Toxic Game (GhostWalkers #15) - Christine Feehan Page 0,62

get ready. They both had to be ready.

He had to be ready. He had to be able to count on her to do exactly what he said because his attention couldn’t be divided. He didn’t want the tiger to touch him. Not one single rake on his skin. He was uncertain how the virus was transmitted because he couldn’t study it. The remote lab was a good one as field labs went, but it wasn’t as safe as he would like it to be, not when he knew Trap would be sending for blood and virus both and the military lab he would be using would be far better equipped, with far better safety protocols.

Of course, Draden should have taken the virus straight to the remote lab, and called in transport, everything else be damned, but there was that quiver in Shylah’s voice that had turned him inside out. For the first time, knowing he did something completely out of character for him, something that was important to the rest of the world, that he’d done what he’d wanted to do, felt damned great, even with a tiger’s teeth inches from his face.

I’m ready. No argument. She was a partner a man could depend on.

He took a breath, let it out. “Listen, buddy, we’re trying to help you here. Just give me a minute to get into the tree before you start trying to chew on my spine, rip off my leg, gut me and eat me, okay?”

Draden. Shylah breathed his name into his mind. Softly. Aware. Touching him somewhere deep.

He didn’t wait. Now. He let go and sprang away, all in one motion, leaping for the tree branches overhead. They were high, some twenty-five feet, but his hands gripped a twisting limb and then he was up, standing beside Shylah. He slipped one arm around her and held on to the trunk with the other. No doubt the tiger could leap the distance. They had to be ready to go higher or get to the next tree.

The tiger stood up slowly, shook his head and then turned his gaze on them. Those eyes were piercing. Wholly focused. They stared at one another for a few moments, but instead of leaping at them in murderous fury, the animal turned away from them and slipped into the heavier brush.

Shylah’s smile was worth the righteous chewing out Draden was going to get when he made his report. He bent his head and kissed her. Quick. Barely there. Meaning it. Hoping she felt what he did. When he lifted his head, she had stars in her eyes, and he had the satisfaction of knowing he’d put them there.

8

“You’re insane,” Shylah whispered.

She hadn’t spoken a word on the way back to the remote lab. Not a single word. Draden had tried. He’d dropped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him, but she hadn’t reacted, not even to pull away. She’d kissed him in the trees, but once on the ground, heading toward the remote lab, she had withdrawn.

It wasn’t like he could blame her. He knew why she was upset. It was insanity to tackle a tiger and put it in a choke hold. “I’m strong, Shylah,” he reminded. “Enhanced.”

“The tiger could have killed you. Its teeth were inches from you. Inches, Draden.”

“I’m living under a death sentence,” he reminded gently.

She cast him a singular look from under her lashes, and his heart clenched. Her brown eyes looked liquid, the lashes wet and spiky. “You aren’t alone. You aren’t one anymore. It’s the two of us. Together. We do this together. That was the plan. That was your promise and I count on you.”

His first thought was to defend himself. He’d freed the tiger instead of killing it for her. She’d wanted the damn thing alive, and he’d given her that gift. She hadn’t hesitated, not one bit, to help him do it. She’d almost begged him to keep the tiger alive. Still, she was right. She’d probably expected him to find a way to put the animal out and he hadn’t explained why it was so dangerous. He wasn’t sorry he’d saved the animal and he wasn’t going to lie to her and tell her he was. There were so few of the tigers, and the male was in its prime or getting there.

More, he knew she’d been happy about it, that kiss had told him so.

He remained silent, trying to puzzle out what other men might say or do to