Page 33 of Ignited

She’d stopped purring and was on her back, still half-under the covers, front paws curled in the air. Her head was back, exposing the soft fur covering her throat, the jewel glimmering in its depths. Somehow, even though she was a tiger, she looked innocent and trusting, almost like a kid.

He gave a little huff of laughter and sat down next to her. He wondered how old she’d been when the sorcerer took her, if she’d ever had a real childhood with real Barbies, not just the Barbie toybox with its valuable and probably lethal contents that was still in Bro’s truck. A problem for tomorrow. Today, really, since it was like four a.m.

And he was tired. “What the hell am I going to do with you?” he murmured, absently rubbing the fur under Karisma’s chin. “You’re going to blow up my whole life, you know that?”

But that idea didn’t bother him as much as he would have thought.

He sighed, turned wolf, and curled up next to Karisma. The tiger turned over on her side and wrapped her front paws around Boomer’s wolf, gathering him up against her chest. The rumbling purr started up again.

Great, Boomer thought. I’m the little spoon in a tiger silverware drawer. But the purr was soothing, and a feeling of peace stole over him. He fell asleep again, a faint smile on his face.

Karisma’s tiger woke up at dawn. The man-wolf was asleep next to her in man form, lying on his stomach, his limbs all tangled with her legs.

She liked that. She liked the way he felt, the way he smelled. The way he’d washed her last night, his hands gentle and his voice telling her about things in the past, things she barely remembered in her mind, but felt in her bones because they were part of her.

How he’d saved them. How she’d always known he would come back. Her human hadn’t believed her, had blocked her mind from thinking about him too much.

But he was back, and now everything would be all right.

Except she had to pee, and she didn’t like to pee where she slept.

She rolled over and sneaked out of bed, very quiet like she was hunting. She walked through the house, sniffing absently at the furniture. It smelled like wolves—good like Boomer’s wolf, but also like the other wolf-man, who wanted to put her in a cage.

He wasn’t here now though. Maybe he’d gone away forever. That would be good.

The doors to the outside had push-down handles that were easy to work with her paws. Outside the air was crisp and fresh, and it was snowing lightly. There was an inch of fresh powder on the ground.

She found a nice shrub and peed on it, covering the urine-drenched snow by scooping other snow over it.

Then she leaped away and rolled over and over in the snow, rubbing it into her fur and sending clouds of powder into the air. Karisma loved snow.

It was just beginning to be light out, and there was no one around. She couldn’t see any more cabins from where she stood, but she could smell them.

Woodsmoke, and food smells. More wolves. She wanted to go see.

Following the tracks they’d made last night in the truck, she took the road down the mountainside. In just a few minutes the woods opened up into a valley like a shallow bowl, with lots of buildings.

There were a few people, and a few wolves, but they didn’t notice her, with her black and white stripes blending perfectly with the bare snowy branches of the forest, and the jewel in her chest that made her untrackable and unsmellable, when she wanted to be stealthy.

Suddenly, she caught another scent, coming from the edge of the forest to her right, a little ways around the edge of the valley.

Rabbit! Her stomach growled. She had not eaten for a very long time, and it was a big rabbit, playing in the snow near the foundation of one of the cabins.

With all these wolves around. It was a very stupid rabbit, and it was just asking to be eaten. She needed to get to it before a wolf scented it and she had to fight for it.

She crept around the edge of the valley, keeping low, just inside the tree line. The rabbit had its back to her, nosing around in the snow. It was big and fat and white, and would be so crunchy and delicious…

Karisma crept closer, closer, belly to the ground. She wiggled her haunches, getting ready to pounce, and…

The rabbit stiffened and whirled around. For one second they stared at each other, wide-eyed. And then, just as Karisma pounced, the rabbit let out a high-pitched scream and launched itself at her.

They crashed in mid-air. The rabbit chomped down, biting Karisma on the nose.

Ow! Ow! Startled, she twisted away, batting at it with her paw. The rabbit hurtled through the air and landed butt-first in a snowbank, still screaming like a rabid raccoon.

Karisma landed on all four feet, skidding to a stop three feet away from it, nose smarting. What. The. Actual. Hell.

Then suddenly doors were slamming, people were shouting, and in seconds she was surrounded by a crowd of angry wolves and humans. Many of the humans had guns, and they were all pointing at her.