Iona jumped back, but the cage held, which seemed to enrage the creature even more. It pressed its face to the bars and glared out at her.
Tiger.
Iona stared at the animal in surprise. Feline Shifters could be any wildcat or a combination of wildcats, each family tending toward the traits of one more than the others. Iona’s father obviously had a lot of panther in him; Eric’s family, snow leopard.
While in Shiftertown, Iona had met Felines whose wildcats resembled lions, lynxes, pumas, and one family of cheetahs, but no tigers. Cassidy sometimes looked after an orphaned cub who was a white tiger, but he was the only one.
This Shifter was a Bengal, orange and black striped, and gigantic. His scent was overwhelmingly male. No Collar gleamed around the tiger’s neck, and his eyes held madness.
He’d gone feral.
Iona stared at him in horror, finally realizing what Eric had been trying to tell her would happen to her if she didn’t control the beast within her. This was what he meant.
Crazed, furious, out of control, dangerous to herself and everyone around her.
Looking at the feral tiger in the cage, the untamed beast inside Iona tasted a tang of his madness and liked it.
Iona quickly shifted fully to human. “Who are you?” she asked again. “Did they capture you? Why don’t you have a Collar?”
The tiger’s face distorted, nose receding, eyes growing more human, but the Shifter settled into his half man, half beast form. “Let me out.”
The pheromone scent that came to her was loud and clear. Crap. He was an uncontrolled Shifter male facing a female who’d recently entered her mating years and was a bit wild with the mating heat. He wanted her.
Iona took a few steps back. “And have you jump my bones? No, thank you. I smell what you want to do.”
“I smell it on you. You want to mate. You want cubs.”
“I have a mate. He’s the leader of the Shifters. He’ll help you.”
“No one can help me.” The words were matter-of-fact.
“Where’s your Collar?” Iona asked.
The yellow eyes narrowed. “What collar?”
Interesting answer. “How long have you been in there?”
Surprise flickered in his eyes, as though he’d never considered it. “Always.”
“Who captured you?”
“I was never captured,” the tiger said. “I have always been here.”
The chill in Iona’s blood grew. “Where are the humans who run this place? They took a cub. I need to find her.”
“A cub.” The voice became sharp, more alert, more enraged. “Don’t let them have the cub.”
“I’m trying not to. Tell me how to find them.”
The tiger went silent a moment, claws scratching the floor. “Let me out. I’ll show you.”
“How about you just tell me? I’ll find the cub, and my mate, and he’ll help you. Promise.”
“No promises. Promises are lies.”
Iona took one bold step toward the cage. She couldn’t show fear. She had to calm him, to make him understand.
The dominance game, she understood with sudden clarity, wasn’t about fighting. It was about making the challenger know what would happen if things came to a fight. Iona might be smaller than the tiger, but she had to prove that she was fast and strong, and smart enough to win.
“I’m not one of the humans who put you in here. I’ll find the cub, with or without your help, and I’ll come back for you. That’s how it will be.”
The tiger fixed her gaze with his crazed red one. Iona didn’t flinch.
Staring him down was harder than staring down Shane or even Graham. But not tougher than facing Eric.
Eric, as calm and laid-back as he pretended to be, had dominance down to an art form. He didn’t need to challenge anyone, because he knew he’d already won before the game even started.
Defiance in the face of Eric’s will was almost impossible, but Iona had managed it. And she knew that if she could withstand Eric, she could withstand Tiger Man.
The battle took a long time though. Whoever this Shifter was, wherever he’d come from, he was a dominant.
The tiger didn’t lower his gaze or turn away, but finally Iona sensed a minute change in his stance.
“They do experiments on the top floor,” he said. “When they don’t do them down here. But they wouldn’t bring a cub down here with me.”
Top floor it was, then. Iona hoped he wasn’t sending her into a trap, but he didn’t smell of lies.
“I’ll make sure you get out too,” Iona said. “What’s your name?”
He hesitated for a long time, then finally said, “Twenty-three.”
“That’s not a name.” Iona glanced back down the row of empty cages. “What happened to numbers one through twenty-two?”
“They died. Now it’s just me.”
Iona met his gaze again, her fear of him changing to sympathy. “I’ll come back for you,” she repeated.
As though the conversation had become too much for him, the tiger shifted back into his huge wildcat, snarling breathily in his throat.
Iona became her panther again, finding it easier this time, and slunk back into the darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Tell me you’ve got a fix,” Eric said for about the tenth time.
Xavier tapped keys on the keyboard in the offices of DX Security. “Getting there. A little quiet would help.”