White Tiger (A Shifter's Unbound Novel) (31 page)

K
endrick inched his way out from under a pile of rubble, struggling to breathe. He was trapped between the rock fall that had rushed into the corridor, creating a mound of debris, and the low ceiling, which remained intact. There was very little space for Kendrick’s body between the rubble and the ceiling, and he slid through darkness on his belly.

Lachlan didn’t bring firearms, because he went for explosives.

The air was thick with dust and Kendrick couldn’t get a breath. He coughed and spat but had only sand and dirt to inhale.

He shook his head, trying to find clean air. Kendrick had only one thought beyond immediate survival—
Lachlan is out there, and Goddess knows what he’ll do to Addison and my cubs.

That thought galvanized him, made him harbor no idea of giving up and dying. He’d dig his way out of here, find Addison, and kill Lachlan. He’d finish Lachlan as fast as he could and send him to dust.

But first he had to get out. Though Kendrick had returned
to his between-beast state, strong enough to throw chunks of concrete from his path, his progress was slow.

Something hummed in the darkness. Kendrick knew exactly what it was, having heard that sound resonating deep in his body since the day he’d stood under a grove of trees during the Choosing and was touched by the Goddess.

Smacked by the Goddess was more like it. He’d been standing there, minding his own business, never dreaming he was a good candidate for Guardian. He’d attended the Choosing only because every male past their Transition in his mother’s clan was required to.

A shaft of light had struck him, pulling him off his feet. While Kendrick’s heart had pounded in terror the clan leader had announced, “The Goddess has Chosen.”

Since that day, the damned sword had been singing to him, either so faintly as to blend into the background, or, like now, soaring into a resounding chorus.

Kendrick knew its music could save his life. He dragged himself forward, angling through the rock fall toward the humming sword.

Light flashed. Kendrick froze, expecting Lachlan to come climbing over the rubble and shoot him, but the light emanated from the ground and not from a flashlight.

The runes on the sword were flashing in the gloom, letters outlined with fire. Not all the Guardians bothered to learn what the inscriptions said—and Kendrick acknowledged that a lot of it was gibberish to him. He’d taught himself to read the ancient Fae he could decipher, so he could understand part of it.

One of the lines was in invocation of the Goddess, similar to the ones Shifters used to begin any ceremony of worship:

Goddess, mother of us all, lady of the moon, we beseech thee to be with us
.

Another line was an incantation to her husband the God, asking for his blessing.

Then there was the curious sentence Kendrick had mulled over for a long time:

The power lies not in one.

Not in one
what
? Or not in one person but more than one? In that case, why was the Guardian the only person who could wield the sword? If another Shifter caught it up and stuck it through a dead Shifter’s heart, the Shifter’s body would remain intact, but with a sword sticking out of it.

A few months ago, a non-Guardian Shifter, Broderick, had performed a Guardian duty on a dead Guardian in Montana, but from what Kendrick had gleaned, Broderick had been temporarily Goddess-touched at the time.

Here Kendrick was, all alone, the sword singing away, telling him to get his butt over there and rescue it. Growling, Kendrick squirmed and wriggled over to the sword, pushing more debris out of his path as he went.

The sword lay on top of a pile of crushed stone, just out of reach. Of course. Kendrick clawed his way to a relatively open spot—not much space between the fallen stone and what was left of the ceiling.

He reached up, his between-beast claws changing back to a human hand so he could wrap his fingers around the hilt.

Instantly the sword went into paroxysms of joy. The sword jangled and sang, vibrating on the rocks.

“Shut up,” Kendrick told it in irritation. “You’ll bring the rest of the ceiling down.”

The sword muted its song the slightest bit but the happy noise went on. Kendrick knew it couldn’t be heard except by himself—maybe others couldn’t see the glowing runes either. Kendrick was just one lucky sod, wasn’t he?

The tunnel seemed to be filled fairly uniformly from the cave-in, the narrow crawl space near the ceiling sloping a little way down to the sides of the corridor. Kendrick knew that whichever direction he went, he was likely to find a total collapse in his way or he’d cause one.

But what the hell? He couldn’t stay here debating about it. Kendrick picked a direction and started crawling.

He’d gone, he calculated, about twenty yards, the sword lighting his way, when he heard sounds. He snarled at the sword, which was humming in his ears, to
shut up
again and listened as hard as he could.

The noises were groans. Eventually, Kendrick
distinguished them into separate ones, two of them, one louder than the other. They were male voices, of Shifters in great pain, unable to make any sounds but the moans that came from their throats.

Kendrick carefully scrambled down and over stones, making his way to them. The rock fall sloped downward farther on, flowing out of an open door. The doorframe had remained upright, the lintel supporting the walls, but the entire ceiling inside the room had collapsed.

Kendrick spied a hand poking from this debris. He dropped the sword near it and started pulling rocks away from the man buried beneath. The groans increased as Kendrick moved the concrete away to reveal a Shifter, one of the ones who’d joined Lachlan. Lachlan had trapped him in here to die.

The Shifter—a Lupine called Darien—opened his dark eyes, and his next moan became a sigh of relief. “Thank the Goddess. I won’t die without a Guardian.”

Kendrick felt Darien’s chest, arms, legs, neck, and gently slid his hands across his abdomen. “You might not die at all. You’re pretty tough.”

Darien’s dirty face split with a grin. “Yeah, so my mate tells me.”

Kendrick knew Darien’s mate, and his cubs. “You’ll see them again. I promise you. There’s another down here with you. Can you help me find him?” The other voice had grown fainter still.

Darien tried to raise his head, grunted, and gave up. “Five of us. Lachlan told us to wait for you here in case you came back this way.”

“Bastard. Why the hell—?” Kendrick bit off his question. Rescue now, interrogate later.

Darien put his dirt-encrusted hand on Kendrick’s arm. “Because we needed a leader. We’re
Shifters
, Kendrick. We like hierarchy and alphas. Life is hard to figure out—we need someone to lean on when it gets too tough.”

“I was still there for you,” Kendrick said in a hard voice. “Even if you didn’t see me.”

“I know, but like I said, we’re Shifters. We need someone to hold our hands sometimes—literally.”

And Lachlan had played on that need and dependency. A leader’s Shifters weren’t much different from his own cubs—his followers thrived on attention as much as the basics like food and a safe place to sleep.

“I’m sorry,” Kendrick said. “Truly. You’re right. I should have been there for you.” He closed his hand around Darien’s fingers where they rested on his arm. “Tell you what, when we get you and your friends out of here, you can smack me upside the head.”

Darien grinned again. “I wouldn’t have hurt you.” His other hand came to rest on Kendrick’s as though he took strength from the touch. “Much.”

Kendrick grunted a laugh as he continued to unbury Darien and helped him to sit on the pile of rubble. He left Darien to catch his breath and crawled to where he heard movement. Kendrick began pulling away rocks and gravel, the Sword of the Guardian lighting the way.

Kendrick’s heart dropped when he uncovered a Shifter, dead. The man had been crushed, no hope of survival.

Kendrick knew him, as he knew Darien, as he knew every Shifter under his command. Immense grief flowed through him as he lifted the sword and plunged it into the dead Shifter’s heart. There was a faint whisper, and the Shifter disappeared into dust that dispersed and vanished.

But there was still someone alive under here. Another groan sounded, and rocks moved near where Kendrick crouched. Kendrick let the sword drop with a clatter and dug through the rubble with both hands. Darien joined him, and soon they uncovered another Shifter.

It was the Feline who’d been Lachlan’s main supporter. The man opened his eyes, dark orbs shining among the white dust that coated his face.

“Guardian,” he whispered.

The Feline’s body was broken. Blood seeped from between his lips, and his bones had been shattered.

Kendrick laid his hand on the Feline’s chest, feeling his heart beating erratically—struggling for life.

“I know a healer,” Kendrick said quickly. “He can get here soon. Crazy asshole, but he’s got the gift.”

The Feline gave him a wan smile. “I’m not going to make it out in time, he’s not going to make it in, and you know it.” He closed a bloody hand around Kendrick’s wrist. “Lachlan’s a bastard. So are you, but
he
left me to die.”

“I’ll avenge you,” Kendrick said. “Trust me.”

“Yeah, I know you hate him. Just tell him before you kill him that I’ll be waiting to kick his ass in the Summerland.”

“I will,” Kendrick promised. More sorrow swamped him. “I’m sorry I failed you, my friend.”

The Feline snorted. “Get over yourself. Just do it. I want to see my mate and cub. I can feel them reaching for me.” His mate had passed long ago, trying to bring in a cub that had also died.

Kendrick brushed his hand over the man’s forehead. He hated this part of his job, but he also knew that he sent the Shifters off with some comfort.

“Goddess go with you,” Kendrick said. He lifted the sword, which sang and glittered, and drove it into the Feline’s heart.

“Thank you,” the Feline whispered, and then he was dust.

Tears streamed down Darien’s cheeks, plastering the dirt to them. “He was a good man.” He sniffled and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “For a Feline.”

Kendrick cleared his throat, trying to contain the pain in his heart. “Help me find the others.”

The final two Shifters Darien said had been with him were farther down in the rubble, already dead. Kendrick dispatched them, then bowed his head for a time, resting his weight on the sword, unable to move.

*   *   *

A
ddie felt sick when she saw the rubble blocking the tunnel at the bottom of the shaft.

Kendrick was behind there. Zander’s flashlight roved the seemingly solid wall of boulders. A slight indentation at the ceiling showed that the debris had filled in nearly to the top of the tunnel.

“Are you sure he’s through there?” Addie asked Tiger. “Dylan said there were many ways out.”

Tiger touched the rocks and bent his head. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “This is the closest path to him.”

Jaycee, who’d climbed down directly after Addie, clicked off the cell phone she’d used to contact Dimitri. “Dimitri says Kendrick hasn’t come out. The main entrance has completely collapsed. Dylan and his trackers are checking all the side tunnels, but they’re not optimistic.”

“No,” Tiger said. “He is behind here.”

Zander slapped his hand to a boulder. “It’s nothing but rock. We’ll never tunnel in there. Going around has to be better.”

Tiger had both hands on the fill now, his head bent, while Addie watched worriedly. She could barely breathe in this stuffy place, and her wildly pounding heart didn’t help.

“I can see,” Tiger said, his eyes closed. “Heat, moving . . . now it’s gone.”

“Gone?” Addie ran two steps to the rock and flattened her hands against it, as though she’d be able to feel something through it as Tiger did. “What’s gone?”

“The heat. Someone was alive. Now dead.”

“Kendrick?” Addie’s word came out a whisper.

“No,” Tiger said. “Another.”

“Let’s hope it was Lachlan,” Jaycee said.

Tiger shook his head. “Another. A Feline.” He remained frozen for a few more seconds, a giant of a man with his hands spread on the rock, as though listening to what the debris had to tell him.

He turned abruptly, eyes flashing gold, and started up the ladder.

Addie, instead of screaming at him to wait, climbed quickly out after him. She’d figured out that Tiger didn’t answer direct questions or take orders or bother to explain what he was doing. He did what he did and everyone else had to figure it out. Jaycee followed Addie, Zander coming behind her.

Tiger stood at the top of the ladder, looked around for a few moments, then started off to the west, his strides even. Counting paces, Addie realized as she hurried after him, his strides never varying.

The sun touched the horizon. Red and gold rays streamed up into the soft blue sky, a Texas sunset in all its glory.

Tiger moved about a hundred paces from the entrance to the shaft, then turned and walked south. He stopped on a patch of ground that looked no different from any other to Addie—the grasses and dust were identical to all other grasses and dust around it.