Jade Tiger (14 page)

Fortunately, Victor Ashton stood for his opening speech, giving Shan a respite from her tiring femme fatale routine. Who'd have thought little Shawna Westin had it in her? Not Shan, that's for sure.
Ride the wind
, she thought. The tiger may rule her spirit now, but the other animals were hardly forgotten. Change the plan. Remain flexible. Adapt.

Ashton was, of course, a compelling speaker. His body glistened in its blue silk shirt, his hair fell straight down his back, never a strand out of place. He himself was a work of art.

"Please," Ashton said, "relax in my home and make it your own. Tomorrow, you may watch or participate in a number of martial arts demonstrations. Or, if you bent is more academic," here, he spared a small glance at Ian, "then you may prefer our ongoing research presentations. We have almost a dozen separate digs in operation around the globe at any time, and you'll want to see for yourself the kinds of treasures we're unearthing. Thank you."

He sat to applause. Rachel stood then and reiterated the schedule for the week. "The auction items will be on display in the museum wing on Friday, beginning at ten a.m. This gives you all ample time to check with your experts at home and clear any of the funds you'll need for Saturday's main event."

Shan had difficulty hearing much else, as Victor Ashton's hand was on her knee and slowly creeping up toward her thigh. But, instead of breaking a few of his fingers, Shan placed her hand on top of his, stopping its forward progress.

"We're planning a winter wedding, Mr. Ashton," she said sweetly. "Don't you just love the cold?"

"Not really," he said. "I much prefer...hotter weather." His hand gained another inch.

"Fly too close to the sun, and your wings will melt," Shan said, letting a little too much of her own voice sneak into Shawna's.

Ashton stopped moving his hand and stared at her. Stared
into
her.

"If you're not nice," he whispered, "I may not buy you a wedding present."

"I like presents," Shan said quietly, "and I'm partial to jade."

It was a risk, and she knew it. But she'd be much happier if the conversation led to fisticuffs than continued to follow its current route.

Ashton lifted his wine glass and swirled it without taking a sip. "It seems we share a similar interest, then," he said. "If you're a good girl, I may have something to show you on Friday."

"Friday?" Shan breathed. "Why not tonight?"

He raised an eyebrow. "So eager now? You must really enjoy your jade."

"Jade's not the only thing I enjoy, Victor. The list is quite long, actually."

He eyed her, more wary now. She'd definitely pushed too far.

"Friday," he said. "And I'll need to see that list."

Waiters arrived bearing plate after plate of steaming food, successfully severing the connection between Shan and Ashton. She ate, but only to keep up her strength. Despite its exotic decoration, the food all tasted bland. And it didn't help that Ian and Rachel were laughing again, no doubt over some shared joke from their shared past.

No matter. She'd made progress with Ashton, regardless of how disgusted the process had made her feel. This was Shawna, she told herself. This wasn't the tiger, and it wasn't her.

Hopefully, she'd be able to remember that the next time she wanted to kick Victor Ashton in the nuts.

"So, do you want to double back and try to sneak into the museum area?"

Shan laughed. She and Ian held hands as they walked back toward their room in the Zodiac wing. After a stifling, tense two hours at dinner, she felt at ease with Ian after only five minutes. Amazing.

"Ashton already caught me there once today," she said. "I'd probably have to sleep with him if he caught me again on the same day."

"Well, we can't have that," Ian said, matter-of-fact. "He's not even an archaeologist."

"Actually, I thought he did have a degree in--"

"Let's not quibble about the details," Ian said, grinning. "Let's talk about how dashing I look in my tux."

"What, did Rachel tell you that?" Shan asked.

"No, but I could see it in her eyes."

"Uh-huh."

"Really," he said, "the woman still wants me, even after all these years. It's quite sad, actually."

Shan laughed. They reached the main entrance hall. Shan pulled Ian toward the golden dragon fountain and sat down on the edge. Water fell from the ceiling and spattered against her back, cool and wet.

"I have no doubt that she
does
want you, Professor," Shan said, "but you're going to be a little too busy to attend to her needs on this trip."

"I am?" Ian sat next to Shan. Water droplets assaulted his face and clung to the tip of his nose.

Shan leaned forward and kissed the water drops. "Mmm. I was so thirsty."

Ian swallowed. "Yeah, I think I know what you mean."

They kissed.

Shan pulled away, laughing.

Ian pulled away, too. Hurt.

"What?"

Shan took his face in both of her hands, grinning like a fool. "It's just so damn fun to kiss you, Ian. Can't blame me for enjoying myself, can you?"

Ian's shoulders relaxed. His expression returned to its previous playfulness.

"Laughing is fine, but no pointing."

"Agreed," Shan said.

"Then come here."

They kissed again, grinning and smiling and generally bursting with giddiness. Water continued to spatter them, much to Shan's delight. The energy that Victor's presence had summoned in her, wild and dark and barely containable, had spread out and calmed as they had walked. Now chi coursed through her body like a fast-moving river, soothing her aching limbs.

The energy that Ian possessed was no less potent than Ashton's, just more pure. His chi felt like open spaces and freedom, tasted sharp and sweet like an apple. Ashton's power, on the other hand, built prisons. It tasted of iron and blood, and felt sharp, like bones or claws. When she was near Ashton, their energies tested each other, vying for control. Around Ian, her energy sparked and played. Around Ian, it
reveled
.

A few people walked by while they kissed, but Shan happily ignored them. After all, she was making out with her fiancé, right? And that was a good word for it.
Right
. Shan soared. The glittering gold scales of the dragon were nothing compared to the sparkle in Ian's eyes and in his smile.

Later, they sauntered back to their room, still drunk from kissing. Shan removed her wig and the mountain of pins that trapped her real hair to her head. She brushed her hair, changed into a cotton nightshirt, and went back into the main room to find Ian.

Who had fallen asleep on the bed, still in his tuxedo.

Shan tried to wake him so he could finish changing, but the man's fatigue proved far stronger. Defeated, Shan removed his shoes and tucked him under the covers. She could have undressed him if she'd really tried, but she wanted that to be something they shared together.

Preferably soon.

Still smiling, Shan crawled under the covers with him. She opened her hand and ran her palm over the soft spikes of his hair, let her fingers walk down the smooth side of his face. If he were awake, she would have climbed on top of him and given him a reason to take off his tux. Instead, she kissed his chin and snuggled into the crook of his arm. She whispered his name one more time, just to hear it, then rested her head on his shoulder and waited for sleep.

Thursday morning, Shan was dressed in comfortable slacks and a sexy, long-sleeved black blouse that circled high up her neck but left her shoulders bare. Lydia's idea of "Skulking Around, Day 2." After a quick breakfast in the atrium and several lingering kisses, she and Ian split up. Ian headed toward the research presentations, more excited than a kid at Disneyland. Shan--showing considerably more restraint, in her opinion--took off for the martial arts wing as fast as her impractical shoes would carry her.

Shan slipped into the first room. Brazilian Capoeira. A circle of men and women bobbed and danced in time to a chorus of drums. Occasionally, one of the dancers would put a hand on the ground and flip her legs over her head. It looked more like breakdancing than martial arts, and that was the idea. Capoeira traced its roots back four hundred years, to African slaves brought to Brazil. Unable to practice martial arts openly, the slaves masqueraded their training as a combination of music, dance and acrobatics.

Victor's people were good, but Shan had seen better in some of the schools in L.A. She moved on to the next room.

A raised stage at the far end of the room held stacks of square pieces of wood and concrete blocks. Thick poles lined the wall, a hundred at least. Men and women in gold and red uniforms bustled on the stage, setting up for a packed room of observers.

Ugh. Breaking.

Shan had never really understood the widespread allure of this discipline. You stacked a bunch of wood or concrete or whatever you could find, and you tried to break it with a fist or a foot or even your head. If you were good, you broke more than other people. She used to think it was a guy thing, but she'd since met many women who claimed to enjoy it, too. Although Shan occasionally had to participate in such things during her years of training in the U.S., she had no desire to teach it at The Way of the River. As Bruce Lee was famous for saying, "Boards don't hit back."

A woman came out first and broke some boards held in the air by other participants. Her form was excellent. They piled up a stack of concrete squares separated by spacers, and she broke that easily with the heel of her foot. The crowd clapped. The spacers, often a pair of plain wooden pencils, made it extremely easy to break a stack like that. When the first block broke, its weight was then used against the next block in addition to the force of the original blow.

The woman bowed, and a dozen uniformed people scurried up to clear the debris. Shan was about to look for something more interesting when a man walked onstage.

Not just any man, but the largest man she'd ever seen.

He wore just the bottoms of his uniform, leaving his broad, muscle-stuffed torso naked for everyone to ogle. But it wasn't just the muscles that drew the eye, though they were ridiculous in size--it was the tattoo. At first, Shan could only see hints of it at his wrists and on the top of his bald head. Then he turned around and she saw...

...a leopard.

Its back was drawn atop the man's back in exquisite detail. Its arms and paws traced the man's arms and hands, and its head, mouth open, was tattooed over the man's scalp. Two great fangs reached down onto his face, just outside of his eyes. Shan could only imagine what the design looked like beneath the man's waist.

They piled concrete in front of the man. Five, seven, ten pieces total, but with no spacers. That was like trying to break over a foot of solid concrete. To make it even more impossible, the man was going to break it with his hand, and not his foot. And the stack was placed directly on the stage floor, instead of on a stand.

They might as well add a bunch of flying monkeys and a pool of sharks under his feet. There was simply no way he could do this, even at his size.

Leopard Man started to breathe, in through his nose, out through his mouth. Even from across the room, Shan could feel--almost even see--his energy building. She couldn't even understand the amount of power he had. It shimmered the air around him like a mirage, and the smell, the taste...

The missing jade leopard.

The man's hand snapped down. His palm hit the stack of concrete. The concrete shattered in an explosion of flying particles and dust.

The crowd applauded wildly as the cloud of dust thinned. Shan's heart beat fast.

Fortier's dragon.

Chen Sun's snake.

And now the leopard.

Victor Ashton had three of the five animals, and the other two sat locked in her safe back in Los Angeles.

All five. Shan knew the location of all five animals.

People cleared the stage once again. This time, Leopard Man stood alone in a wide stance. Eight people grabbed poles from the back wall. They took turns smashing their poles against various parts of Leopard's body: his arms, legs, torso, head, and even his neck. Leopard Man just stood there, grinning, as wood shattered around him.

This, Shan thought, is what happens when you spend fifteen years with the jade leopard. The leopard, whose attributes are power and strength. No wonder she could feel his chi from across the room.

Another man took the stage holding a long spear. He pointed its tip at the base of Leopard Man's throat and prepared to thrust it into his flesh. But just before he did, he turned and looked out at the crowd. His eyes met Shan's.

Rather, his one
good
eye met Shan's.

One-eye smiled.

So, was One-eye smiling at his archenemy, or just flirting with a blonde who happened to be standing near the door?

Shan didn't wait to find out. She slipped back into the hallway and looked for the next demonstration room.

To hide.

She needed her cover to last until she recovered the animals, and One-eye would certainly recognize her if he got close enough. When you fought someone as much as they'd fought, you could recognize them by the shape of their fist or the curve of their mouth when they snarled.

The next door was closed. Shan opened it, stepped inside, and quietly closed it behind her.

"Ah, Miss Westin," Ashton said from the room's stage, "there's an empty seat up front if you'd like to join us."

Ashton wore a long-sleeved kung-fu suit that looked more like molten gold than the gorgeous silk from which it was sewn. He had pulled his black hair from his face and captured it into one long ponytail that hung to the middle of his back. Three other men and one woman stood onstage next to him, and were therefore essentially invisible.

The room was also packed with people. Men in suits, women in tasteful pearls and understated dresses. And they were all looking at her.

Shan smiled demurely and made her way toward the front of the room.

"Actually, I have a better idea," Ashton said. "Why don't you join me onstage? I was just about to call for a volunteer, and since you're already up..."

Shan saw several of the women in the audience heave audible sighs of disappointment. Several others shot her nasty looks.

"I'd rather watch, Mr. Ashton," Shan said, forcing herself to keep smiling. She glanced back at the door, which was thankfully still closed. "I'm afraid I'm not very good at sports."

"Perfect," Ashton said, "because I want someone untrained for this example." He held out his hand. "Please, I insist."

Shan's smile slipped a little, but she pasted it back quickly and took his hand. Her energy raised its hackles and bared its teeth as he pulled her onto the stage. Ashton continued to hold her hand as he addressed the audience.

"Most of you," Ashton said, "have seen extravagant displays of martial prowess. You've seen people kick higher than their own heads, punch so fast that their hands blur before your eyes. But, when it comes to power, sometimes the more subtle methods are the most effective."

Ashton nodded to someone standing behind Shan. Suddenly, a pair of beefy forearms wrapped around her in a classic bear hug. Shan pretended to look surprised. The man's grip was firm but not uncomfortably tight. His body pressed against her from behind, and he was clearly beginning to enjoy the pose in more than just an educational way.

Dutifully, Shan looked to Ashton to tell her what to do. But, before he could say anything, the door opened.

Shan and Ashton both looked up. Sure enough, it was One-eye, still with that stupid smile on his face. He took a seat in the back row.

"Now," Ashton said to Shan, "I want you to try and get free."

Shan had taught basic self-defense enough to know how a novice was supposed to act. So, she twisted and struggled to free herself from the man's arms, all the while making little noises to denote effort.

What she really wanted to do was stomp his instep, head butt him, sweep him to the ground, and render him unconscious. But with One-eye
and
Victor Ashton in attendance, that kind of stupidity would probably get her killed.

"As you can see," Ashton said to the crowd, "Miss Westin's attempts to fight his body strength with hers are useless. She needs to fight him with his own body." He turned to Shan. "Miss Westin, please grab one of the man's fingers and lift."

With the right angle, you could easily bring a man--even a big one--to his knees, just by bending his finger or thumb in the correct way. Of course, Shan chose an incorrect way, and the man didn't budge.

Victor attempted to adjust her grip, and, slowly, the man behind her dropped to one knee.

Shan grinned, "I told you I'm not good at this sort of thing."

"You just need better instruction," Ashton said easily. "Walter, step back."

The bear-hug man released Shan, and Ashton took his place. Victor molded his body to hers and wrapped his arms around her. To Shan, it felt like being enclosed in a coffin of white-hot metal. She half expected his arms to leave burn marks across her flesh. It also felt like there was no one else in the room besides her and Victor. The other faces just melted away from the heat onstage.

Except for One-eye. Shan had seen too much of him in the last week to ever lose track of where he was in a room.

"There," Victor whispered in her ear, his cheek pressed against her blonde hair, "now run your hand along mine and grip my middle finger."

Shan breathed deeply. Her chest expanded, and Ashton's grip tightened across her arms and breasts. She reached under his arm and placed her hand atop his, her fingers trembling over several pressure points she knew would cause intense pain. But no, she went for his finger and twisted it back.

"You take direction well," Ashton said softly, just to her. "I like that in a woman." To the crowd, he said, "Now watch as Miss Westin--"

Shan yanked.

Ashton dropped to knees with a yelp.

"Very good, Miss Westin," Ashton said through gritted teeth. "You can let go now."

She didn't. "Wow, this is much easier than it looks," Shan said brightly. She applied more pressure and Ashton was forced to fall on his side to avoid the pain.

"Let go," Ashton said.

She did.

The crowd clapped, much to Ashton's apparent irritation.

"You may take your seat now, Miss Westin," Ashton said to Shan. He stood up and turned to Walter. "Grab me."

Poor Walter.

Shan sat and watched the rest of the demonstration...if you could really call it that. Public whipping was more accurate. Ashton worked out some repressed aggression, and his assistants spent most of the hour flying through the air. But Shan was pleased. She wanted to see how Victor Ashton fought when he got angry, and now she literally had a front row seat.

The man was good. No, by normal standards, the man was excellent, a master even. But Shan's idea of master was a little more complex than most people's. Judging from what she saw today, Ashton was better than One-eye, but not as good as she.

When the demonstration ended, Shan waited by the stage and tried not to look back at One-eye. It didn't take Ashton long to join her.

"Quite impressive, Mr. Ashton," Shan said. "I had no idea you were a man of talent as well as wealth."

Ashton rubbed the back of his neck with a towel then tossed it aside. "Flattery doesn't suit you as well as flirtation, my dear."

"Well, what if I mix the two?" Shan said, her mouth curling into a smile.

Victor's gaze dropped to her lips. "An improvement." He looked back up at her eyes. "I'm required in the research wing. Shall we walk?"

Shan took his offered arm, her fingertips rough against the smooth heat of his silken shirt. Ashton led her toward the door, and past an army of doe-eyed women waiting to speak with him. Shan scanned face after face, but she didn't see One-eye. He must have had someplace else to be.

Shan exhaled. She didn't want a confrontation with him. Not yet.

Later, however, she intended to kill him.

"With your love of jade, I would have expected to find you at the research presentations today," Ashton said. They walked down the center of the hallway, and other people scurried to get out of their way.

Shan shrugged. "There's very little about jade that I don't already know."

"Is that so?"

"Yes," she said, "and since I know nothing about the fighting arts, I thought my time would be better spent learning something new."

"And did you learn something new?"

"That fighting looks painful." Shan wrinkled her nose.

Ashton chuckled. "The martial arts are about more than fighting. They're an aspect of understanding the universe, your own body, and how they work together."

Aptly put
, thought Shan. "Like a religion?" she asked.

"To some people, yes," Ashton said. His eyes grew dark, much like his father's in that portrait she'd seen yesterday. So much hate swam there, behind his eyes...

"Victor!"

Rachel Sexton, dressed in an army-green suit with a long fitted skirt and wielding a clipboard, appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Ian followed a step behind her, dressed in his afternoon blazer and tan slacks. Shan grinned at him. He frowned back, his eyes in deep shadow. Something was very wrong to make Ian Dashell look that angry.

"The Hunan Project was a hit," Rachel said, coming to a halt in front of Ashton. "Several guests are interested in investing."

Hunan Project? As in Hunan Province?

Victor looked at Shan, the corner of his mouth twisting up into a cruel smile. But when he spoke, it was back to Rachel. "Excellent, Miss Sexton. I'd like to speak with the interested parties."

"I told them you--"

"What's the Hunan Project?" Shan interrupted.

Rachel's pretty brow furrowed. "Miss Westin, please--"

"You don't know?" Victor asked Shan, interrupting Rachel again. "I thought you knew everything about jade..."

Shan ground her teeth together. "Keep talking. Tell me about the project." Her body temperature rose. She could feel the heat in her face, her hands coursing with her blood. She was seconds away from ripping off her wig and giving Ashton a good look at her inner tiger.

Ashton smiled. "The Hunan Project started about sixteen years--"

"No!"

It was Ian this time. Shan glared at him, her anger jumping from Ashton to him in an instant.

"No?" she hissed.

"No," Ian said quickly. "I was just at the presentation. I'll tell you all about it myself." His gaze darted to Ashton, to Rachel, and back to Shan. "They're busy. We shouldn't keep them."

Ashton laughed.

"No, of course not," Ashton said. He released Shan's arm. "Go with your fiancé, Miss Westin. Let him tell you all about our Hunan Project. Who knows? Maybe you'll want to invest, too." He laughed again. Shan wanted nothing more than to plunge her hand through his ribcage and rip out his heart. If she could find it.

Confused, Rachel tried to restore order to the scene. "This way, Mr. Ashton. The gentlemen are waiting."

Ashton left with Rachel, but Shan's anger was still on the rise. She turned on Ian.

"Why? Why did you do that?"

"Come with me," Ian said. "Come with me back to the room. I'll explain there."

"Explain here," Shan said. "Explain now."

"No."

Shan looked at him. His eyes still hid in the shadows of his face; his lips were a thin line beneath his nose. She needed to hit something, to bite and to shred it. If they went back to the room, that something might be Ian.

But if she stayed here, as angry as she was, it would
definitely
be him.

"The room," she growled. "Now."

They walked fast without speaking. Wisely, Ian kept his distance. And when they got to the room and entered, he immediately put the heavy wooden desk between them.

Shan locked the door.

"We're here," she said. "Tell me what the Hunan Project is."

Ian looked like a trapped animal behind the desk, but he actually took a step forward when he spoke.

"It's the Jade Circle, Shan. They're excavating the sanctuary."

And, just like that, the rage emptied from her body as if Ian had just pulled the stopper out of the tub. Shan looked away from him, saw herself in a mirror by the door. Some blonde woman, awkward and out of place, stared back at her.

The Jade Circle. From the second Rachel had mentioned Hunan, Shan had known it was the Jade Circle. But could she believe it? Were people really running around the sanctuary, measuring and recording, taking pictures and making little notes in their notebooks? Were they digging up her mother's bones and labeling them for some museum display?

Or worse, to sell to the highest bidder?

Shan wanted to throw up. She wanted to purge herself of this place, of every memory of Ashton touching her. And she wanted to find him--wherever he was, whoever he was with, whatever he was doing--and make him pay for the injustice. Her mother would never have let it come to this. She would have gotten the dragon from Fortier, rescued Chen Sun, found the leopard...

"I hate this place." Shan's voice cracked. "I hate it."

And then Ian's arms were around her, and Ian's face was pressed into her hair.

But it wasn't her hair, it was that blonde woman's. Short and curly and powerless.

Ian seemed to read her mind. His fingers found the pins and pulled them off one at time. He lifted the wig from her head and tossed it away. Then his fingers went to work again, pulling pins from her own dark hair until it, too, fell free.

Shan sighed and leaned against his chest as he stroked her hair. Her own arms wound under his and met near the small of his back. Against her ear, his heart beat its steady rhythm so loudly that it was all she could hear.

She felt close to tears. If he spoke, they would come. But it wasn't time. She needed to contain her anger and her pain, to feed them to the tiger. Let it grow strong on rage, fierce with desperation.

Again, Ian seemed to understand her mood. He stepped back, took her hand, and pulled her toward the grotto in the back of their suite. Shan could feel her muscles, tight and strained, in her neck and back, and all the way down her spine. Even her feet in their high-heeled torture devices throbbed when she thought about them.

She let Ian lead her.

They stepped into the back room and into a different world. Water trickled down the back wall and swirled under the soft mist of the hot spring. Shan felt her own heat rising as Ian freed first one foot, then the other, from her black sandals. His hand grazed her calf. She swallowed thickly.

She felt his fingertips at the base of her neck as he stepped behind her, and then heard the faint purr of metal on metal as he opened the zipper on her blouse. Shan lifted her arms, and Ian peeled the skin-tight material off her body. A gentle pressure behind her back, and then her bra tumbled to the floor in a shallow heap of straps and satin.