Taking the Stage

“He’s a were,” she confessed the source of her sin. The shackles allowed nothing but honesty. “I was trying to kill him.”

Anthony’s gaze was a visceral scrape across her skin. He shook his head, a gesture that was both surprisingly comforting and catlike in the same moment. “We were playing.” His interruption was unexpected and unwelcome.

Allowing his lies to protect her from punishment would be an unforgivable stain on her honor.

“Are you sure?” Heidi squatted down until she was eye level with Roseatre, the force of the hold command securing the Amazon to the stage. Her docile position a demand of the shackles, a willing concession to the oath she’d sworn.

“Yes. He actually tried to seduce me. But he’s a were. Worse, he’s a weretiger.”

Heidi sighed, a soft, breathy whisper of regret.

“She didn’t try to kill me.” Anthony was on his feet now, the sheen of his gold skin reflecting the overhead lights. The muscles rippled across his shoulders as he extended his arms. “Bruises. No wounds.”

The stage manager spared Roseatre a rueful look. “I am sorry, Roseatre, but reparations must be made.”

“You will not punish her.” The budding threat in the weretiger’s throaty vocals sent an impermissible flux of lust through her being. Was the cat seriously trying to protect her?

Given a few more moments, she would have tried to separate his head from his shoulders.

Or left him neutered.

The combination of betrayal and protection made her head ache.

“Or what?” Heidi stood now, facing down the tower of angry cat in male form. How had Roseatre never seen it before? Forced to study him from beneath her lashes, her body locked until Heidi saw fit to free her, she couldn’t imagine him as anything but the great white tiger.

His vivid blue eyes were rounded, inner eyelids blinking over slender slits of black. Cat eyes.

She’d closed her thighs over his back and reveled in the feeling of his fur against her most intimate areas. The verboten exposure to the feline species was bad enough.

To a weretiger. It was an unimaginable betrayal to her tribe, her mother and, most of all, to herself.

Her mother would flay the skin from her back until no animal-caressed part of her remained.

Still. “Don’t.” Roseatre couldn’t believe she was warning off the tiger. Confronting the stage manager wasn’t a healthy occupation. Despite her less than formidable appearance, Heidi maintained a collection of puzzle boxes in her office, dating to all periods of history. Rumors abounded that each puzzle box served as a cage for some poor, unfortunate soul who pissed Heidi off.

Worse, the stories told of the victims within the puzzle boxes, reduced to action-figure size and serving as toys for Heidi’s talkative minion, a demonic little imp that followed her like a chattering child.

“I won’t allow her to punish you.” Anthony’s words washed over her, cool air drifting in from the water, supplanting the hard heat of the day. The show of solidarity was as ridiculous as it was unexpected.

And thrilling.

Admit it. You like it, the nasty little voice in her mind taunted. But that voice was a product of her time in the Midnight Mystery Lounge and clashed angrily with the Amazon princess, buried, half- forgotten in the sands of boredom and repetitive life.

She ached for just five more minutes. But five minutes of passion or battle? The two desires seemed intertwined.

“You allow or prevent nothing,” Heidi responded, prim, cold, immovable.

Take a hint, Anthony. She’s meaner than you are.

“If I’m the alleged victim of her attack and I say it didn’t happen, then there’s nothing to deal with. We still have two hours of rehearsal left.”

But, of course, the cat didn’t take the hint.

Men.

“She has admitted her intentions. I have already had one report from Stan regarding pulling you off her. Now I find the two of you grappling again.”

Anthony shrugged, but the motion belied a deeper stiffness in his posture. Roseatre’s eyes stung as she tried to watch what was happening, the force of lifting her eyelids and staring across the plane of her forehead sending spikes of pain into her brain.

Was Anthony really considering attacking the stage manager?

“We were rehearsing. It’s a passionate performance. You’re going to have to expect some skin on skin.”

“Oh. Do tell?” The dry tone crackled with skepticism.

“Anthony, stop.” Roseatre couldn’t believe it even as the words rolled off her tongue.

“So you want to be punished?” Flickers of irritation fanned the cat’s hostility.

“No. But seeing you neutered by someone else isn’t in my plans either.”

Heidi laughed. It wasn’t a friendly sound.

Roseatre pushed her head up a spare inch, but it cost. The daggers of pain pressing into her skull slashed against her spine. She found Anthony staring at her, mutiny etched into every tense feature. Tears of agony threatened, but she held them off by sheer force of will.

She was a battle-trained warrior. She was a princess.

Crying wasn’t built into her genetic code.

“Heidi, I’ll submit to whatever punishment you deem fit.” The words tasted like ash on her tongue. “Anthony defended himself. I attacked.”

“I know you did.” The statement stilled whatever fervent defense Anthony prepared. The cat scowled, thunderclouds darkening his blue irises. Heidi cut between them and gazed down at Roseatre with a curious expression of regret. “We can’t afford for the Overseers to notice this infraction.”

The verbal slap stung. But Heidi was correct. The loss of Pandora echoed through the theatre, a subtle, brutal underscore to the theatre’s already tenuous stability. Declining profits, bad reviews and desperation forced Heidi to hire Anthony and his cats in the first place.

The alternative was unthinkable.

“I understand.”

“The new show opens in fourteen days.” That was different. They’d only had a week before.

“Why the extension?”

“The Overseers will be hosting an event and their guests will be our audience. They have ordered the delay.”

Roseatre’s stomach plummeted.

Not only could they not fail. They had to be spectacular. Or retribution would be swift and brutal.

Fortunately, she could heal from most injuries within fourteen days.

“We’ll be perfect.” And by the gods, they would be. If she had to debase herself to the cat every night for the foreseeable future, the show would be unforgettable.

“Wonderful.” Heidi clucked approvingly and gestured with two fingers for Roseatre to rise. The pain burrowing into her released immediately and she surged to her feet. Anthony sidestepped the stage manager, hovering closer.

Surprisingly the gaze he cast over her was tinged with concern. Filing the information away for inquiry later, she hoped he could keep his mouth shut before they dug their grave any deeper.

The shackles on her wrists were still warm, a burning reminder of the control Heidi exerted over her. The stage manager’s rueful expression worried her more than Anthony’s tongue. Particularly when Heidi tugged a chain holding a single golden key from around her neck.

Roseatre froze.

Her soul pleaded. But Heidi’s lips firmed into a thin, uncompromising line. She turned away from Roseatre and faced Anthony.

She couldn’t.

“Mr. diNapoli, as you are the victim of the assault…”

She wouldn’t.