Hamza looked upward into the shadows where Asil knew he could see nothing. “On your head be it.” He said it very softly, as if to himself. But it was in English, so Asil knew it was directed at him.
“Hamza,” his sister called from outside of the barn, her voice muffled by the sound of the helicopter.
“Coming,” Hamza said. He started to turn when his eyes caught the eyes of the lioness, and he froze.
She was lying on her side, head flat on the floor. Her tail flicked idly, making a soft thump-thump sound.
“She is very large for a lioness,” Hamza said uneasily. He took a step toward the cage. “Very large.”
A lioness and a Bengal tiger should be about the same weight. Skin and bones though she was, Asil figured the lioness would weigh in around six hundred pounds, twice the size of the Bengals.
“She is,” agreed Asil. And if his voice was dangerous enough to draw Hamza’s sharp attention, that was fine. They all needed to know where they stood.
Hamza bowed from the hips with the liquid grace of the young and also of shapeshifters. Respect and gratitude conveyed better with his body than with his words. He took a moment to glance up again at the hidden depths of the rafters, then turned on his heel and exited the barn, closing the door behind him.
Asil waited until the helicopter lifted. He sent a brief text. Then he, too, turned toward the darkened rafters.
“It is time for you to come down.”
Nothing happened.
“Butterfly,” he said, the word sour on his tongue, “it is time to come down.”
The tiger shapeshifter descended from his perch in the rafters. His wounds were mostly healed. He smelled strongly of the white vinegar Asil had found to douse him with. That, and the stench of blood and death and fear that permeated the barn, had kept him hidden from his kindred. He wore a narrow black leather-and-diamond collar around his neck—the collar the lioness had been wearing before Asil spoiled everyone’s plans.
Zoya would tell her rescuers about him eventually. He had gambled that she would not talk to them before they left the barn. He would not have let them take this one—his crimes had been perpetrated against Asil in Asil’s…in the Marrok’s territory. That meant his information belonged to the wolves. They would discover how a tiger shifter found himself in possession of collars made by a dead witch.
Maybe then they would return the tiger to his queen. Maybe they would share the information they got from him. Maybe.
The Marrok opened the door quietly and entered without fanfare. Unlike Asil, he was totally unremarkable in appearance, someone easily overlooked in a crowd. Or in one of the cars parked out in the lot.
“Behold,” Asil said, with a sweep of his hand toward the collared tiger. “I bring you a gift. Merry Christmas.”
“I did not expect a Christmas present from you, Asil.” Bran Cornick, his Alpha and the Marrok who ruled the werewolves, gave him a pained smile. “I thought the uncomfortable gifts all belonged to you this year.”
“I live to complicate your life,” Asil said. “I promised the tiger that we would take all of this one’s secrets. That we would find all of the people who took the tiger and others and see that they do it no more.”
Bran’s eyebrows rose.
Asil smiled. “You would have done it anyway. He brought his games to our territory.” Then he sobered. “There is more to this than a single tiger shifter trying to live forever. You should find out why he has two of Mariposa’s collars.”
Mariposa was dead. That made the items that the witch had created all the more valuable. Too valuable to have been purchased for money.
“And why he brought them here, of all places,” Bran agreed, eyeing the collar sourly. “Powers are moving,” he said, glancing at the lioness before he looked back at the bespelled tiger.
He thumped his chest lightly. “More than one. Do you feel it, Asil?”
Bran was old, older than Asil, who had been born well before the year Charlemagne was crowned emperor. He was also witchborn.
Asil nodded gravely. “I think that we are in for a most interesting Christmas season.”
Bran pinched his nose as if to stave off a headache. “I had hoped that you would disagree. Ah well. Safe travels, my friend.” To the tiger he said simply, “Come.”
The tiger didn’t move.
Asil sighed. “The spell is keyed to the word ‘butterfly.’ ”
Bran gave him a sharp look but didn’t comment. “Butterfly,” he said, “come.”
