Tropical Tiger Spy (Shifting Sands Resort 1)

Chapter Twenty-Five

The scene that greeted them was more chaotic than the one Amber had left. The dragon had returned to human form and lay in a twitching heap, riddled with feathered needles, while a giant polar bear was roaring over the waist-high wall. Its motions were a little drunken, and several darts hung in its brilliant fur, but guards were still scattering before its enormous paws. Scarlet was still in human form, crouched behind most of a wooden plank thick with needles as more of them hissed into her make-shift shield. Half a dozen unconscious humans lay naked across the lawn.

It was into this bedlam that Tony charged, firing quickly at the most competent-looking guards. The sea of animals and humans that were running with him spilled out into the guards, and though their enemies' shots were true, sheer numbers sent the ragged team forward. The polar bear made it over the little wall, but collapsed onto the guards with a whine and lay still, pinning several of them as it turned into Magnolia.

Amber shifted into her cat form, figuring she would be harder to hit if she were smaller, and felt a dart ruffle her fur as she hit the ground running.

She leaped onto the nearest guard, scratching at his face and hissing.

He staggered back and shot wildly into the air before falling backwards with a dart in his shoulder.

Tony fired the last

dart from his gun and Amber caught a glimpse of him shifting into tiger form before she was dodging the swung muzzle of a gun from a guard who was out of darts. She hissed, and as she crouched to leap on him, he staggered backwards with a needle in his throat.

The red wolf shifter's team had flanked the guards from the other side of the house, and the red-haired man was taking down everyone in uniform with grim, sharp-shooting precision, taking a gun from one of the others in his team when he ran out of darts.

In a matter of moments, the battlefield had stilled to growls and hisses. A grizzly bear, shaking a dart from the ruff of its neck, staggered to where the polar bear had collapsed, and changed into Chef, gingerly pulling Magnolia's head into his lap as he sank wearily down beside her.

Scarlet put down her shield and stood up, as gracefully and self-possessed as if she weren't stepping over the knocked-out bodies of most of her staff.

The animals from the zoo milled about uncertainly, and everyone who was ambulatory gradually found themselves in a loose semicircle around the resort owner. Amber put her hand in Tony's and squeezed wearily. Most of them shifted to human, but not all. The maned red wolf drew himself forward as their spokesman. “We're obliged for your assistance,” he said gruffly.

At that moment, the gazelle charged from behind the house, skittered to the side when it encountered the mass of animals, and then fled wildly through the gate, leaping over anything in its path and finally charging over the van with a clatter of panicked hooves.

An elderly woman buried her face in her hand and wept. “I don't know what I'll do now,” she sobbed. “It's been twenty years since I saw my family.”

“Some of these people have been here fifty years,” Tony said, remembering. “Some of them may not remember how to be human.”

“You have a home at the resort,” Scarlet said, unexpectedly. “We can find beds and food for everyone, and the resort is as welcoming to shifters in animal form as in human.” She lifted her voice to include them all. “Everyone who needs a place may stay there, until you can contact family, or as long as you need.”

Amber clenched Tony's hand in her own, and as one, they said, “The resort!”

Scarlet's eyes drilled into them. “What about the resort?”

“Beehag,” Amber said, then she explained as quickly as she could. “He says he rigged the resort to explode tonight at sundown. Tried to use it as leverage so I wouldn't shoot him.”

“I hope that you did anyway?” Scarlet's voice was dry and hard.

“Twice,” Amber said with remembered satisfaction, and she was rewarded by a grim nod from Scarlet.

“That's my mate,” Tony said proudly.

“He said something about the natural gas,” Amber remembered.

“Jimmy,” Scarlet spat. “I caught him fooling with the hot water heaters earlier this week. He had some excuse about the settings being too high.” She looked around suddenly. “Where did Jimmy go?”

A swift search revealed no sign of Jimmy among the unconscious on the lawn.

Tony hissed, “Beehag.”

The three of them dashed for the security room at the back of the house.

The red wolf shifter remained behind to coordinate the dazed animals and secure the guards.

No one noticed the ocelot who followed them.

Chapter Twenty-Six