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I hear Garrett and Drake call my name, but I don’t register the thoughts. I don’t register any thoughts. The only thing that exists to me right now is the woman I love trapped in the burning hotel.
I call her name, but she doesn’t hear me. I don’t hear myself above the roar of the flame. I see her gazing serenely out the window, probably in shock at the realization that she’s going to die. She doesn’t look down, and so doesn’t see the lone firefighter rapidly closing the distance between himself and the building.
Not rapidly enough. I see her turn and walk deeper into the room, and I realize that I don’t have much time before the fire kills her.
I act without thinking. The firefighters of Company 417 aren’t supposed to shift on duty. The human world is aware of the existence of shifters, but they tend to react very negatively when exposed to them. The company, and the fire authority as a whole, enact a very strict don’t ask don’t tell don’t show policy. That’s not to say we never use our animals on the job, we just never use them in a way that could be visible to others.
Well, at least a hundred people see my fire outfit tear off of my body as I shift to my tiger and sprint toward the building. I am able to close the distance much more swiftly in this form, and soon, I find myself at the entrance to the building.
I pause for a moment, hoping beyond all hope that Denise has found a way to escape. But as I listen, all I can hear is the roaring fire and the echoing sounds of destruction. I'll have to go in there.
Behind me, I hear the cries of my fellow firefighters begging me not to do what they know I’m about to do. I hear them, but once more, their cries don’t penetrate my mind.
That’s one advantage of being a tiger. Any predator, really. When we are focused on the task at hand, we are completely focused. We are aware—keenly aware—of everyone and everything around us, but unless we sense an immediate threat, we ignore it and keep our attention on what we’re doing.
This means I don’t hesitate. With a powerful leap, I bound through the broken entrance of the hotel. The heat is intense, even for my shifter body, and I can already feel my fur beginning to sing along my back even though the fire has not yet descended to the first floor. I growl a warning to myself and charge forward, sniffing the air for any sign of Denise.
I follow her scent up a winding staircase, dodging fallen debris and flames licking at my heels. I can hear her now, coughing and gasping for air. I don’t know if I’m truly hearing her over the roar of the flame or if my mind just imagines it in my terror at the thought of losing her, but the thought of her dying spurs me to ignore the burning heat and the suffocating smoke and press forward.
I reach her floor and pause in front of the door. I can feel the heat emanating from the other side. My training tells me that I can’t pass through this door, that I will be burned by the flames, but I am past caring about myself. Denise is trapped on this floor, and if I don’t reach her soon, she’ll be dead.
So, I close my eyes and with a mighty roar, I burst through the door.
Instantly, the world erupts in heat too intense to be painful. For a brief but eternal moment, I am awash with flame, the fire singing my fur and searing my skin. I can feel the tears in my eyes start to boil, feel my muscles tense in response to the burn.
Then I am through the flame and in a long hallway. I draw in a ragged breath that contains precious little oxygen and look down at myself. My fur is singed completely away in patches and other patches reveal blackened skin from burns that will almost certainly leave scars.
But I am alive and alert and far from too injured to rescue Denise. Behind me, I hear a roar as the fire I’ve let into the stairwell catches on the stares and spreads quickly downward, fueled by the updraft of relatively cool air sucked up by the heat of the flame. I’ve probably quickened the pace of this building’s demise, but if I can find Denise before that happens, then I’ll be all right with losing the building. Maybe that doesn’t make me a great firefighter, but right now, all that matters is keeping her safe.
I burst into her room, roaring with all my feline might. Denise jumps and screams, but I ignore her, instead bounding over to the open window. The flames are inching closer, and we only have seconds left.
Without a moment's hesitation, I scoop Denise up into my massive jaws and leap back out the window. We tumble through the air, the ground racing up to meet us, but I'm ready. I twist and turn in the air, my muscles straining as I try to slow our fall.
Finally, we hit the ground with a bone-rattling thud. I land running and sprint toward the waiting firefighters. I can see the shock on the faces of the waiting residents, the shock that matches the look on Denise’s own face. I can see too, the grim expressions of my brothers in the company as they consider the trouble I’ve caused myself and them by revealing my shifter nature to the world.
None of that matters now. All that matters is that Denise is safe. I reach safety and release Denise from my jaws. I immediately shift back to my human form and collapse to the ground, my breath heaving and my heart pounding.
Denise falls beside me and looks down at me in wonder. “You’re a shifter,” she says.
“Yes,” I reply.
“Will you marry me?” she asks.
I don’t think that question is prompted by the revelation that I’m a shifter, but the timing is humorous, and I can’t stifle laughter.
She laughs with me for a while, but then her lips are on mine, and we both stop laughing. I think that at some point, I pull away and manage to say yes, but I’m not sure.
All I’m sure of—all I need to be sure of—is that Denise is safe and in my arms.
Chapter Twelve
Denise
“Some say love, it is a river that drowns the tender reed. Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed. Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need. I say love, it is a flower, and you it’s only seed.”
I’ve never really listened to Bette Midler before. I mean, I’ve always respected her. I don’t know if it’s possible to be a female singer-songwriter and not respect Bette Midler. That would be like being a basketball player and believing that Michael Jordan is overrated.
But I’ve never compared myself to her before. When I think of the artists I love, the artists that influence me, I tend to think of the more rough-edged, whiskey-soaked voices of the female singer-songwriter genre—Janis Joplin, Carole King, Alanis Morissette—people like that. I’ve never really related to the more soft-voiced, clean singers like Midler, Carly Simon and people like them.
