Tiger Eye (13 page)

Over the clamor of loud diners and slamming pots and dishes, Hari and Dela talked about food. Hari was, at first, tentative about his choices, and not simply because the food was unfamiliar. It seemed to Dela that the novelty of not being deliberately starved hadn’t yet worn off.

They finally agreed on steamed dumplings: shrimp, tofu, and pork. As the pimply waitress shuffled away, Dela caught Hari sizing up everyone in the restaurant. He faced the entrance, his back to the grease-stained cracked wall, his wide shoulders blocking much of Dela’s view. When she tried to move her chair to see the kitchen, he shifted, angling her closer to the wall. She realized, then, that he was shielding her.

“I don’t want you to get hurt protecting me,” she told him.

Hari raised an eyebrow. “If that were completely true, we would not be out in public.”

“Ouch,” she said. Hari held up his hand.

“I have insulted you, and that was not my intention. Simply put, Delilah, I cannot die. You can. It is logical you would assume I would protect you with my body.”

Dela stared, open-mouthed with dismay. She wanted to protest, to get angry, but she thought very carefully about what he had said. Had she really been so thoughtless, so selfish? Had she truly taken Hari’s new protectiveness for granted?

Yes, and yes.

“I’m so sorry,” she breathed, profoundly ashamed. She could barely stand to look at him.

“
I
am not sorry,” Hari said, and his voice was as soft and firm as his gaze. “You trust me to protect your life, and that trust is a gift. Do you understand, Delilah? You have faith in me. It never
crossed your mind to ask if I was willing—you trusted me to take care of you.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better, Hari. I abused your trust. You suffer the same as everyone else and I don’t want you hurt. I promised you that, and I’ve gone and broken my promise.”

“You’ve broken nothing,” he said, “Pain is a small thing, compared to the alternative.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he stopped her with the gentle press of his finger against her lips. “No, Delilah. You have no idea what it means to me, what it is like to be allowed the freedom of choice—to be trusted enough to be given that freedom. My life was a series of commands until I met you. Commands to obey, to protect. Commands, because no one trusted my free will. And my masters were right not to trust me. I would have betrayed them—and I did, when I had the chance. But you do not think like that. You assume I will do the right thing. You assume I am good.”

“You are a good man.”

“You are the first to say so in two thousand years,” he said. “You are the first to believe. That is an honor worth any pain. Worth even death.”

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “If you trust me enough with your life, Delilah, then trust me to tell you my true feelings. I want to protect you, and the only way you will stop me is with a command.”

Hari’s golden eyes were fierce, and he cupped her face in his large hands, kissing her forehead. Chaste, and yet a warm tingle rushed down Dela’s spine to her toes.

“You’re going to make me cry,” she said.

“Then cry,” he said, and kissed her again, this time on the lips.

Their food arrived: three bamboo steamers full of dumplings. Hari surprised Dela by being quite proficient with chopsticks; apparently, it had been the utensil of choice in many of his
summons. He seemed quite relieved, and Dela watched him polish off his dumplings with a single-minded intensity that made her grin. He looked up in time to catch her smile, and asked a question with his eyes.

“It’s nothing,” she said, and then, “I think I like watching you eat.”

It was a strange thing to say; she knew it the moment the words passed her lips, but it was too late. Embarrassed, she waited for his response.

Hari gestured toward her plate, still half full. His meaning was clear, and Dela looked away, shaking her head and smiling. Hari leaned close, large and fierce, but with a strangely tender light in his eyes that was utterly mesmerizing. Dela forgot how to speak as he picked up a dumpling and lifted it to her mouth. He brushed the pearly dough against her lips.

“Eat, Delilah. Let
me
watch
you.”
His voice was low, sensual; she felt his breath warm her face, wrapping her in delicious folds of air and power. Dela loved hearing her full name roll off Hari’s tongue. He made it sound exotic, sexy. The kind of name that belonged to a woman who poured herself into silk loincloths and bejeweled bras. Not sweats and old flannel shirts.

Dela opened her mouth and took a bite of dumpling. Meaty juices from the filling ran down her chin. Mortified, she began to wipe away the grease. Hari caught her wrist. He leaned forward and licked her chin. His tongue was firm, careful, and utterly erotic. Dela had no idea having her face licked by a man could be such a turn-on, although she suspected the low-level inferno blazing through her belly had more to do with the man himself than the technique.

She stifled a moan as Hari pressed his lips against the corner of her mouth, and she opened herself to him, searching for the sweet comfort of his kiss, burying herself in the delicious,
heady sensation of her mouth joined with his, making love with nothing but the lips and tongue.

When he pulled away, she caught glimpses of people staring, their expressions a mixture of outrage, embarrassment, and interest. The restaurant was very quiet.

They paid the bill and left. It was late, but neither of them felt tired. When they entered the mall below the hotel, Dela pulled Hari into Starbucks—the same one they had gone careening past earlier that day. She forced herself to look at the patch of floor where she remembered collapsing, facing down the fear her memories resurrected. If going for a walk and dinner had been one act of defiance, then this was another: Dela was not going to let the Magi—or anyone else—rule her life with terror.

The coffee shop was filled with young foreigners and locals, all trying to act super cool while sipping their lattes. Classical music played softly over the speakers. Dela ordered a mango frappuccino. Hari, understandably, had no preference, so she got him hot chocolate. Cats, milk, and all that.

Her drink was in a clear plastic cup, sweetly perspiring. Golden, chunky with ice. Tasty. She smacked her lips around the straw as the two of them found a small table in the corner where they could sit with their backs to the wall. Dela sent out a trail of thought, scanning for weapons. She found nothing, but kept her mind open for the hint of anything that could be knife or gun.

Go back to your room
, she told herself.
Take the drinks and go. It will be safer.

But no. Stupid, selfish—maybe Dela was all of those things for wanting to stay out—but if she began running now, hiding, then what good would she be? Just another victim, cowering.

Hari sipped his hot chocolate with reserve.

“Well?” she asked. He shook his head, a faint smile on his lips.

“It is very good.” He drank some more, watching the flow of
the murmuring crowd. Dela idly tapped her cup on the smooth tabletop, and Hari glanced at her with a question in his eyes.

“The Magi, I understand,” she said, by way of explaining her thoughts, “but why anyone else would want to hurt me … or how they even managed to track me down …” She frowned, thinking carefully. “They must have gotten hold of my travel plans … but no, that doesn’t make sense. I didn’t write anything down, and the only people who knew where I would be staying were Adam, my parents, and my brother.”

“Adam?”

“He’s my assistant. He runs my gallery, contacts my suppliers—everything I don’t have time for. He’s actually from China. Adam immigrated to the United States around five years ago. I was one of his first employers.”

“You trust him?”

“Absolutely. The crazy knife guy didn’t find me through him or my family. Which means they either tracked my credit card or have a contact in the Chinese government, someone who could trace my passport number when I checked into the hotel.” Dela dug into her purse and pulled out her little blue passport. She showed it to Hari. “I’m getting you one of these. It’s the only way you can move freely between countries. In China, it’s especially important. If you want to stay at hotels like the one we’re at, you have to register, give them your identity number.”

“In my time, when a man wanted to travel, all he needed to concern himself with were bandits, hunger, and disease.”

“Thrilling. I prefer shuffling paper, if it’s all right by you.”

Hari inclined his head. “It was not such a hardship for shape-shifters. As a tiger, I could cover great distances. Food was plentiful. No one ever tried to harm me.”

“Gee, I wonder why.” Dela frowned. “How did you carry your weapons and clothes when you shape-shifted?”

Hari smiled. “Clothes are so very human, Delilah. Shape-shifters have very little use for them. As for my weapons, I did not acquire those—or my clothing—until after my first summons. By that time, shape-shifting was no longer a possibility. I had to learn how to live as a full human.”

Ah
. Hari’s comfort with his nudity suddenly made sense.

“Okay,” she said, after a moment spent contemplating a naked Hari running through the jungle, “so when you were still a full shape-shifter, where did you travel?”

“Everywhere.” His eyes grew distant with memory. “Sometimes I visited neighboring clans—I did so more frequently as I grew older, looking for a mate—but often I traveled by myself, simply exploring. Going places where men had not yet trod.”

Dela imagined Hari as a tiger, sleek and wild, traversing hidden worlds beneath the canopy of his forest home, traveling for no reason but simple curiosity. That and perhaps joy in his ability to do so.

“It sounds wonderful.” She sighed, and then steeled herself for the question she had to ask, that had been nagging her for hours. “Did you … did you leave behind anyone special? Like a … a mate?”

Hari shook his head. “I never found anyone who suited me. Just before my sister was taken, I considered traveling farther south into the great jungles, to see what other clans I could find.”

“I suppose if you had found someone, it would make your predicament much worse.”

“Yes,” he agreed, pinning her with his heavy gaze, as surely as if he had used his hands. “Shape-shifters mate for life.”

“Oh,” she said weakly, unable to understand why that particular revelation made her stomach flutter wildly. She wanted to ask him if his preferences were species-specific, but that was too much. Crazy, insane. Besides, weren’t his kisses answer enough? And why did it suddenly matter so much? Idiot. One
make-out session and she was losing her mind! But, no, she’d begun losing her mind the minute Hari appeared in her hotel room. The next time she told herself to embrace possibility, she was going to have to remember not to embrace
all
possibilities.

Hari swallowed, opened his mouth to say more, and abruptly froze. Lifting his chin, he cast his gaze around the scattered tables, sniffing carefully. He tilted his head, and muscles moved in his shoulders and neck, liquid smooth and graceful. She could see the tiger in his eyes, his exotic face, and could not bear to look away.

“What is it?”

“I thought I sensed another like me. A shape-shifter.” His voice was hushed, strained.

“A shape-shifter?” Dela rose from her chair. “We should go look.”

And they did, but only for a short time. Hari caught scent of something wild and familiar, but the trail—which led in a short circle around the hotel—petered out at the end of a service alley.

Hari stared at the wall in front of him, the end of the concrete path. There was no way out but up.

“Wings?” Dela asked. Hari nodded, his expression bereft.

They returned to their room.

The phone was ringing when Dela opened the door, and she dashed to answer it, hoping she wasn’t going to hear some ominous voice whispering,
“I’m gonna kill you!”
on the other end.

But it was Adam, and he sounded almost as uneasy as she felt. Dela checked the clock. It was early morning on the U.S. west coast.

“I am so sorry to call you, Dela, but there is a man here in my home. He says he is supposed to watch out for me. He will not explain why, and he will not leave. When I threatened to call the police, he said to call you.”

Dela sighed. Hari watched her face as he tried unsuccessfully to unbutton his shirt. Scowling, he finally pulled it over his head, popping several buttons in the process.

Oh, well. I have to buy him new clothes anyway.

Dela found herself staring at Hari’s body, and shook her head to clear the libidinous cobwebs. “Adam, I did ask someone to check on you. I’ve been receiving some … threats, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Threats?” He sounded appalled. “What kinds of threats?”

“Don’t worry about it. Is that man nearby? Let me talk to him.”

There was a moment of silence, and then someone who had an even sweeter voice than Adam coughed lightly into the phone. “This is Eddie, ma’am. Roland sent me.”

Must be new. She hadn’t met Eddie yet.

“I guessed that. Why, however, are you scaring Adam? I was hoping for something more discreet.”

“Ma’am, Roland told me this is a high-priority job, and that the safety of you, your friends, and your establishment create a non-negotiable situation in which I, and my colleagues, are allowed full authority over certain aspects of your personal security.”

It was a long sentence, spoken very quickly, and so obviously rehearsed that Dela had to smile. “Tell me what Roland really said. Word for word.”

A moment of silence. “Ma’am, I don’t think that would be appropriate.”

“Humor me.”

“Ma’am.”

“Eddie.”

Eddie took a deep breath, clearly torn between following the implicit order in her voice, and a very good upbringing involving Words You Never Say in Front of Women.

“Ma’am, Roland said, and I quote: ‘I don’t care what you
beeping have to do to keep her and her peeps beeping safe, but if it means acting like the Good Lord Jesus parting the beeping Red Sea, then you will part that beeping sea, or else a certain region of your lower anatomy will be mine on a beeping stick.’”