Asil’s Second Date Must Love Cats Aftermath #3
“They did not know to go to her for help when one of their children was stolen.” Nura frowned.
“We are going to do something about that—reach out to branches we have traditionally let fall. Anyway, Grandmother says that this part of the family lives in a borderland area where abductions are not as rare as they should be. They do not know who took her. Someone broke into their house while they slept and took her without waking the household. Not even her sister who shared her room.”
She looked at the tiger and, in Urdu, said, “We have come to take you home, little sister.”
The tiger didn’t move except to lash her tail.
Asil had tried Hindi on the tiger, but he was fairly sure that, to her, he was still the enemy.
Above them, the rafters of the old barn creaked. Both of the newcomers froze, looking upward. The plastic dust sheet and the darkness kept them from seeing most of the area near the roof.
“It is an old barn,” Asil told them with a slight smile. “And the wind is wild.”
“Old buildings are noisy,” said Nura thoughtfully.
Her brother looked at Asil with narrowed eyes.
Asil met his eyes and let his smile get sharper as his wolf slid out from the shadows to inspect the intruders.
“We are wasting time,” Hamza said, but he dropped his gaze and his voice was thoughtful. He was reassessing Asil.
That’s right, child, Asil thought. Listen to your inner beast. It knows when it meets a predator more dangerous than it is.
Nura bent down to untie her boots. Barefoot, she changed into a tiger in a small burst of excess magic that turned into ephemeral sparks. Her true form—those bearing the ancient curse considered the tiger their true form—was large, though still within the limits of a natural Bengal tiger.
“My sister is right.” Hamza examined the cage door and took a moment to figure out the latch. “I apologize for my hasty tongue. I do not like cages, or to see one of our own inside one.” He paused and gave Asil a shy look. “She is also right that my English is not easy and it makes me defensive.”
Asil could feel the subtle shift in the atmosphere as Hamza chose to concede Asil’s dominance. Smart boy.
“I did not like leaving her in the cage, either,” Asil allowed, because it had been a pretty apology. “But she didn’t like me any better than she liked her captors. She was safer in the cage than out.”
“I believe you.” Hamza opened the door of the cage and let his sister slide in. He hesitated for half a breath and then closed the door again. “She is still afraid. Who knows what she has been through since she was last among her kind?”
“Nothing good,” Asil agreed.
The larger tiger, Nura, swatted the smaller on the hip, knocking her off-balance. Then it only took a bump on her shoulder to set the captive tiger on her side. Nura draped herself over the other tiger’s shoulders, pinning her to the ground. They both went still.
After a few minutes, Nura retook her human shape, once again clothed in the silks she’d been wearing from the start. At her impatient gesture, her brother opened the cage door. Nura walked out and stopped to put her boots back on.
The tiger hesitated in the opening, staring at Asil. Then, as if she hadn’t been on a killing rampage just a few hours ago, she slunk fearfully into the open, keeping the other two between her and Asil.
Who was still sitting on the floor with his back against the lioness’s cage.
Hamza noticed both of those things.
Nura eyed Asil as she redonned her coat. “Zoya tells me that they had a collar on her that kept her docile.”
It would take a very stupid person not to hear the rage in her voice.
Asil nodded. “There were two.” He waved a hand to indicate the lioness behind him, who had worn the second one.
And now was the time for him to lie as a fae would lie. Telling the truth that carefully required attention to detail.
“I destroyed the one your tiger—Zoya?” He waited until Nura nodded. “I destroyed the one Zoya wore so she could deal with our enemies. Witchcrafted.”
The tiger had stiffened at his use of her name.
“I don’t know if there are more collars out there,” he told them. “The witch who made these is dead—as I told your queen when I spoke to her.”
“And the other collar?”
And this was where he needed the most care.
“Is the lioness’s,” Asil told her. He gestured to the big cat in the cage behind him.
The collar around the lioness’s neck was tawny in color, inset with amber cabochon stones that glowed subtly, half-hidden in the lioness’s fur. He didn’t wonder that Nura hadn’t noticed it before—the colors blended with the lioness’s tawny coat.
Nura’s chin went up. “It needs to be destroyed.”
“Yes,” agreed Asil silkily, because he did not take orders from tiger cubs. “I need to get the lioness safely to her new home. We will destroy the collar when it is no longer needed.”
“It must be destroyed,” she said again.
Her agitation was strong enough to make the tiger roar. The lioness closed her eyes in apparent weariness.
“Nura,” her brother said, “he is the Moor. If he says it will be destroyed, it will be so.”
Wise child, thought Asil, pleased.
Nura stared at her brother, glanced down at Asil and away.
She gave a shiver and rubbed her face. Then she nodded.
“Sorry, sorry. It’s just been a day.” She gifted Asil with a tight smile.
“Finals week. I’m supposed to be writing a paper.
” She looked down at the tiger and said in Urdu, “Come now. It is time to go.”
The females left, but the young man turned back to Asil. “What are you going to do with the lioness?” Evidently it was a rhetorical question, because he continued, “If you wish it, we can take care of her for you. We can do it without hurting her. Better than a bullet.”
Asil glanced at the lioness and had to acknowledge that she did look that bad. Her hip bones jutted out of her tawny hide, and her coat was rough with ill-health.
It was an offer well meant. Asil knew that. He still didn’t like it.
He carefully kept his wolf eyes in the shadow and said, “Thank you, but no. I have a retirement home for her.”
There was compassion on Hamza’s young face. “She does not have many days ahead of her. In all kindness—”
Asil came to his feet.
“No.” This time the wolf came out. Because if there was one thing in this whole benighted situation that he and his wolf agreed upon, it was the lioness’s fate.
Hamza hissed, nostrils flaring, and the human pupils of his eyes briefly changed shape as he took a quick step back. He controlled himself with visible effort, but his tiger was young—impulsive, but easily settled.
Asil envied that. His beast was far more difficult to master.
In a calmer tone Asil said, “The lioness is not your concern. But I thank you for your offer.”
Driven by the wind, the door banged into the wall of the barn, and Hamza flinched. Above them, the rafters creaked again.
“Grandmother”—Hamza cleared his throat and said, a little diffidently—“told me to tell you that there are four of her closest advisors who had access to information about Zoya’s family. One of them is missing.”
Asil gave him a faint smile. “Thank you for telling me.”
“She will be unhappy if someone else kills him.”
Asil nodded gravely. “I would not want her unhappy.”
Hamza looked upward into the shadows where Asil knew he could see nothing. “On your head be it.” He said it very softly, as if to himself. But it was in English, so Asil knew it was directed at him.
“Hamza,” his sister called from outside of the barn, her voice muffled by the sound of the helicopter.
“Coming,” Hamza said. He started to turn when his eyes caught the eyes of the lioness, and he froze.
She was lying on her side, head flat on the floor. Her tail flicked idly, making a soft thump-thump sound.
“She is very large for a lioness,” Hamza said uneasily. He took a step toward the cage. “Very large.”
A lioness and a Bengal tiger should be about the same weight. Skin and bones though she was, Asil figured the lioness would weigh in around six hundred pounds, twice the size of the Bengals.
“She is,” agreed Asil. And if his voice was dangerous enough to draw Hamza’s sharp attention, that was fine. They all needed to know where they stood.
Hamza bowed from the hips with the liquid grace of the young and also of shapeshifters.
Respect and gratitude conveyed better with his body than with his words.
He took a moment to glance up again at the hidden depths of the rafters, then turned on his heel and exited the barn, closing the door behind him.
Asil waited until the helicopter lifted. He sent a brief text. Then he, too, turned toward the darkened rafters.
“It is time for you to come down.”
Nothing happened.
“Butterfly,” he said, the word sour on his tongue, “it is time to come down.”
The tiger shapeshifter descended from his perch in the rafters.
His wounds were mostly healed. He smelled strongly of the white vinegar Asil had found to douse him with.
That, and the stench of blood and death and fear that permeated the barn, had kept him hidden from his kindred.
He wore a narrow black leather-and-diamond collar around his neck—the collar the lioness had been wearing before Asil spoiled everyone’s plans.
Zoya would tell her rescuers about him eventually.
He had gambled that she would not talk to them before they left the barn.
He would not have let them take this one—his crimes had been perpetrated against Asil in Asil’s…
in the Marrok’s territory. That meant his information belonged to the wolves.
They would discover how a tiger shifter found himself in possession of collars made by a dead witch.
Maybe then they would return the tiger to his queen. Maybe they would share the information they got from him. Maybe.