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He never seemed to notice the irony of this, though pretty much everyone else did. I’d noticed the nudges with elbows and heard the whispering. I think all the others thought he was fucking me, though sadly, he wasn’t.
After we ate each morning, he took me back to my room, while he went off and did the gods knew what with the other Imperials. He didn’t lock me in, but he’d informed me in no uncertain terms not to leave the room unless I called him to escort me. So, I just stayed in a lot and read or played games on my communicator or sometimes fell asleep until time for the evening meal. I was bored out of my mind, and I couldn’t wait to arrive on Loros.
In the evenings after the last meal, we’d stay a while after we ate, and Tariq would drink prodigious amounts of wine or ale, occasionally shooting me a dark look. I was allowed a small glass or two of a Khadliq, which was a mixture of the ale and a carbonated drink. I disliked the stuff, especially since only children on Tygeria drank it, but according to Tariq, I wasn’t legal age yet. It was three more weeks until my birthday.
Once, one of the royal guards, who were also traveling on this journey to Loros to relieve the ones who had been guarding Prince Mikol, took pity on me and offered me a sip of his ale. Tariq had been talking to his friends, and ignoring me, and I guess I was looking a little sorry for myself. The guard had been drinking a lot, and I truly think he meant nothing by it, though he had given me a little wink as he offered me a sip. As I raised his glass to my lips, Tariq, who hadn’t been paying me any attention up to that point—or so I thought—yelled my name so sharply I spilled the whole glass down the front of my clothes. I had to go change, but when the young soldier offered to escort me so Tariq could stay and keep drinking, he growled at the soldier and took my arm possessively to take me himself.
I was lectured all the way back to my room, and that kind of thing was why everyone on board thought something was going on between us. He’d long since given up on being nice and respectful to me like he used to be. But then again, so had I.
I understood he was under a strain, and he’d made that promise to my father. That’s why I still thought my plan was a good one. He’d told me over and over that all of this was due to simple biology and not any tender feelings he might have for me. He said it so often I began to believe him.
We might have gone on that way until we reached our destination, if not for what happened the day before we were set to arrive on Loros.
I had awakened early and felt restless, but when Tariq came to my door and offered to take me to work out, I was feeling perverse and sent him away. I told him I didn’t feel like going. He left for first meal without me, admonishing me, as usual, to stay in my room unless I notified him first.
After he left, the lights in my room started flickering on and off, which didn’t take long to be annoying. When the lights flickered off inside my closed room, it got too dark to see my hand in front of my face, and after about the tenth time it happened, I put away the book I’d been reading, grabbed a jacket, because it had gotten colder in there too, and I headed out. I had no clear destination in mind, but thought I’d drop by the wardroom and see if Tariq was still there. He’d know who to contact about the lights in my room.
When I arrived, the place was almost empty, but one of the servers came to ask me if I wanted a cup of Lycan tea. I said yes and sat down at a table by the porthole to kill a little time. I hadn’t been there for long when the ship alarms started going off.
It’s a frightening feeling to hear alarms on a ship when you’re in the middle of deep space. You can’t run outside, and indeed, your escape options are extremely limited; therefore, so are your survival options. The servers didn’t look all that alarmed, so I calmed down a bit.
“What’s happening?” I asked one of them. “Do you know?”
“I know those are fire alarms, Your Highness. A fire of any size on a ship in space is an emergency.”
Not that I was thinking about my own survival—not much anyway—but that was pretty scary to hear. I wanted Tariq, and I thought I’d feel much better if he suddenly came sauntering in, looking annoyed with me, like he usually did. I’d be really glad to see him, no matter what kind of mood he was in, and I wished I hadn’t been such an ass to him that morning. It was then that I remembered I hadn’t told him I was leaving my room, so he wouldn’t know where to look for me if there was a problem.
I knew he’d go investigate to see what the problem was, so in hopes of finding him, I went outside to the long, curving corridor to look around. I could hear a commotion coming from the direction of my part of the hallway, so since I’d just come from that direction, I was curious and moved down toward the loud, alarmed voices I could hear. It sounded like a large group of people and as I rounded the corner, I saw to my complete shock that they were standing outside my room.
A crowd had gathered and there seemed to be a struggle going on in their midst. Imperials in their black uniforms, were fighting with someone and keeping them away from my door. I heard a lot of cursing and shouting as the person tried to break free, but everyone was talking over everyone else, and I didn’t get much of it.
I knew why the room was sealed and no one was attempting entry into it. It was standard procedure on a ship to seal off any fire at all to keep it from spreading and to prevent any toxic fumes from contaminating the rest of the ship. In fact, it was automatic. The door to my room would have been automatically and mechanically locked and sealed the second the alarm went off. Oxygen would then have been cut to that space, and once they could safely enter and the fire died down from the lack of oxygen, crew members wearing breathing apparatus entered to tackle whatever fire remained and to cover every inch of it with chemical foam and carbon dioxide fire extinguishers.
I knew the most common cause of fire onboard a ship in space was electricity—those flickering lights I’d seen earlier—and steps were no doubt being taken to locate the source and remove or repair it. But meanwhile, if anyone had still been inside that room, they would have been in imminent and grave danger not only from the fire and the toxic gasses, but from the complete cessation of oxygen. Sealing off the room was for the greater good of the ship and its crew and passengers, but it didn’t help the hapless person still trapped inside. Or the ones outside, who wanted desperately to save them, but couldn’t.
And that person inside the room should have been me.
I instinctively ran toward the crowd, wanting to let them know that I was safe, but as I got closer, some of them turned to look at me, and I saw to my horror that they were all partially transformed. It was a common enough occurrence with Tygerians when tensions and excitement ran high. In the heat of battle, it was common, which was the main reason I wasn’t allowed to train anymore. Or in this case, where they obviously all thought I was inside the room. No matter how much they wanted to save me, their hands were tied. They couldn’t, and it went against every belief and instinct the Imperials had.
I stopped dead and froze for a second as their eyes all turned toward me at once, with absolutely no recognition in any of them. They were only partially changed, but the danger was still real. They wouldn’t be in their right minds at this moment, and I was in danger. I took a hesitant step backward as a few of them began to slowly advance on me, and then out of the middle of the crowd, a fully transformed tyger emerged, and it was coming straight at me.
I’d never seen one up close before, not even in all the years I’d lived on our planet. Even during the full moons that came three times a cycle when all other species had to lock themselves away during the nighttime hours, I hadn’t been allowed out of the palace safe room, where Blake, Ryan and I spent those nights.
I’d seen images, but never had I seen a full transformation before. Few outsiders or non-shifters had and lived to tell the tale. And it didn’t look as if I’d live long enough to do it either. The beast that came suddenly running down the corridor toward me was beautiful with black stripes that made an intricate pattern over its face and body and its fur was a golden orange. Its eyes were a dark green with a slightly gold rim around them. But despite its beauty, it was totally terrifying. Its eyes were cold and unblinking as they stared at me as I took a few stumbling steps backward. I had heard that you should never run, though every instinct for survival inside me was telling me to do just that.
The tyger had moved incredibly fast, coming up on me so close that I could feel its hot, moist breath gusting against my face. It was so much bigger than me that even on all fours, it was almost as tall as I was. I closed my eyes, waiting for impact and instead felt soft fur brushing my skin. My whole body shook from the force of the rumble coming from the massive body as the tyger crouched next to me. The cold wet nose of the beast sniffed my neck, and a huge paw came down on my chest, claws sheathed, pushing me to the floor and then its heavy body fell across me.
I could breathe, but barely. I started shoving at the massive body on top of me and then I realized the tyger was growling and snarling—not at me but at the other Tygerians still coming down the corridor toward us. Their partially shifted bodies looked savage and feral, and I stopped trying to get the tyger off me, because he was the only thing between me and them. I curled my body around his, in fact, and closed my eyes, not particularly wanting to see imminent death coming directly at me.
When they got within a few feet, the tyger leaped off me, planted his legs firmly on the floor in front of me and roared a warning to them. The sound filled the corridor and actually hurt my ears. Most of the others fell back right away from his ferocity. A few stood their ground, but came no closer, and there was a stand-off, until behind them, a disruptor went off and a shot came directly over their heads. The blast may even have parted the hair of a couple of them who had inched closer, because they began to duck for cover and fall to the floor to save themselves.
My tyger, as I had come to think of him, backed slowly toward me and fell down in front of me again. I realized that the captain of the vessel was speaking to me from a few feet away in a low, urgent voice.
“Your Highness, speak to me. Are you injured in any way?”
“N-no, I’m all right. He’s not trying to hurt me.”
“It’s best to let him come out of this on his own then. There’s been a fire in your room, and we have to deal with it, so we need to evacuate this area soon. For now, I think it’s safer to leave the Colonel alone if you’re all right.”
