Tiger Bound Read online

  Two wounded souls courageously unite to vanquish a ruthless predator in Doranna Durgin’s highly emotional new romance.…

  Like the Siberian tiger he can transform into, Maks Altán is a strong, ferocious fighter who’s incredibly protective of his Sentinel kin. But thanks to a debilitating injury, he feels anything but fierce. That is, until he is sent to guard Katie Maddox, a gorgeous healer who awakens a dangerous lust within him. Problem is, in the shifter world, Katie’s deer alter ego is easy prey…and much too tempting for Maks.

  As unnamed danger lurks just beyond her awareness, Katie has doubts—about her abilities, her role in the Sentinels and the strange desire she feels toward her new protector. But somehow, the wounded predator and his wary prey must ignore their instincts, their fears and their dangerous attraction to each other in order to defeat their common enemy!

  It was the desire that rose between them now, pushing back at Katie until she jerked herself free.

  No. Not free. Hunger still washed over her skin, leaving a flood of warmth and fluttering sensation in its wake. It left her in thrall, aware of every whisper of air across her skin, every tingle of sensation. Maks lay heavy against her, leaving her aware of the soft flannel of his shirt, the muscle beneath, the breadth of his shoulders.

  He was so big. He was tiger. What had she even been thinking, to haul him into her lap for healing?

  What had she been thinking, to linger and to explore the whispering fugue of confusion clinging around him?

  What the hell was she thinking, to look down into those green eyes and lower her mouth to his?

  Books by Doranna Durgin

  Harlequin Nocturne

  **Sentinels: Jaguar Night #64

  **Sentinels: Lion Heart #70

  **Sentinels: Wolf Hunt #80

  **Sentinels: Tiger Bound #142

  **The Sentinels

  DORANNA DURGIN

  spent her childhood filling notebooks first with stories and art, and then with novels. After obtaining a degree in wildlife illustration and environmental education, she spent a number of years deep in the Appalachian Mountains. When she emerged, it was as a writer who found herself irrevocably tied to the natural world and its creatures—and with a new touchstone to the rugged spirit that helped settle the area and which she instills in her characters.

  Doranna’s first fantasy novel received the 1995 Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Award for best first book in the fantasy, science-fiction and horror genres; she now has fifteen novels of eclectic genres, including paranormal romance, on the shelves. When she’s not writing, Doranna builds webpages, enjoys photography and works with horses and dogs. You can find a complete list of her titles at www.doranna.net.

  Sentinels:

  Tiger Bound

  Doranna Durgin

  Dear Reader,

  To some extent, we’re born who we are. We’re formed and refined by our environment and experience, and if we’re smart, we never stop growing.

  Maks Altán and Katie Rae Maddox know what I’m talking about. Both are Sentinels, humans born with an alter ego tied deeply to their souls—an alter ego that eventually expresses itself in shape-shifting. Circumstances led Maks to change early and often; he and his Siberian tiger are much more deeply integrated than most. Circumstances drove Katie to a heightened sensitivity of her Chinese water deer nature—a rare prey shifter that makes her way too vulnerable in the midst of a warrior-like Sentinel society.

  They knew who they were, right from the start. The question is, what can this deer and her tiger become—together? And can they overcome not only their beginnings and their natures, but their shared enemy plans for them?

  Stop by my Facebook page or blog, and let me know what you think! www.dorannadurgin.com.

  Doranna

  To all the Wild Things.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Sentinels Mythos/Glossary

  Chapter 1

  Maks clawed back to himself, hand braced against old brick, the quiet engine of a shuttle bus in the background...small-town street traffic passing nearby. Mortar crumbled beneath his fingers.

  Not getting better.

  Getting worse.

  Not that he hadn’t known it when he’d talked his way back into Sentinel field status—even if no one else had guessed.

  “Mommy, look at that man!” said a young voice, bright and curious. “Is he going to throw up?”

  “You never know.” Brisk retreating footsteps drove the tight voice. “Let’s leave him alone.”

  Maks opened his eyes, knowing it was too soon. Knowing that the red brick of the shuttle bus depot would strobe with his accelerated heartbeat, in and out of double vision, in and out of reality. He caught the merest glimpse of a little boy trotting away—pulled along a little too fast for comfort, casting a look over his shoulder, stumbling—

  Maks growled. Softly, but a growl nonetheless—fighting the protective urge to pluck the boy up and away.

  Control, Maks.

  Not much of that lately.

  Just as well that he could do no more than roll his shoulders against summer-warmed brick and focus on where he was and what he was doing here.

  Katie Maddox. That’s why he was here.

  Katie Maddox, nominal field Sentinel...nominal visionary, plagued by uncertain portents. She’d wanted the Sentinel’s Brevis Southwest region to look into it; she’d wanted brevis to watch her back. And the brevis consul—Nick Carter—had sent Maks.

  Maks closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of hot pine and astringent air...turning his head to the breeze as it fingered his hair.

  Home.

  “Maks? Are you...Maks?”

  Damn. He stiffened, knowing from the doubt in her voice that the fugue still showed on him. Probably in him, and to judge by the dossier he’d studied between Tucson and this little high-altitude forest town, she could well see it.

  Then see to it that it’s gone.

  He played to the tiger within—a big cat in full stretch exuding lazy confidence and lurking strength. When he opened his eyes, there was a prowl behind them.

  She recoiled a step. Light of foot, long of leg, perfect in balance—if she ran, she’d go far and she’d go fast. Her eyes widened, cinnamon brown, pupils big...straight brown hair with that same cinnamon tint spilling out of her doubled ponytail.

  Yes. Katie Maddox knew he wasn’t right—quicker than anyone at brevis, she’d picked up on the growing threat from within him. And she knew, too, that he’d just seen the same in her—that she wasn’t the usual Sentinel. Wasn’t a hunter, a power-leashed protector...a predator.

  No. Katie Maddox was prey.

  * * *

  Katie Maddox, hold your ground.

  She’d had years of practice. Years of growing up the only Southwest Sentinel who didn’t take the form of something big and fierce and powerful, armed with fang and claw. Years of being bullied, pushed around...dismissed and ignored. Until she’d retreated from the Sentinels, moving out to this tiny, high-country timber town to start her own small business and live life on her own terms.

  Until now.

  She’d known he would be tiger. But she hadn’t known it would shine through from him to h
er unpredictable seer’s eyes—more than just chestnut hair with subtle black chunks nearly hidden in the shaggy nature of it, she could detect the hint of white at his temples that could well be mistaken for gray. More, too, than the size of him.

  It was the intent in him. So completely quiet, and yet written there for the world to see.

  Or just me?

  She never knew.

  But Katie didn’t run, no matter the impulse of the deer. Her legs might tremble faintly with the restraint and her nostrils might flare with the effort, but she held her ground.

  Because Maks Altán, Brevis Southwest field Sentinel, was the only help she was going to get.

  She took a step forward, held out her hand, and smiled just enough to show the faint reflection of her own other—faintly elongated canines rested against her lower lip.

  Full-blooded field Sentinel, no less than he.

  Just different.

  “Katie Maddox,” he said, and his voice came from his chest, faintly rumbly and unexpectedly gentle, softened at the edges. Leaning against the wall with his head tipped back, he was bigger than she’d thought at first glance—mainly because he wasn’t beefy, wasn’t exaggerated or barrel-chested or overly built. Long legs, broad shoulders, the muscle all to proportion.

  Tiger.

  Don’t think about it.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, glancing around Pine Bluff’s shuttle bus depot. It was already empty of the few others who had disembarked with him in this high country cow town gone to vacation industry, smack in the middle of Sitgreaves National Forest. With fir and pine everywhere and more vacation cottages than homes, the entire town stretched along one winding road and a few offshoot clusters. They rated a big box store and a Dairy Queen, but not a bus route...just a shuttle winding its way down to the valley and back. Here, Katie provided therapeutic massage and physical therapy to sick and injured animals from the entire region. It was a modest living, but she did make a living. It didn’t hurt that she was a healer in truth, even if she was limited by the need to go unnoticed.

  This man would never go unnoticed. Not for long. It was another reason she’d been surprised to learn he was coming in on the shuttle. “I can’t believe brevis HQ couldn’t spare you a car.”

  His glance sharpened, full of wild green. “The shuttle gives me time to think.”

  “To read about me, I imagine,” she said, arms crossed in challenge before she thought better of it—and then couldn’t believe herself. This conversation was where she wanted to go with their first meeting? This man she wanted on her side? The man she’d quickly assessed as being so close to his tiger, and a Sentinel with enough field experience to dress in the all-natural clothing that would take the change with him, simply as a matter of course.

  And still she challenged him—because she had to know where she stood with this man. “Brevis must have given you my file—what did you think after reading my history? A marginal seer having the vapors over vague portents? Just like always?”

  She braced herself for the response—and got only a mild frown. He lifted his chin briefly, eyes narrowing—and she saw, then, the strength of the tiger in him. Could see in her mind’s eye the image of a big cat, making that vaguely impatient acknowledgment to something in its world.

  “Whatever’s going on, brevis sent me to keep it from being a problem for you,” he told her.

  Right. He probably didn’t believe her, but he had a job to do and he’d do it. Not as good as she’d hoped. Not as bad as she’d feared.

  Except there was something else...lingering in the air, tickling at her healer’s instincts. Subtle and unfamiliar. She resisted the urge to shift a restless leg. So many little gestures, so many natural expressions, repressed in a world of Sentinel predators.

  “My house has a little studio over the garage,” she said, expert in the art of obscuring her own instinctive responses. “I thought we’d put you up there.”

  Maybe not so expert as all that, to judge from the look he gave her. Not so much challenge or annoyance as simply...knowing. That she was faking her aplomb, for one. That she’d found herself unexpectedly affected by his presence as a man as well as a tiger.

  But she’d read up on him, too. He had no empathy, no special skills or connections. He was simply what he was—a big man with a tiger’s speed and strength at his disposal. So it wasn’t true knowing, that look. It couldn’t be.

  It was only guessing.

  He didn’t respond to her suggestion; he merely reached down and hefted, with absurd ease, the battered black leather duffel sitting beside him.

  At least, until he faltered.

  It was only an instant—a hesitation, his eyes closed and a sharp breath drawn—and then he straightened, so casually that only her modest healer’s skills allowed her to discern it at all.

  The wave of unfocused energy washed through him and faded out again.

  “Are you—?” She stopped at his glance.

  Not a man of many words. And not one who was going to talk about the moment. But she understood, now, as she imagined he understood, too. Why brevis had sent him here. A damaged Sentinel to help an inadequate and overreacting seer.

  The Southwest Brevis consul no doubt figured they deserved each other.

  * * *

  “Be still.” Jet ran her hands down Nick Carter’s back as he leaned against his broad office desk. Her fingers searched out the cramping knots of muscle. She found the scar tissue deep within, almost-fatal wounds taking their time to heal.

  Sentinels, she thought, weren’t as invincible as they supposed themselves to be. Even the Southwest Brevis consul—their regional leader and her love—wasn’t.

  The night of Core D’oíche had taken much from them all. Fabron Gausto, the local Core drozhar, had escalated his enmity beyond the perpetual cold war against the Sentinels, striking a deep blow against the Southwest Sentinels. He’d used Jet to do it, ripping her from her natural gray wolf form.

  He’d ravaged her pack.

  “All of this pain,” she said, her thumb holding muscle until the problem trigger point began to relax and thinking not just of Nick, but of her pack, of his wounded Sentinels, “because too many years ago, a certain woman had two husbands.” Her voice slipped into recitation mode of the details she was still learning. “One was Roman, and one was a druid. And they had no TV.”

  Nick stiffened against a laugh. “No, that they did not.”

  She stroked practiced fingers along the length of muscle, easing it. “And the druid’s son could use the earth to make things happen, and the Roman’s son didn’t like it.”

  “Lower,” Nick murmured, which Jet took for agreement.

  “So the Roman’s son learned how to take powers from other things and store them in amulets.”

  Nick looked over his shoulder, surprised. His features were still sharp-cut in the wake of recovery; his hoarfrost hair had a sprinkling of actual gray at the temples. “Who—?”

  “Marlee told me that,” Jet informed him. She slipped away to pace along Nick’s office window; Tucson’s Old Town spread out before her. “She’s sad.”

  He turned to sit against the desk and watch her, his expression implacable.

  “She’s sorry,” Jet offered. Thinking of the young Sentinel woman who had been so deceived by the Core...and who had betrayed the Sentinels in turn.

  But not to the end. Because of Marlee Cerrosa, Jet lived. Because Marlee, Core mole, turned on her makers, Nick lived.

  “Jet,” Nick said, and rubbed the side of his nose, wincing a little. “We can’t trust her. And we can’t spare the time to address her situation right now. She’s safe; we’re safe.”

  And a prisoner, right here in this building.

  But Jet saw the look on Nick’s face—the one that meant Nick’s responsibilities to this giant pack called Sentinels weighed heavily on him—and she let that detail pass. She said instead, “So the Roman’s son started the Atrum Core, and said it was to protect
everyone from the druid’s pack, even though the druid’s pack hadn’t done anything wrong yet. Just because they might.”

  “That’s the story,” Nick said. “But I doubt the Sentinels were perfect then, either.”

  “And the druid’s pack said they would protect the land from the Roman’s son, and they did.”

  “All these years,” Nick said, looking out the window himself...visibly feeling the weight of Core D’oíche. Feeling the particular weight of...

  “Maks,” she said out loud, if not very loudly. “You’re thinking of Maks.”

  He closed his eyes, took a breath. “By everything we know, he’s ready.” And then, because he wouldn’t lie to her and she knew it, Nick added, “He’s ready for that job.”

  “He still isn’t right,” she pointed out, as if Nick didn’t realize the region’s best bodyguard still hadn’t fully recovered after the Flagstaff ambush prior to Core D’oíche—and after the six-week coma.

  Nick turned away and headed back to the desk. Gleaming wood desk, thick carpet, bright windows and plants everywhere—this was the office of the man who commanded the entire region of the druid’s modern sons and daughters. “He can handle this job.”

  Jet might have been the only one to hear the strain in his voice—or to know it for what it was. The weight of recent losses, recent injuries, recent betrayals. The weight of the decision he’d made about a friend.

  Nick turned abruptly, his gaze the same sharp, pale green that had first sought hers in the Tucson desert—first caught her there. “That area is where we found Maks,” he told her, maybe a little too fiercely. “That area is home to him. He’s the best man for the job. And—just maybe—going home will help finish his healing.”

  Jet didn’t know how. Not when she’d seen Maks’s closed expression, the body language of a wounded predator trying to hide his weakness.

  But because she’d also seen that look on Nick’s face—heard that strain in his voice—she didn’t say the words that came to mind.

  What if you’re wrong?