Page 131 of Tiger's Dream
“Who do you think?”
Of course it was Kadam. She stopped in her tracks when she came upon a squawking red bird. It danced next to a newly fashioned nest filled with open-mouthed, chirping young. Holding out a finger, Ana beckoned to the bird and it flew down to her offered perch. After a moment of indiscernible cheeping, Ana answered, “I’ll see what I can do.” She reached inside the nest, carefully nudging aside the gangly chicks, and removed an unhatched egg. Ana tucked it into her pocket and we went ahead.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“You don’t recognize it?”
“What, the egg?”
“The birds. This one is the hatchling. The one I’m going to raise.”
Now that she said it, I could see the similarities between the mother and the red bird Kadam had given me. I shook my head, wondering at her ability to wrap her mind around the disparities in time. As we walked, she warmed the egg with her hands and whispered to it softly. It shimmered and disappeared. I didn’t bother to ask her what she did with it.
When we arrived at the cavern where we’d found the omphalos stone, Ana created the bees and the stone easily enough as well as the chemical smoke created when her fire-warmed hands pressed against it but there was no way to imbue the stone with the ability to see into the future. We puzzled over it for a while, Ana trying different things, but nothing worked.
I was leaning over the stone looking into its depths when Ana took hold of my dangling necklace and pulled. Her eyes narrowed as she considered the small piece of the truth stone I always kept with me.
“How many shards of this do you possess?” she asked.
“A few. Why?”
“May I have this one?”
I nodded and she reached up around my neck to untie the cord. Her curvaceous body, which was currently enveloped by only a thin summer dress, was suddenly pressed up against me, and my hands naturally went to her waist to steady her. Ana’s warm breath tickled my neck and her floral scent surrounded me. My breath hitched, though I willed myself not to react, and she suddenly froze.
Inch by painful inch, she pulled away, her hands dropping the cord at my neck and slipping down to grip my shoulders. The two of us stood there unmoving, the fringe of her long lashes hiding her eyes. I cleared my throat, about to say something to try to diffuse the tension that shouldn’t have been there, when she looked up. Her green eyes locked onto mine and I couldn’t breathe, let alone form a coherent thought. Every inch of my skin prickled with awareness of her.
“I…I couldn’t take it off,” she said, her words soft.
My mind went in a totally different direction, and she cocked her head as if listening to my thoughts. Immediately, I shielded them and backed away quickly enough to cause her to stumble. “Yeah, I’ll, uh, take care of that myself.” Reaching up, I yanked the cord from my neck and tossed it to her. “Let me know if that works. I’ll wait for you outside.”
When I exited the cave, I ran a hand through my hair.What is wrong with me? I thought. She wasn’t being suggestive. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, Ana had just thrown herself awkwardly at me in the temple, but she didn’t mean anything by it, did she? More than likely, she was just upset.
A thought occurred to me and my blood froze.Orshe believed I was upset and she wanted to appease me. I slapped a hand on my forehead. Of course. The sadistic man who’d bought her, the man I’d killed, would have demanded physical affection to appease his anger. It was probably a conditioned response.
My hands tightened into fists.Did she really believe I would use her in such a way? What an idiot I was. I had to rein in my temper around her, otherwise, she’d throw herself at me to appease my masculine needs. Disgusted with myself, I turned to head back into the cave to apologize, when she came out.
“It’s done,” she said, dusting off her hands. “I tried it and it worked. The stone showed me something interesting. I—”
“You don’t need to do that,” I spurted.
Her bow-shaped mouth turned down in a frown. “Do what?” she asked.
“You don’t…you don’toweme anything, Ana. Favors I mean.”
“Favors?”
I willed the words to come, but they were twisted and jumbled inside me like pieces of a puzzle I couldn’t make fit. I’d do more damage if I didn’t go about this carefully. Kicking my soft boots in the dirt, I attempted to explain. “Ana, I want to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For…for holding you like that. For getting angry.”
She barked a laugh. “You are always angry. Irritated at the very least. This is not new.”
“No, I know. But I’m not going to be. Not anymore. Not now that I know how you react.”
Folding her arms across her chest, she said, “You do not like the way I react?”
