Circus Wolf (18 page)

“You’re right. We’d better find our cats before they
do. Let’s head out.”

 
“We can’t
charge into such a dangerous undertaking unprepared. I must stop by my caravan
and pick up the items we might need.” She stuck her hand into her pocket. The
note! A creepy sensation slid down her spine. She waited until she got inside
the safety of her caravan and switched on the bright light over the breakfast bar
to read it.

TIGRA, I
KNOW WHAT YOU AND HUGH DID.

NOW YOU
BOTH WILL DIE.

 
She
fought a shiver as she handed the note to Hugh.

****

As curious as Hugh was about the note, he didn’t
read it right away. He was still thinking about the kiss Skully planted on
Tigra. Was there were more between Skully and Tigra than she’d admitted? A
sharp pain shot straight to his heart. The thought of another man kissing her,
and maybe making love to her brought forth excruciating images and the start of
a headache. He curled his hand into a fist, but rather than slam it against the
nearest wall, he jammed it into his pocket
.
She’s not mine and I have no rights to her. But dammit, she’s my breath, my
passion…. How did I let myself fall for her? I dare not even think of a future
with Tigra. Besides, right now I have a job to do
.

He glanced down at the note then met Tigra’s veiled
gaze. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said.

She lifted her chin. “I’m not worried. Whoever wrote
that note was too much of a coward to even sign it. And we have a more eminent
problem to handle.
Loose hungry cats.”

 
As they
gathered the items they needed, Hugh said, “Maybe it’s just because I don’t
like the guy, but Skully is the first name that comes to mind when I think of
the possible author of the note.”

He’d hoped she’d agree. She said, “I have to stop by
the equipment shed and get ropes and nets.”

He let the subject drop. Right now there were two
dangerous Bengals and a tree leopard running loose and hungry enough to attack
the first unsuspecting prey they spotted. To protect the community, they’d
capture the tigers and leopard first, then seek out and deal with the
note-writing demon who wanted them dead.

Chapter
Eighteen

Skull nodded toward Madam Mystic’s collapsed pile of
poles and canvas. “The boss sent me here to re-erect your tent, Magpie, and get
you back in business.”

Struggling with a pole and sweating, she glared at
him. “I don’t want or need your help, Skully, so leave me the hell alone.”

Coleman won’t like it if you refuse my help. He
wants to get things back to normal ASAP.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why would he send you?”

“He doesn’t know about the bad blood between us and
besides all the available roustabouts are busy on other larger projects.”

With a wary look in her eyes, she shrugged. “Okay,
if the boss ordered you to do it, help with this pole.”

“Just get out of the way.” He met her gaze, and
lowered his voice, sending her his tonal message of malice. “I wouldn’t want
you to get hurt. Getting in the way of a man with the strength of Hercules and
the speed of lightning could be dangerous.”

Glaring, she stepped back, grabbed a sawdust rake,
and began raking up the spilled incense and dislodged rubber spaghetti snakes
from the floor with a vengeance. Then carefully, she picked up her crystal
ball. Next, one at a time, she gathered up the three skulls from the floor,
re-inserted the plastic snakes and arranged the skulls among some unlit candles
on the velvet cover.

They worked quickly, and within thirty minutes she’d
finished straightening and he had the main poles and support braces in place.
He forced his most charming smile. “In spite of our differences, you’ll have to
admit we work well together. Your little flimflam set-up looks just like new.”

The ebony-faced Amazon darted a venomous sidelong
glance at him.

He widened his smile. “Now it’s time for payback.
The boss wants you to lend the woman’s touch to putting my caravan back in
order.”

She folded muscular arms across her massive boobs.
“That doesn’t sound right.”

“Sounds fair to me.
Tit for tat.
Want me to
tell the boss you refused to do your part in the clean up? Everyone else in our
commune is pulling together, like a family should,
putting
aside their differences in emergencies.”

Her squinted eyes told him she wasn’t totally buying
his sales job and was on guard.

“How is Blacky?” she asked with a tremor in her
voice.

“He’s fine.
A little ruffled.”

When they got to his caravan, she said, “I don’t see
any damage.”

“It’s all inside.” He had set the stage earlier, doing
minor damage to the interior in order to put her at ease. “My bed fell from its
storage cabinet in the wall and I need someone to tighten the interlocking
screw while I hold it up in place. It’s a two person job. It won’t take long.”

He bowed and gestured for her to enter first. She
shook her head. “No. You go first. And we’ll leave the door open.” Tension
radiated from her as though she was ready for anything—he chuckled to
himself—anything except a cloth pre-soaked in chloroform
.
He grabbed it from its container and in two giant steps he
circled behind her and covered her nose and mouth.

 
She struggled
against his vampire strength and unrelenting hold only a few seconds before
going limp, like a wet sack of manure.

Humming, he stuffed her Amazon bulk into a huge tent
bag. Not daring to wait for darkness, he took the bag to the rear of the circus
grounds, planning to toss it over the fence. But the corner of the fence was
mangled and flattened. It looked like an elephant had rushed into it and then
trampled it with great force. He dragged the bag across the downed chain link
fence and headed through the hills toward the closest cave. He yanked the bag
over stones—unconcerned about the bruises the woman might be sustaining.

When he reached the cave, he roughly dumped her limp
Amazon’s body from the bag onto the stone floor. He hummed again as he bound
and gagged her. Now he had his lure. And at the right time, he would use it to
bring Tigra to him.

****

Tigra, with heart and pulse pounding, sensed trouble
ahead. Carrying their gear and wearing silent moccasins, she and Hugh headed
through the hills bathed in patches of the soft dwindling twilight. In the
distance, they saw a group of scuzzy-looking armed hunters enter the hilly
wilds. Tigra frowned and gestured with her head. Hugh nodded. Tension tightened
her nerves another notch. A bunch of hopped up hunters with rifles was all they
needed to heighten the risk. Hugh darted a look directly at her with a question
in his wary gray eyes.

“I’m okay,” she mouthed and made an okay sign with
her fingers.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. A cat
attack could happen as silently and as suddenly as a bolt of lightning. She’d
seen a tiger tear flesh from a cow carcass. And had seen what even her drugged,
gentle tiger, Candy, had done to poor Rolo.

Hugh touched his nose and wriggled it. She nodded,
picking up the scent of a cat as well. As they stalked the cat through shifting
shadows, she sensed it stalking them with its equally strong sense of smell.
Her nerve endings tightened in readiness. Tigers allow no margin of error. And
these tigers had been loose long enough to be ravenously hungry. When forced,
tigers ate toads, grass and wild berries but not as long as there was the scent
of meat in the area. And she and Hugh were fresh meat. Tension radiated from
her pores and she felt the strain radiating from Hugh as well. Stress could
cause them to morph. She felt her untamed spirit churning inside, threatening
to take over.

She met Hugh’s gaze and mouthed, “Are you okay?”

He closed his fist and shook it, as if to let her
know he was hanging on.

She heard the rustle of brush and, with her sharp
eyes, she searched the shadowy foliage. She took a deep breath; it failed to
relax her. Tigers avoided large and formidable foes. And the chance of being
attacked by both of the missing cats at once was small. Tigers hunted alone.
When attacked—and she knew an attack was eminent—would she and Hugh be large
enough and formidable enough to capture even one hungry cat? As they passed
under a wild elm, she looked up; the scent of the leopard had grown stronger.
The temperature in her body rose higher, threatening change. Morphing was risky
due to the armed hunters in the area, and retaining their human forms was an
equal challenge because of the hungry cat’s claws and teeth.

She saw a patch of fleeting orange slinking through
the brush and suffered a moment of hope mingled with dread.

She motioned to Hugh to get the net ready and made a
rotating gesture, alerting him she planned to circle behind the cat and force
him back, hopefully into Hugh’s net.

She drew her whip from her backpack and moved
silently. The snap of the whip should send the beast toward Hugh and into the
net.

The individual markings above the eyes warned her
that the cat she now faced was
Predator
.
His eyes were glazed as though frightened—and a scared animal was
unpredictable. Dread washed over her as the cat crouched low as if about to
attack.

She had to stop him from leaping. She straightened
her stance and snapped the whip with a loud crack. Predator, a very large male,
slashed out at her with his gigantic paws. She cracked the whip again, counting
on him to identify her by her unique scent. They had confronted each other many
times. And she had fed him and lain with him.

He growled, waved his tail, and then swiftly stalked
away, belly low to the ground, not ready to give up his free-roaming nomadic
life. If Hugh used his newly acquired skills successfully, Predator would learn
his freedom was short lived and he must be returned to his life of co-existing
with humans. She sighed in relief as he headed toward Hugh and his net.

Okay, Hugh,
don’t let me down
.

When she returned to the area where she’d left Hugh,
he was smiling. Predator had been netted and caged.

“With the danger to our cats from hunters in the
hills,” she whispered, “we’d better return Predator to the circus menagerie
holding cage before going after Assassin and Leo the tree leopard.”

Hugh nodded and with his amazing strength he began
pulling the cage toward the circus grounds. She got behind and pushed, easing
the wheels over the ruts and rocky areas.

 
Once Predator
had been fed, watered, and returned to his circus home, they headed for the
hills again, knowing now that darkness had fallen and only a slender new moon
lighted their way, the danger had quad-tripled.

Assassin’s scent was strong. He was the newest and
the least co-operative of the cats and catching him would be trickier than
catching Predator.

Suddenly, and only for an instant, she saw the glow
of cat eyes in the tangled brush. Was it Assassin or the leopard? In the wilds,
cats usually worked alone, but these two cats had worked together in the
circus. She looked up again into the tree they were now passing under. What
if—?

Her blood turned icy and a chill slipped down her
back when she heard the growl. As suddenly as a bolt of lightning, the leopard
landed on Tigra. The huge male leopard had the edge of weight and surprise and
knocked her down. Its claws sank into her flesh. As she fought, she began to
morph. The process seemed to be weakening her. Rather than give in to her
vulnerability, she struggled with all of her might, and by some miracle she
kept the leopard’s sharp teeth from sinking into her throat. With both hands
occupied, she couldn’t get to her dart gun.

She heard Hugh growl. Then, like the alpha male he
was, he lifted the cat off of her. Like a flash, the leopard whipped around and
turned all of his venom on Hugh. Its cat call was chilling. She grabbed her
dart gun and aimed for the leopard. As the morphed Hugh and tree cat fought,
Hugh kept getting in the way.
That’s all
I need is to accidentally shoot him
.

She had to remain calm and wait for her chance.

Tigra’s heart stopped when over the wolf and leopard
growl she heard a cat growl. She jerked her head and spied a patch of fleeting
orange slinking through the brush. Even if she hadn’t known before, the
markings above the glazed eyes verified the cat crouched low in an attack
stance was the scared and hungry cat known as Assassin. She aimed her
tranquilizer dart gun at him, but he was on her before she could get off the
shot.

Hugh, now a werewolf, turned and threw the leopard
into the cat, Assassin. Now both animals were on top of her fighting each
other, their claws digging into her in the process. Hugh yanked the huge males
off of her like they were kittens.