Tiger Bound Read Online Free PDF Page B

from the ground in an instinctive, nervous gesture—her body’s way of telling her to flee and check the situation from a safe distance.
    Maks had different instincts. He acted on them in an instant, ignoring the steps to vault over the porch rail, jarring Katie to scramble after him. He was faster than she’d expected, but no match for her own swift legs—she would have overtaken him at the corner had he not thrust out an arm to prevent it, stopping short with an agility she’d anticipated no more than his speed.
    He peered around the corner, blocking her view. She felt the disgruntled rumble in his chest more than she heard it, and only then realized she had pressed against him—trying to see what he saw, heedless of his warm and predatory presence.
    On her tiptoes, she could just see over his shoulder to the man fussing at her window. Dressed in camo below, black T-shirt above, he looked uneasy and nervous, looking over his shoulder to check the woods behind him. And he had the hard features, dark olive skin tone and flashing silver earring that marked him as Atrum Core.
    Even as Katie understood, stunned, that this man had come in from the trail, that he had clearly and clandestinely targeted her very own home, the man quite suddenly realized he was no longer alone. He fumbled a small, heavy object, and it fell into the tufty grama grass as he jerked away from the window to face Maks.
    Maks didn’t react at all. Just...watched.
    A shiver of recognition tightened Katie’s chest. Tiger. Waiting for the prey to make a mistake.
    The prey bolted.
    He stumbled a little, grabbing at one of the many pockets in his fatigues, but he still hit a full-speed sprint for the edge of the woods.
    Maks didn’t seem to hurry. He didn’t seem to move at all. And yet suddenly there he was, flowing forward—one moment the man, then a bright silvery flicker and swirl of his change—synthetic shoes left behind, all-natural jeans and shirt carried along with the shifting energies.
    The tiger on the run. In her yard. Huge. Immense.
    And so very fast.
    He sprang forward in twenty-foot bounds that took him swiftly through the thin trees to his quarry. One massive paw swatted the man into a tumble and roll, and the tiger doubled back to pounce, slamming a heavy blow down on the man’s thigh with claws unsheathed just enough to prick.
    Katie fought the impulse to take the deer and flee—dog-size and rabbit-fast, her tusks no more than a sharp-edged hint but enough to take some humans aback. Not with a tiger in the yard. What had she even been thinking, to follow Maks so closely?
    The man squirmed beneath that paw; the tiger’s lips lifted in a silent snarl of warning. He lifted his head to look at Katie—directly at Katie—and she felt an unexpected trickle of comprehension.
    He wanted her to do the talking. To be the human.
    She took a deep breath, hunting for the mantle of implacability she’d cultivated so assiduously during her training years. You don’t frighten me. This situation doesn’t frighten me.
    She stepped out into the scattered pines and high prairie grasses.
    But she’d taken only that single step when daylight flared into a sickly green light, a soundless explosion of corrupted Core amulet energy. She cried out, covering her eyes—ducking, as if it could do any good. Or as if it mattered at all at this distance—close enough to hear the tiger grunt, flinging itself aside to land crumpled, stunned—and human.
    Amulet ambush. Just like the one in Flagstaff that had wounded Maks’s team, had sent him so deeply into a coma for so many weeks—
    Please, let it not be that bad.
    The intruder scrambled away, tossing aside the used amulet and jerking out a small gun from concealed carry—pointing it straight at Maks and pulling the trigger without hesitation in a sharp, short report. Maks’s body gave a little jerk.
    Katie gasped—and then she was running, her legs swifter than she’d ever meant them to be,