Page 48 of Lucky or Knot
Dignity be damned. This was how I could get to Raven.
The shaman had promised me that his magical glob would give me a full twenty-four hours of not smelling like any kind of shifter, so I took it out of the bag and bit the bullet, literally and figuratively. Blake produced a bottle of water from somewhere or other, and I took it and guzzled every drop, forcing the spell down my throat.
Definitely tiger piss, and no amount of maple syrup, or bottled water, could cover that up.
Fuck my life.
As I undressed, I folded my clothes and handed them to Axel to put somewhere in his truck. I probably wouldn’t get a chance to retrieve them if all went to plan. But I had to pretend to Axel that I’d be leaving with him and not causing any trouble at the party, or he wouldn’t cooperate. I’d taken inspiration from Raven’s story the night we met, suggesting to Blake that he tell Axel I’d lost a bet with another weretiger. Axel had agreed, since he’d thought it was harmless enough, but I knew one wrong move and he’d bail on me.
Blake took my phone, wallet, and keys. We’d discussed it while we waited for the shaman to fill our order, and he’d promised to drop them off at my apartment. The apartment door locked automatically when you closed it behind you, and if and when I ever got home, I could always ask the property manager to let me in, or break the door and worry about it later.
At last I stood at the foot of the ramp leading up into the barred trailer, and I turned to Axel, who’d turned bright red and was staring fixedly at my face.
I smirked at him—and then remembered that Declan MacKenna’s mate was there looking at my naked alpha body too, and stopped being amused. Hopefully Blake would leave this part out when he told Declan about it later.
“I’ll tap a paw or blink once for yes and twice for no,”I said. “I’ll have the same comprehension, but a tiger’s vocal apparatus won’t form human words. And if you make the mistake of actually treating me like an animal you’ve trained when we’re not performing, I will bite you. And then I’ll transform back to human and kick your ass. Got it?” Axel nodded convulsively, eyes wide. I sighed, but it had to be said. “Also, if you say anything about my name, my species, or anything relating to cereal, you’re dead meat. And thank you,” I added belatedly. “Blake, wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” he said, and I started my shift, flowing into my tiger form, bones and joints twisting around, muscles lengthening and strengthening, all the sounds around me suddenly gaining depth as my vision narrowed down to a desaturated palette full of tiny details that even a human shifter’s eyes wouldn’t catch.
I prowled into the trailer, sniffing the traces of two other tigers, one male, one female. The scents indicated relative contentment, at least, not anger or fear. And come to think of it, Axel had all of his limbs, protruding parts, and presumably his internal organs, some of which I’d expect to be missing if he made a habit of mistreating his cats. Twitchy or not, maybe the guy wasn’t so bad after all.
Mmm. That smelled like someone had been feeding these tigers some incredibly fresh wild boar, at some point recently. All right. Axel might not be the worst.
Resigned to my fate, I flopped down onto the more or less clean trailer floor, and Axel shut the door behind me.
We were on our way to Cunningham’s party, and Raven.
Nothing else mattered.
Chapter 16
Parking garages smelled even worse as a full tiger, and the sour tang of Axel’s nerves didn’t help matters. Plus, the random echoing noise hurt my ears. I swiveled them around a bit in an attempt to shake it off.
Axel was having a conversation with some of Cunningham’s security team about the night’s details. The back gate of the trailer hadn’t been opened yet, so I had nothing to do but sit there.
“You seem kind of nervous,” said one of the security guys, in a tone that had my hackles up. Paranoia seemed to be the name of the game around here. “Everything okay? I’m going to need to take a quick look at your tiger.”
Fuck. I rearranged myself into more of a springing position. Did they suspect something? Even without seeing them, I knew the security were shifters by their scents. Mostly coyotes. Not much of a threat, really, but if the shaman’s magic failed, they’d smell me as quickly as any other kind of were. If I had to take them all out, I could, but then my plan would go to hell, and it’d be a race to find Raven and not get killed in the process.
“Sorry, yeah, this is a big night for me,” Axel said, hardly missing a beat. Apparently I’d underestimated him. “Mr. Cunningham’s really influential. You know that. It’s a huge deal to be here. My tigers are rescues, so it’s super important to me to be able to fund my nonprofit—”
“Great, that’s cool,” said another security guy dismissively. I flicked an ear, flexed a dinner-plate-sized paw, and mentally marked him for some biting if I had the chance. Axel’s tigers were rescues? I really should’ve been nicer to theguy, starting with not getting him involved in this at all. “Let’s see the tiger, huh? And get going, you’re on in half an hour. Your people are already up there.”
The gate rattled, Axel offered a few boilerplate warnings like “don’t get your face bitten off,” and I froze. What the hell did normal tigers do? Like most shifters, especially the predatory ones, I never went to zoos, and I’d never fucking interacted with actual tigers. Our scents freaked out the normal animals. Shit. Fuck. Be a tiger. Act casual.
I ended up flopping down on my side and half-lidding my eyes, leaving my claws partially out so as to project a hint of menace.
Three faces appeared in the gap at the top of the trailer door: Axel’s, and two guys in suits with earpieces. They both sniffed the air, glanced around, and withdrew, apparently satisfied.
Well, give a point to the shaman and his piss-wax lump of awfulness.
Axel flashed me a nervous grin and opened the door the rest of the way.
“All right,” he said, in a voice that might have been intended to sound soothing to tigers, or to sound to the security team like it was meant to sound soothing to tigers. My head hurt. “Let’s get ready, hmm?”
He took a huge leather collar, a chain leash, and a whip from where they hung on the wall of the trailer.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” he mouthed, barely audibly even to me. “The whip’s for showmanship. The uh, collar. Please don’t eat me?”
