Tiger's Curse (38 page)

He pulled me back against his warm chest, and I closed my eyes. I ended up sleeping better than I had in weeks.

When I woke, I was nestled on top of Ren’s chest. His arms were wrapped around me, and my legs were entwined with his. I was surprised I could breathe all night since my nose was smashed against his muscular torso. It had gotten cold, but my quilt covered both of us and his body, which maintained a warmer-than-average temperature, had kept me toasty all night.

Ren was still asleep, so I took the rare opportunity to study him. His powerful frame was relaxed and his face was softened by sleep. His lips were full, smooth, and utterly kissable, and for the first time, I noticed how long his sooty lashes were. His glossy dark hair fell softly over his brow and was mussed in a way that made him look even more irresistable.

So this is the real Ren. He doesn’t
seem
real.
He looked like an archangel who fell to the earth. I’d been with Ren night and day for the past four weeks, but the time he was a man was such a small fraction of each day that he seemed almost like a dream guy, a real life Prince Charming.

I traced a black eyebrow, following its arch with my finger, and lightly brushed the silky dark hair away from his face. Hoping not to disturb him, I sighed, shifted slowly, and tried to move away, but his arms tensed, restraining me.

He sleepily mumbled, “Don’t even think about moving” and pulled me back to snuggle me close again. I rested my cheek against his chest, felt his heartbeat, and contented myself with listening to its rhythm.

After a few minutes, he stretched and rolled to his side, pulling me with him. He kissed my forehead, blinked open his eyes, and smiled at me. It was like watching the sun come up. The handsome, sleeping man was potent enough, but when he turned his dazzling white smile on me and blinked open his cobalt blue eyes, I was dumbstruck.

I bit my lip. Alarm bells started going off in my head.

Ren’s eyes fluttered open, and he tucked some loose hair behind my ear. “Good morning,
rajkumari
. Sleep well?”

I stammered, “I . . . you . . . I . . . slept just fine, thank you.”

I closed my eyes, rolled away from him, and stood up. I could deal with him a lot better if I didn’t think about him much, or look at him, or talk to him, or hear him.

He wrapped his arms around me from behind, and I felt his smile as he pressed his lips to the soft spot behind my ear. “Best night of sleep I’ve had in about three hundred and fifty years.”

He nuzzled my neck, and an image came to my mind of him beckoning me to jump off a cliff and then laughing as my body broke on the wet rocks below.

I mumbled something akin to, “Good for you,” and pulled away from him. I wandered off to get myself ready for the day and ignored his puzzled expression.

We broke camp and headed toward the city. We were both very quiet. He seemed to be mulling over something in his mind; and as for me, I was trying to stop nervous flutterings from overwhelming me every time I glanced in his direction.

What is wrong with me? We have a job to do. We have to find the Golden Fruit and I’m acting . . . twitterpated!

I was annoyed with myself. I had to keep reminding myself that this was just Ren, the tiger, and not some teenage crush. Being close to the man for this long was making me come to grips with reality and the first thing I had to do was to get a handle on my emotions. As we walked, I pondered the problem that was our relationship and chewed my lip as I thought.

He’d probably fall in love with any girl who was destined to save him. Plus, there’s just no way a guy like him would ever be attracted to a girl like me. Ren was like Superman, and I had to grudgingly admit that I was no Lois Lane. When the curse is broken, he’ll probably want to date supermodels. Also, I’m the first girl he’s been around in more than three hundred years, give or take—and, although the time line is a bit different, he’s the first man I’ve ever felt anything for. If I let myself dream about having forever with him when this is all over, I’m sure to be disappointed.

In truth, I had no idea what to do about Ren. I had never been in love with anyone before. I had never even had a boyfriend before, and these feelings were exciting and scary all at once. For the first time in my life, I felt out of control, and it was a feeling I wasn’t sure I completely liked.

The problem was, the more time I spent with him, the more I wanted to be with him. And I was a realist. My brief moments with him now, though exhilarating, wouldn’t guarantee me a happy ending. I knew from painful experience that happy endings weren’t real. Now that the end of the curse loomed in the near future, I had to face facts.

Fact one: Once Ren is free, he’ll want to explore the world and not settle down. Fact two: Love is risky. If he decides that he doesn’t love me, it would destroy me. It would be safer for me to head back to Oregon and my solitary, normal life there and forget all about him. Fact three: I just might not be ready for all of this.

Some of my reasoning was circular, but the circles all led to one thing:
not
being with Ren. I swallowed a wave of sadness and tightened my fists in determination. I decided that, to protect my heart, it would be better if I nipped this relationship in the bud right now and save myself the pain and embarrassment of our eventual breakup.

I would just focus on the task ahead: get to Kishkindha. Then, when this was all over, he could go his way and I could go mine. I’d just do my part to help my friend and then let him go off and be happy.

For what seemed like the next several miles of hiking through the strange, mythical world, I formulated a plan and started sending subtle signals that put the romantic brakes on. Whenever he reached over to hold my hand, I found a reason to gently pull back. When he touched my arm or my shoulder, I stepped away. When he tried to put his arm around me, I shrugged it off or moved ahead. I didn’t say anything or offer any explanations because I couldn’t think of a way to broach the subject.

Ren tried to ask me what was wrong, but I just said, “Nothing,” and he dropped it. At first, he was confused, then he was somber, then he started closing himself off and became angry. Clearly, I had hurt him. It didn’t take long for him to stop trying, and I felt a wall as big as the Great Wall of China go up between us.

We arrived at a moat and found a drawbridge. Unfortunately, it was pulled up, but it did hang down slightly on one side as if broken. Ren walked down the creek bed on both sides and stared hard into the water.

“There are too many Kappa here. I wouldn’t recommend swimming across.”

“What if we dragged a log over and crossed on that?”

Ren grunted, “That’s a good idea.” He walked over to me and spun me around.

I mumbled nervously, “What are you doing?”

“Just getting out the
gada
.” He continued sarcastically, “Don’t worry, that’s
all
I’m doing.”

He took it out, zipped up the backpack quickly, and then he strode off stiffly toward the trees.

I winced. He was angry. I’d never seen him angry before except with Kishan. I didn’t like it, but it was a natural side effect of the whole yanking-out-the-seedling-of-love-and-avoiding-the-jagged-rocks-below plan. It couldn’t be helped.

I gave Fanindra a cursory glance to see if she approved of what I was doing, but her glittery eyes revealed nothing.

A minute later, a heavy boom sounded, and a tree quickly sucked in its branches. Another splintering boom, and the tree crashed through the canopy and fell to the ground with a hard crack. He began clubbing the branches off the trunk, and I walked over to help.

“Is there something I can do?”

He kept his back turned toward me. “No. We only have one
gada
.”

Even though I already knew the answer, I asked, “Ren, why are you angry? Is something bothering you?” I grimaced, knowing that it was me that was bothering him.

He stopped and turned to look at me. His vivid blue eyes searched my face. I quickly averted my gaze and looked down at a quivering branch flexing its needles. When I looked back at him, his face was set in an unreadable mask.

“Nothing’s bothering me, Kelsey. I’m fine.”

He turned and continued whacking the branches off the tree. When he was finished, he handed me the
gada
, picked up one end of the heavy tree, and started dragging it toward the creek.

I hurried after him and bent down to pick up the other end.

He called back without even looking at me, “Don’t.”

When we got back to the creek, he dropped the trunk and started looking for a good place to set it. I was about to sit on the tree trunk when I noticed the needles. Even the trunk had thick, spiky needles that rose up to sink themselves into unsuspecting flesh. I walked up to the front end and saw Ren’s blood in great drops coating the shiny black needles.

When he came back, I demanded, “Ren, let me see your hands and chest.”

“Leave it alone, Kelsey. I’ll heal.”

“But, Ren—”

“No. Now stand back.”

He moved to the back of the trunk and picked it up, cradling it against his chest. My mouth gaped open in amazement.
Yep, he still has tiger strength.
I winced as I imagined those hundreds of needles digging into the skin on his chest and arms. His biceps bulged as he walked the trunk to the edge of the creek.

A girl can still admire, can’t she? Even those who can’t afford to go in the store can still window-shop. Right?

It was like watching Hercules in action. I sucked in an appreciative breath and had to keep repeating the words, “He’s not for me, he’s not for me, he’s not for me,” to strengthen my resolve.

The far end of the trunk butted against the stone wall. He moved down the creek bank several more steps until he found the spot he wanted and then dropped it into place with a soft thud.

The needles had ripped jagged, deep scratches down his chest and torn the front of his white shirt to ribbons. I walked over to him and reached out to touch his arm.

He turned his back to me and said, “Now stay here.” Changing to a tiger, he vaulted up and across the log, then leapt up to the crack where the drawbridge was hanging slightly open. He clawed his way in and disappeared.

I heard a metallic clang and then a whoosh as the heavy stone drawbridge lowered. It fell across the creek, hit the water with a big splash, and then settled itself deeply in its pebbly bed. I walked quickly across, fearful of the Kappa I spied in the water below. Ren was still a tiger and seemed content to stay that way.

I entered the stone city of Kishkindha. Most of the buildings were about two or three stories high. The smoky periwinkle stone of the outer walls was also used in the buildings. The hard stone was polished like granite and contained shiny pieces of mica that reflected the light. It was beautiful.

A giant statue of Hanuman stood in the center, and every nook and crevice of the city was covered with life-sized stone monkeys. Every building, every rooftop, and every balcony, had monkey statues. Ornate carvings of monkeys even covered the walls of the buildings. The statues represented several different species of monkeys and were often grouped together in twos and threes. In fact, the only kind of monkeys not included were the fictitious flying monkeys from
The Wizard of Oz
and King Kong.

When I passed the central fountain, I felt pressure on my arm. Fanindra came alive. I bent down to let her slide off my arm to the ground. She raised her head and tasted the air with her tongue several times. Then she started slithering through the ancient city. Ren and I followed her as she wove her slow path.

“You don’t have to stay a tiger just because of me,” I said.

He kept his eyes forward following the snake.

“Ren, it’s a miracle that you can be a man at all. Don’t do this to yourself, please. Just because you’re ang—”

He switched back to a man and spun around to face me.

“I
am
angry! Why shouldn’t I stay a tiger? You seem to be much more comfortable with
him
than you are with me!” His blue eyes clouded with uncertainty and hurt.

“I
am
more comfortable with him, but not because I like him more. It’s too complicated to discuss with you right now.” I turned away from him, hiding my red face.

Frustrated, he ran a hand through his hair and asked anxiously, “Kelsey, why have you been avoiding me? Is it because I’ve been moving too fast? You aren’t ready to think of me in that way yet. Is that it?”

“No. It’s not that. It’s just,” I wrung my hands, “I don’t want to make a mistake or get involved in something that will lead to one or both of us getting hurt, and I don’t really think this is the best place to talk about this.”

I stared at his feet as I said these words. He was quiet for several minutes. I peeked at his face from under my lashes and found him assessing me. He continued to watch me patiently as I squirmed under his gaze. I looked at the stone pavers, Fanindra, my hands, anything except him. Finally, he gave up.

“Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Yes, fine. Here, hand me the backpack. It’s my turn to carry it for a while.”

He helped me slip it off my back and then adjusted the straps to fit over his wide shoulders. Fanindra seemed ready to be on the move again, and she continued her journey, slinking through the monkey city.

We passed into dark shadows between buildings where Fanindra’s golden body gleamed in the darkness. She slipped through tiny cracks beneath unwieldy doors that Ren had to throw his body up against to open. She took us on an interesting obstacle course from a snake’s perspective, going under and through things that were impossible for Ren and me to navigate. She disappeared under cracks in the floor, and Ren had to sniff her out to find her. Often, we had to backtrack and meet her on the other side of walls or rooms. We always found her coiled and resting, patiently waiting for us to catch up.

Eventually, she led us to a rectangular reflecting pool brimming with sea-green algae-filled water. The pool was waist high, and on each corner stood a tall stone pedestal. On top of each pedestal was a carved monkey, each one looking out in the distance, one for each point of the compass.