Toxic Game (GhostWalkers #15) - Christine Feehan Page 0,60

and gloves in his pocket and knew she’d done the same. With the mask on, one was far too aware of the predicament they were in to think about laughing. I nearly fell out of the tree. Uh-oh. He’s looking up at me again. He walked over to the bodies and he sniffed them and now he’s looking at me. I’m trying to look like I’ve never been hungry in my life and have no intention of eating his roadkill.

He continued moving fast. If there was a problem with the tiger, better he took care of it than her. She would regret having to kill the animal for the rest of her life. He wouldn’t like harming the big cat, but he could get past it, especially if by doing so it meant saving her from having to. As he moved closer, he felt the laughter drain out of her, leaving her mind serious and then going from serious to horrified.

Draden, he’s caught in a trap and he’s going crazy.

Draden could hear the tiger, roaring his challenge, pain wracking the furious snarls that rose to almost a howling pitch.

Don’t you go near it. You stay in that tree, I’m almost there.

I should have been looking for signs of poachers. They always leave signs to warn others the area has traps laid. There were tears in her mind, but not in her voice. She was angry. He’s ripping at the tree trunk the cable is anchored around. So many of them have died just like that, starving, chewing at their own legs. Draden, I have to do something.

“I’m here,” he said softly, stepping onto the branch where she clung, her horrified gaze fixed on the wildly fighting tiger.

The noose was wrapped around its right back leg and the animal fought back, attacking the tree in a frenzied attempt to get loose. It clawed at the trunk, leaving deep rake marks in between biting at its paw and leg and even the trap.

“Do you have anything nonlethal on you? Something we can dart him with? Put him out? Neither one of us can help him when he’s like that. It’s too dangerous.”

“They should have something at the ranger station,” Shylah said, still not taking her eyes off the thrashing, fighting animal.

Even Draden, who attempted to be nothing but hardened steel, felt a little heartbroken when watching the animal struggle to survive. He was trained to be a heat-seeking missile, going after the enemy, not to take on any other tasks along the way. But he was also GhostWalker special forces, and that called for thinking independently. In this case, his thinking veered toward wiping out the poachers along with the terrorists.

“You had to have studied the region before you were dropped in,” he said, deferring to her greater knowledge. He had come to get in and get out, not for an extended stay, and the only other information had been provided by Malichai. “What hazards besides the tiger are we facing?” He was calm, matter-of-fact. When Shylah continued to stare silently down at the raging, fighting animal, he poured command into his voice. “Shylah, I need data now.”

She looked up at him, blinking rapidly, and his heart stuttered when he saw her lashes were wet. She nodded twice, clearly forcing herself under control. “Poachers set multiple traps in the same area. They knew this tiger frequented this area. There are probably eight or nine more traps on the ground. They leave signs to warn others that they’ve already laid the traps. I should have been looking. I was concentrating on the enemy.”

“Stay in the trees then and make your way back to the station fast. I’ll keep watch over him and examine the ground. I should be able to find the other traps and remove them while I’m waiting for you. Maybe I can find a way to calm him down.” He said it more to soothe her than because he believed that he could.

She nodded. “You might be able to. In the park where you see tigers more often, when one is trapped, often the others protect it, or at least that’s what quite a few of the natives think. So, who knows? When the rangers try to remove snares, they can be risking their lives going into tiger territory. He might view you as a protector.”

Draden doubted it. He was more of a hunter, a predator, and the tiger most likely would scent that in him. Still, darting a big