet Sasha?”

“She was the one who found me when you dumped me in that snowbank. Together, we went looking for you, but you were gone, and then your mother—”

“You met my mother, too?”

“Yes. Delightful woman. I’m sure. Maybe she’ll even like me once I can convince her I’m good enough for you.”

“That will never happen.” No one would ever be good enough for his mother’s son.

“Then she and my dad will have something to talk about, as he’ll never accept you. But let’s ignore them for the moment. You wanted to know why I came to rescue you.”

“Obviously you were seeking punishment. You do know if you wanted a spanking, you just had to ask.”

Her turn to blink at him and moisten her lips with the tip of her pink tongue. “I must say, that sounds intriguing. But you’re distracting me.”

“Distraction is better than planning the demise of my mother and sister for allowing you to put yourself in harm’s way.”

“They didn’t have a choice. I insisted when I found out it would take hours for the satellite to locate you. Then, in a weird stroke of luck, the dogs came back, so I got on the sled and told them to go home—”

“The dogs.” He spoke the words faintly as he tried to wrap his head around the impossible series of events.

“Yes, those dogs we found. You know the ones who took a shine to me and that you drove off with after you dumped me in the snow.”

He’d better add a bracelet to his jewelry shopping list. “They found you?”

“Yup. Anyhow, they took off with me in the sled, and you’ll be proud to know I only fell off a few times before I got the hang of it. The puppies—”

Only she would call huskies, which could band together and tear even a tiger apart, puppies.

“—were nice enough to stop so I could get back on. Turns out, they knew the way back to their stable. I found this place, and eventually I ran into some guards who took me prisoner. And well”—she smiled, wide and beautiful—“here I am!”

Yes, she was here, but what of her cohorts? “One thing I do not understand is, if you intentionally set out to find me, what happened to my sister and mother? Where are they?”

“Last I saw them, they were tracking me with some kind of close-range GPS device that I stashed in my pants. They’re part of my rescue plan. They shouldn’t be far behind. Soon you’ll be free again.”

He banged his head on the bars he gripped, muttering, “No. No. No. This cannot be happening. If they rescue me, I shall never hear the end of it. This is a disaster.”

“I’m sure they won’t tease you. I mean it’s not your fault you got captured by humans. There were a lot of them. And they had guns.”

Oh way to deepen his shame. “No. I will not have it.” He spoke the words low. “I will save myself dammit!” he yelled.

“You know, Daddy usually makes the walls tremble when he’s really mad.”

Okay, so he needed to crank up the rage a little bit. Being compared to her father? And coming up short? Yeah, that fired the adrenaline up a notch. He felt the edge of the door, seeking a weakness.

Teena kept chatting. “You’ll be glad to know I’m still a virgin. When the men talked about testing the merchandise, I told them I was saving myself for my husband.”

“They talked about touching you?” Ooh, that made him boil.

“Talked yes, acted no. Once the head honcho guy heard I was a virgin, he said it would fetch a higher price.”

The guy wanted to sell his woman? For sex?

Dmitri huffed and puffed. His eyes narrowed, and he stared at the wall in his way.

“Then…oh dear. Something just moved in the corner. Dear god. No. No. No!”

Teena began to scream. And scream. And scream. The terror high-pitched and unacceptable.

With a roar, Dmitri ran at the mortared stone wall, shoulder first, rage his shield, and his body the wrecking ball.

Crack
. Crumble.
Hack
.

Stupid dust lifted as the old stonework shattered at the impact, and still Teena screamed, the sound fueling his protective instincts.

Forget looking for a key or picking the lock. He shoved at the wall of her cell. He didn’t have the same momentum in the tight hall. He threw himself at it once. Twice.

The third time, stone shifted—the ancient masonry an easier task to break than solid steel— and he stumbled over the uneven debris right into Teena’s cell.

“Where is it? Where is the monster?” Surely something horrendous threatened her.

Wide-eyed and backed against the wall, Teena gaped at him, alone and unhurt.

“Did you just bulldoze a wall?” she asked.

“Yes.” He frowned. “You were just screaming. Why were you screaming?”

“Spider.”

His turn to blink at her stupidly. “Spider? I don’t understand.”

“There was a big one. In here. With me.”

“You were screaming because of a spider?”

“Well, yeah. It was big. And hairy,” she confided with a shudder. “But you killed it when you came crashing through the wall. A big rock fell on it. My hero.”

Some men might have stalked away in disgust. Others would have mocked her for her fear. Dmitri on the other hand? He beamed.

She called him her hero. He’d kill a spider every day if she kept thinking that way.

“Come, little kitten. Let us escape from this dungeon,” he said with a flourish of his hands.

“Why not just wait for reinforcements?”

Wait for help? “Never.” With that exclamation, he swept her into his arms, whirled back to the opening he’d made and realized they both wouldn’t fit. He set her down, and once they’d both squeezed through, he swept her back into his arms.

A giggle burst from her. “Dmitri, what are you doing? I can walk.”

“I am rescuing you, the proper way. The—”

“Russian way.” She laughed. “Very well. Let’s go.”

Their going wasn’t exactly stealthy. The halls truly were narrow, and two of the glass sconces covering the wall lights ended up shattering on the floor, yet the loud noise didn’t draw guards.

A shame. This narrow space would have proven perfect to take them on one or two at a time.

Apparently the humans knew this would work against them, hence why Dmitri faced a sea of pointed guns, when he opened the door at the top of the stairs leading into the main part of the keep.

Facing imminent doom, a tiger could perhaps regret his hasty decision to execute his own escape instead of waiting for his sister and other backup.

Nah. He’d never go down without a fight. Except now, he didn’t have just himself to think of.

Still nestled in his arms, Teena buried her face against his neck. The poor thing was probably terrified. He had to strain to hear her whispered, “Throw me.”

“What?” He practically barked the word, and a half-dozen weapons bobbled as sweaty fingers clutched at triggers.

“Throw me at them,” she hissed in a low tone. “I’ll take the three in the middle, you get the rest.”

It was only as he felt her body beginning to shift in his grip that he understood; she was going wild.

Here comes my lioness.

Some people thought the male lions were king, but when it came to hunting, it was the females you had to watch for.

Trusting his kitten, he tossed her. And, no, the irony wasn’t lost on him that instead of the human getting thrown to the lions, it was the lion getting thrown at the humans.

And the tiger going after the rest.

Shapeshifting in some respects felt as if it took a lot of time, but in reality, once the magic that manipulated their cell structure was called upon, the actual time of change was little. Little enough that, when his lunge ended, he was already swiping with claw-tipped paws.

Men screamed. A few guns did go off, resulting in more screams. Not from him or his wife. Guns proved effective only if well aimed.

The smell of panic mixed and swirled with that of fresh blood and aconite. How he loved the smell of battle. What he liked less were the shreds of his shirt that still clung to him.

Nothing worse than looking like an idiot who couldn’t shift right. But at least his mishap wasn’t as bad as Teena’s, who still wore her thong.

In mere moments, the room had only two felines standing. Bodies littered the floor, some groaning, most not. The faint yells of a couple that fled sifted back to them.

His golden lioness flicked her tail and peered at the door.

He dipped his own head and swept a paw, gesturing, “After you.”

On second thought, he didn’t want her to face possible harm. He’d go first.

He slapped down her tail and pinned it. Over her shoulder she shot him an amber-eyed glare and a growl.

Releasing her tail, he swatted her furry butt then trotted past her.

Whack
.

She swatted his ass.

He flicked his tail in acknowledgement of her compliment. Of course she admired his fine form, even when he wore his tiger, his butt was awesome.

Taking the lead, he went into stealth mode. Crouched low, he slunk along the wide hall. Smells surrounded him, mostly mundane ones like the floor wax used on the gleaming wooden floors and the faint delicious aroma of bacon frying. Had they missed breakfast?

Forget food made by hands. He was after a different meal today, and lucky him, there was the cologne he looked for.

Intent on his trail, he almost missed the slight creak of a door opening behind him.

As he whirled his head and spotted the man with the gun, he noted Teena, not looking in front of her, nose to the ground, barreling into his legs. With a yell, the fellow toppled, the gun went off, and the bullet ricocheted, back to its sender.

Teena let out a loud breath and gave the lion equivalent of a shrug.

And she calls that bad luck.

Hardly.

Adopting his awesome slink once again, Dmitri stalked the scent trail of the man wearing the spicy cologne.

He found him, standing by a massive floor-to-ceiling fireplace, an inefficient monstrosity. Yet, for all its impractical nature, considering the amount of wood required to feed it, not to mention the sooty nature of wood smoke, those flaws enhanced the beauty and framed the intimidation factor.
Look at me. I’m so rich I can burn a shit-ton of money and still freeze my human ass off in this room.

His tiger summed it more succinctly.

Idiot. Let’s eat him.

Enemy. Check.

Fresh. Check.

Hungry?
Very.
And the idiot in front of him was making him wait to sate his
hunger.

“Stop right there, or else.” The human with the spicy scent aimed his double-barrel shotgun at Dmitri.

One gun? Bad odds—for the guy holding it. Especially since the human appeared in the mood to chat. Villains were predictably dumb that way. The more in control they felt, the less they pulled the trigger.

Dmitri would know. He enjoyed a good gloat when he’d pulled one over on an enemy. Watching their faces as he espoused on a lovely strangulation, the blanching of their eyes as he poured cement on their feet. Good times.

If he was in a playful mood and looking to update the sound effect he used for text messages, then he sometimes resorted to a sneak and pounce, ensuring beforehand he had his sister following with a cell phone to record. Sasha did a great job after of splicing the audio file so that his minions visibly shuddered when his phone went off.

How I love being me.

Swapping from tiger to man took but a moment, and he stretched, his dewy, human skin shivering in the brisk air of the room. “If it’s not the lunch that got away. So nice of you to come to me,” Dmitri said.

“I didn’t come to you. I captured you.”

“If you say so.” Dmitri shrugged and beamed his most placating smile. Since Sasha wasn’t here to plant her fist in it, he felt rather safe using it.