Page 50 of Lucky or Knot
Because at the other end of the dance floor, seated next to Cunningham on a fancy settee thing at the edge of the low band platform, was Raven.
Even though colors weren’t really the most important part of a tiger’s vision, and even though Raven’s white skin and black hair and black clothes should have had him fading into the background, he dazzled me, like stepping into the technicolor Land of Oz after spending my whole life in a gloomy, muted nightmare world. His tux had cropped trousers, showing off strappy stiletto sandals on those elegant feet, and instead of a bow tie he had some kind of silky white scarf that dipped down to show the soft hollow between his collar bones. A severe bun with a pair of chopsticks stuck through it at precise angles confined his mass of hair.
Every detail of him imprinted itself on my retinas. And as he glanced to the side, as one of his fingers twitched, as he shifted his foot, I caught it all, my tiger eyes attuned to the faintest movement of the prey I hunted.
Raven. Alive, and mostly well. Enough to sit up and be on display for Cunningham’s world to stare at, anyway.
Until this moment, I hadn’t quite been able to let go of my fear that it’d be otherwise.
Relief rushed through me dizzyingly, leaving me aching with determination. I’d keep my cool and keep my cover. I’d wait for my moment. And I’d seize it when it came along.
I stared at Raven and Cunningham while the announcer wound himself up to a crescendo. They sat close together, and as I watched, Cunningham put his hand on Raven’s thigh.
Raven’s leg tensed up. Tigers really could see the most minute movements even at a distance, and I saw Cunningham’s fingers dig in slightly in response, even though his bland smile didn’t waver.
In person, he projected an aura of violence that his photoshadn’t captured, closely-cropped graying hair and narrow-set eyes giving him a look that blended middle-aged executive with contract killer. His tux had to have cost more than my car, maybe by a factor of three. The alpha-magic smell of him twined with Raven’s honeysuckle and lemon, wrapping around and choking it like invasive vines, the combination nauseatingly vile.
Raven’s pale, blank mask was clearly meant to give nothing away.
But to me…
…Cunningham’s mouth open in a shriek of terror, claws sprouting too late to defend himself from my rending fangs…
Axel’s hand landed on my shoulder again, this time with a lot more force.
I started, stilled, and forced myself to stop growling.
“Easy,” he said, low-voiced but high-pitched with worry. Shit. “Easy. Please?”
And then we were walking into the center of the ring.
Raven hovered in my peripheral vision, always and forever the focus of my attention, but I forced myself to tune in to Axel’s commands.
The performance space had been set up kind of like an obstacle course, I realized, with platforms and rings alternating around in a circle. The last ring had…oh, for fuck’s sake. Little jets that would spout flame, no doubt at a dramatic moment before I jumped through it. There didn’t seem to be a good way to communicate “if my whiskers get singed, I’ll sue you and then gnaw the arms off your lawyer” with blinks and paw taps, so I settled for a speaking glance up at Axel, who paled slightly under his bronzer.
He recovered instantly, launching into his patter, voice rolling out of the sound system with surprising force given how tentatively he’d spoken to me so far.
“And now, this ferocious ruler of the jungle will show youhow elegantly he can entertain you, ladies and gentlemen…”
He waved his whip at the first round platform, a drum roll sounding out of the speakers. And it was surprisingly less humiliating than I’d expected. It simply felt unbearably stupid. When I glittered up and pasted on a lecherous grin and shook my package at the crowd in my human shape, that was also stupid, and it didn’t humiliate me because it wasn’t reallyme.
All of a sudden, everything fell into place.
I tossed my head, my fur rippling, and pulled my lips back in enough of a snarl to display my fangs to the awed crowd without making them think I was about to go for someone’s jugular. Meanwhile, I paced forward, paws in a precise line, the very picture of prowling, feline grace. This wasn’t any different than the choreography I used on stage at Lucky or Knot. I could do this.
Wild applause greeted my leap onto the platform, the size of which required me to put all four of my paws fairly close together. Rearing up onto my hind legs and doing a bit of a dance tempted my shitty sense of humor, but I remembered just in time that a lot of people would probably die tonight if I outed myself as a shifter.
But then I made the mistake of giving in to Raven’s irresistible pull, glancing up at the band platform as I landed on my own.
Our eyes met, his jet black and mine golden-orange streaked with brown—the same color as in my human body, although they were a different shape and size in this one, and the shaman’s spell had suppressed my alpha glow.
Raven’s eyes. Gods, and his scent, a thread of it teasing at my nose even through the huge ballroom’s currents of air conditioning and people’s movements, unmistakable even tainted with Cunningham’s reek and filtered through all the other smells generated by a crowd.
For a crucial instant, my knees went weak. One paw slipped off the edge of the platform, and my reflexes compensated in the nick of time, my stumble lasting only a fraction of a second.
It was enough. As I perched neatly, wrapping my tail primly around my paws, I saw the minute change pass over Raven’s face, there and gone again. A widening of the eyes, a slight part to those plush lips, before he pulled himself back together and went neutral.
But his eyes blazed.
