The Last Warrior (Shifters Unbound #13) - Jennifer Ashley Page 0,92
gnarled, brutally strong ones of goblins. The rest of their bodies remained the same, but their hands became massive and powerful.
Millie began a chant, and the brothers joined in. Rhianne didn’t understand the goblin language, but the words held force. The very air seemed to darken. Even Rhianne, an outsider, could feel the strength of the phrases.
Ben entered the chant, his rumbling baritone melding with the voices of the other three. The words rose, flowing around each other, knotting together in a bond of allegiance.
When the chant ended, all four hands returned to their human form. The four released each other, assuming casual poses as though nothing very significant had occurred.
“Okay then,” Ben said. “Welcome to the team.” As Darren and Cyril did a little victory dance, Ben pointed a blunt finger at them. “Before you get all hot to destroy our enemies, keep in mind, he neutralized Tiger right away.” Ben broke off and gazed pensively at the circle of trees. “I sure hope the big guy is all right.”
Tiger watched. And waited …
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tiger couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t call out to Carly or his cubs to tell them he was all right.
But he could observe.
He’d been caught while shifting from tiger to his between-beast—or maybe the fabric of null-time-space had forced him to shift to it. Tiger wasn’t quite certain. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was puzzling that out.
He liked his half-beast, which was massive and deadly unless he decided to gentle it for his cubs. Seth liked to cuddle against his fur, and Tiger-girl seemed calmer when he touched her with his paw-hand.
“They don’t know.” A tall man with hair bright as flame and dark eyes like holes to nothing stood next to Tiger. The man could move and speak, all the things Tiger could not. “They have no idea what’s to come.”
The two of them gazed through the ripples of not-time the Fae had caused. It was like peering through thick glass, similar to the blocks used to build decorative walls but without as much distortion.
Tiger could clearly see his mate and Seth across the green next to Dylan. Good. Dylan could protect Carly and his cub. He also saw Tiger-girl loping away with Connor and Andrea. Again good.
None could see him, though, and they were afraid.
“You will help me,” the Tuil Erdannan said. Tiger knew he was Tuil Erdannan and not hoch alfar because of his scent. He even smelled arrogant. “They trust you. I will have the spawn of my treacherous wife under my thumb and use her to destroy all who oppose me.”
Tiger did not answer, unable to move his mouth or work his larynx to push air across it.
“I need soldiers like you. Like you were meant to be.” The Tuil Erdannan didn’t bother speaking English, but Tiger understood him. When he’d been in Faerie to help Dimitri and Jaycee, he’d heard Tuil Erdannan words that his brain had stored and learned, which was how he’d been able to speak to Rhianne fluently in that language.
Tiger had been created to be a warrior to best all warriors. His original purpose, a noble one, had been to seek and rescue the stranded, but that purpose had been taken and perverted by ambitious men.
“You will help me.” The man’s air of disdain was sliced with the callousness of one who did not care whom he hurt. “You have no choice.”
In his silence, Tiger couldn’t growl, not in his throat. His mind, however, began a deep rumble, that of a tiger who was becoming very annoyed.
The Tuil Erdannan was wrong. Tiger had a choice. His creators had tried to breed him to be obedient. They’d stuck chips laced with magic into his brain that would make him so.
When Tiger had been abandoned, left alone for years, the chips had corrupted, and Tiger had broken the programming, replacing it with his own.
What everyone except Carly, and maybe Connor, did not understand, was that everything Tiger did and had done since he’d been freed, was and had been his choice.
He could do nothing at the moment, imprisoned by this thick miasma, but Tiger had learned patience living through cold and lonely years in a cage. Patience was one of his strengths.
He could wait.
Ben joined the ranks Dylan formed around himself. Kim had persuaded Carly to return to the house with Seth, but the two ladies remained on the porch, not about to hide when their mates were in danger.