The Tiger's Lady (32 page)

It might have been you there,
a mocking voice droned.

What would the madmen do next?

“Now that was a stupid thing to do.” Though kneeling in the sand, Pagan somehow managed to sound arrogant and in control of the situation.

“Why? He was a bloody fool,” Griggs said flatly.

“And you’re
not?”

With a ragged curse, the hawk-faced man stalked toward Pagan and raised his pistol, only to halt abruptly.

“Told you I was on no accounts to be killed, didn’t he?” Pagan jeered. “Too bad for you.”

“He didn’t say anything about rearranging your bloody face though!” With that, Griggs struck out savagely with his booted foot.

But the man kneeling in the sand was faster. In a blur of motion he twisted sideways, jumped to his feet, and then caught his assailant’s boot, sending him flying headlong onto the beach. Griggs’ pistol flew over his head, landing in the sand near the surf.

“Good thing that imbecile Sammy didn’t know how to tie a decent knot,” Pagan muttered, brushing sand from his face seconds before Griggs stumbled upright.

Seeing the commotion, the last of the trio sped down the beach to Griggs’ aid, pistol in hand.

“Stop right there.” A curt female command brought him up short.

“What the—” The sentinel turned, his eyes narrowing. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“Not yours, you slime.” The honey-haired Englishwoman lowered her rifle until it settled on his stomach. Then she allowed it to drop a fraction lower, to a place even more sensitive. “Now I suggest you drop that pistol. Unless you’d care to end your days in a, shall we say, most
indelicate
condition.”

The man’s gaze flickered uncertainly toward the two men struggling in the sand, then darted back to the woman with the rifle. Cursing harshly, he tossed the pistol down at his feet.

Meanwhile, Pagan had felled Griggs and pinned him face down on the sand, one knee pressed to his back. Smiling grimly, he swept up the length of rope from the sand and used it to lash Griggs’ hands securely.

While Griggs cursed, Pagan pushed to his feet, unsteady still. A dark shape swooshed overhead, drawing his eyes skyward.

Already the bloody vultures were circling, he saw.

At that moment a low, liquid growl erupted from the mouth of the path where the jungle’s green wall fringed the beach.

Even before the growl had ended, Pagan was running over the sand for his rifle, Griggs, Sammy, even Ruxley forgotten in the wake of this new danger.

Grimly Pagan wrenched the rifle free of his companion’s nerveless fingers and spun about.

Up the beach the underbrush began to sway and a chilling roar rent the air.

“Leopards,” Pagan said harshly. “Two, by the sound of it. Get behind me, Cinnamon.”

A scuffling sound drew his gaze to the beach, where Griggs and his accomplice were already running south.

“They—they’re escaping!”

“Let them go,” Pagan said grimly. “They won’t get far without weapons, not with night coming on.”

He was right, she realized. In all the turmoil, she hadn’t noticed the sun disappearing into the sea. Now daylight was no more than a ragged line of fuchsia trailing across the western sky.

“Dear heaven, what are we to do now?”

Pagan’s eyes narrowed on the pitching greenery. His jaw clenched. “We wait.”

“W-wait?”

“Never a good idea to present a leopard with a view of your back,
Angrezi.
Gives the big cats the idea that you’re running. And nothing provokes them so fast as the hint of fear. Remember that if you ever get lost in the jungle.”

Pale-faced, she watched the rocking foliage just above the beach. “Believe me, I have absolutely no intention whatsoever of becoming lost in the jungle. And I don’t think waiting is such a good idea.”

“I’ve
got the rifle now, woman,” he muttered, wiping a hand across his bleeding forehead. “Do as I tell you. Or don’t you trust my aim?”

“It’s not your aim I’m worried about, but the sand in the rifle’s firing mechanism.”

Pagan’s onyx eye narrowed. “How would you happen to know a thing like that?”

She gasped, realizing she had no answer. Her words had surprised
her
just as much as they had him.

She frowned at the cold metal butt of Pagan’s rifle as if it held the answers to her questions. “I—I don’t know.”

Pagan opened the chamber. A moment later he snapped out a low curse. “You were right,
Angrezi.
The whole bloody cylinder is full of sand. And that changes matters considerably.”

At that same moment a long shadow slid from the underbrush. Tawny head erect, sleek body gleaming, the great cat flowed out of the jungle onto the sand, then stopped to stare at the two humans motionless by the water.

Its eyes were purest emerald, and its glowing, dappled body was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.

Also the most deadly.

Slowly the leopard flicked its tail, a low growl rising from deep in its throat.

“P-Pagan?”

“You
know the rifle doesn’t work,” he said quietly.
“I
know it doesn’t work. But the leopard doesn’t know that, Cinnamon. We’ll just have to wait it out. Trust me, they like firearms trained on them as little as we do.”

The woman at his side began to tremble. Across the beach the big leopard slanted its tawny head back and emitted a low, throaty roar.

As if on cue another full-grown cat stepped out of the foliage into the fading light.

“There. That’s his mate,” Pagan whispered. They were a magnificent pair, their spotted pelts gleaming copper in the last blood-red rays of the sun. After sniffing the air delicately, the male took another slow step toward the beach, while his companion remained at the jungle’s edge.

Pagan braced his legs and raised the rifle. Then he slammed the barrels home with a resounding crack.

The female leopard’s ears rose to points. Her mate halted abruptly, green eyes sharp and wary.

Around them time seemed to slow and then stop altogether. The woman at Pagan’s side blinked. Her senses heightened by danger, she experienced a thousand sensations at once, all with a crushing clarity.

She felt the wind riffling her damp hair on her shoulders and the starched hem of Pagan’s shirt scratching her thigh. She felt her skin prickle, gritty with drying sea salt and a layer of sand. She felt the rush of the air, cool and fresh with the scent of night-blooming flowers.

And she tasted fear.

“Don’t move,” Pagan breathed. “No matter what, you must show no sign of fear.”

His companion swallowed audibly. “W-who’s afraid?” she whispered back.

The larger leopard lowered its head and studied her, its great green eyes burning through her very soul.

Somehow, though her blood was churning and her legs were blancmange, she did not move.

The minutes dragged on. With each one she grew more certain she would faint, and then be set upon by the great cats. Her hands clenched convulsively at her sides.

“Steady, love.” It was no more than the faintest whisper of sound, too faint for even the leopard’s fine ears to pick up.

But those whispered words reached out to her like a lifeline, just when she feared she would falter.

Up the beach the great leopard growled and clawed the sand once, then turned and moved unhurriedly back to his mate. A moment later they disappeared into the dappled shadows of the jungle.

Even after they were gone, the two people on the beach did not move, half expecting the creatures to reappear at any moment.

“Sweet Lord in heaven.” She could not tear her eyes from the dark mocking wall of the jungle, unable to believe that she was still alive.

Only then did she sway, ashen-faced. When she realized the danger was truly past, her stamina finally gave way. The next instant her knees caved in.

Pagan was there to catch her.

Slowly he eased their tensed bodies down to the sand, his fingers hard on her waist. She felt as much as heard the harsh breath expelled from his lips.

“That was too bloody close. Probably they had just eaten and were only interested in cleaning up. If not, I doubt we would be sitting here right now.”

“But you said—” His companion’s teal eyes widened. “You told me—”

“I’m afraid I lied,
Angrezi.
” Pagan’s sensual lips twisted in a grim smile. “Would it have been better to know the truth—that we were likely to be ripped to pieces and ingested at any moment?”

The knot in her throat tightened until it threatened to choke her. At that moment she tottered between loving this man for saving her life and hating him for his arrogant deception.

Anger seemed by far the safer course.

So she grasped her fury like a weapon, fighting the dizzying heat uncoiling through her where their bodies touched.
“‘I’m afraid I lied.’
Is that
all
you have to say?”

Pagan frowned. “Was I supposed to risk a chance of your giving way to hysterics? Nothing would have brought the leopards down upon us faster.”

“I? Give way to hysterics?”

“You’re doing it right now,
Angrezi.”

Red-faced, she glared back at Pagan, shoving wildly at his shoulders. “I am
not
giving way to hysterics, Mr. Pagan. What I am giving way to is anger. To utter and complete
fury!
You assumed I was nothing but a foolish, pathetic female and therefore you deceived me!” Her hands swung wildly, nearing but never quite connecting with Pagan’s jaw.

Scowling, Pagan caught her fists in one broad, work-hardened fist. “It was the only rational thing to do, woman!”

“To deceive me? As if I were some helpless child? And at the same time allow me to believe
you
were completely in control?” Shaking with anger, she drew a ragged breath, her chest heaving.

Pagan’s mouth flattened to an angry line. “And to think I was just about to commend you for your cool behavior.”

White-faced, she glared back. “I may be new here, inexperienced in the jungle, Mr. Pagan, but I hardly think—”

“That is
precisely
your problem, you little fool.
You hardly think!”

She wrenched vainly at his granite fingers. “I saved your life, you cur. My performance back there was flawless and you bloody well know it!”

“Performing seems to be something you’re very good at.”

“Why you—” Suddenly she stiffened, her breath catching in a choked gasp. “No, please—” Her eyes closed and she swayed in Pagan’s hard grip. White-faced, she fought the cruel fingers of pain clawing deep into her head. “No…”

He caught her closer to his chest. “Cinnamon?
What is it?”

But she did not answer, for a storm was upon her, exploding through her mind in a fury of colors, in wild, strident sound. Just as a storm uproots trees and tosses soil and branches through the air, so did dark images and shreds of conversation tear through her head. A dark face swam before her, thin lips stretched in a chill, unnatural smile.

Fear seized her then, fear greater than anything she had known when faced by the stalking leopards.

Pagan gave her a shake. “Tell me, Cinnamon! Is it your back?”

She barely heard him, shivering convulsively, trying to fight down a strange, shapeless sense of horror.
Performing … Something you’re very good at…

Suddenly she knew she couldn’t face what she would find hidden beyond that churning storm of fear.

“N-no,” she rasped, tossing her head wildly. Afraid to see, afraid of remembering.

Pagan caught her cheeks and angled her face up to his. “Tell me, damn it!
Now.”

And then, in a crashing wave of sound and color, she
knew.

Sudden and blinding, the memory returned to her.

“Cinnamon?” Pagan’s hands were hard and urgent on her face. “Is it your back?” His face was raw, fierce with emotion. “Did the salt water—”

Tears squeezed from the edge of her eyes. “N-not Cinnamon,” she finally managed to say, and his grimace told her he believed she’d gone unhinged.

“Not Cinnamon,
B-Barrett.
My name … sweet heaven, Pagan, I remember my
name!”