Tropical Tiger Spy (Shifting Sands Resort 1)

Tony nodded. With every inch of your spirit. At least, he had. Had she?

Her laughter was a rich caress of his mind. I thought I was going a little crazy when we met, she confessed.

I had never seen anything in the world as gorgeous as you, Tony told her, deeply relieved. And I will never forgive myself if you get captured because of me.

You got captured because of me, Amber pointed out.

Tony had no answer for that, but wordlessly pleaded that she see reason and leave while she could.

Reluctantly, she finally answered. I'll go, she agreed. But only to get help. I'm coming back for you.

Tony had a sense of her, ghosting out of her hiding place and darting from shadow to shadow, her attention entirely on staying quiet and out of sight.

He wanted to implore her to be careful, but didn't want to distract her from her stealth. Instead, he stood, cursing his wobbly legs, and shifted into a tiger to explore the cage with the extra senses that came with it. The water smelled good, so he indulged in a deep, refreshing drink.

He smelled Beehag before he saw him: Indian spices, fine wool, and just a touch of whiskey.

“Ah,” the odious man said, stopping before Tony's cage. “I like it when my guests stay in animal form. Some of them have to be... convinced to do so.”

Mostly to spite him, Tony shifted back into a human, and stood up to scowl through the bars, arms crossed. He was actually glad for the week at Shifting Sands; being nude felt comfortable and powerful, when a week prior to that, it would have felt like a weakness.

Beehag frowned, but didn't look surprised. “Your cooperation isn't necessary, anyway,” he said with an arrogant shrug. “You aren't really my goal here.” His eyes glinted as his face slid into a smug smile. “She's a pretty little thing, isn't she? And surprisingly clever.”

Tony wanted to reach through the bars and take the man by the throat, but knew it would be futile. There were two men with guns flanking the billionaire, and Tony suspected that they weren't both loaded with tranquilizer darts by the way the second guard was holding his.

Beehag had a black plastic box in his hand, and he lifted it. “She won't get far,” he promised. “She wouldn't leave her mate. Not when he was in such agony.”

Tony gritted his teeth, waiting for one of them to take a shot. But Beehag simply pressed a button on his box, and electricity jolted through him.

It was impossible to stand still, and there was nowhere to escape–the energy was coursing through the floor and the bars and not even the straw was enough to keep it from burning up his feet. The shock was not strong enough to kill him, but it was bitterly, burningly painful, and Tony couldn't keep back the yell of agony or keep his muscles from convulsing. It stopped just when he felt like he couldn't take another moment, and he stared through the bars at Beehag in impotent fury, panting and clenching his fists.

“Do you know what a shifter's weakness is?” Beehag asked in his silky voice. When Tony didn't reply, he went on anyway. “A shifter can't help but shift if they are in enough pain...” He lifted the box again, and although Tony was braced for it this time, he was still not ready for the piercing pain.

True to Beehag's observation, Tony shifted without meaning to. He even tried to fight it, briefly, and was disappointed to find that the pain was no less in cat form. His tiger, however, was more capable of dealing with the pain, and his human self could only whimper at the torment while his tiger roared and flung himself uselessly at the cage.

Beehag stopped the electricity at last, and Tony paced the cage in tiger form, still staggered from the experience. He was not sure he would have been able to shift back if he had wanted to, he was so shaken by the torture.

“That ought to bring her,” Beehag said, deeply satisfied. Somewhere down the pens, a single wolf raised its voice in a howl of sympathy. The rest of the zoo was eerily quiet.

Chapter Twenty-One

Amber darted from shadow to shadow, skittering through open drainage channels, under equipment, and across roofs, where she dared. There were traps, but they were lazy things, obvious and baited with meat, and she was not distracted, thinking ahead to her escape.

There was too much open space between the gates and house; she wasn't sure how to get from one to the other, or how to get through the gates once she got there. She tried to keep a map in her head, adding more to it as she noted landscapes and oddities, like the helicopter on a warehouse roof towards the back.

She nearly fell off the rain gutter when the pain began.

“Tony!” she cried, but he was too lost in agony to hear her or answer.

Beehag.

If he had been in her reach, she would have gleefully clawed his eyes out at that moment.

She nearly turned back, but she knew that the British asshole was just waiting for her. She wasn't sure what she was going to do, but it didn't involve falling into his trap like a stupid fool. It might have broken her heart to realize he was hurting Tony, but it didn't take more than a moment of rational thought to realize that he was doing it deliberately.

It only steeled her purpose. She was going to return to the resort. She would ransack Tony's cottage–he must have secret government super-spy contacts she could reach. They probably had helicopters, or maybe dragons. She'd tell them everything, and make them promise to send help, then come back and turn herself in to make them stop hurting him. She'd promise cooperation, if they let him be, and generally delay everything long enough for rescue to come.

When Tony's agony let up, she didn't try to contact him. She knew her will would waiver if she let herself touch his mind again.