Into the Lair

Chapter Thirty

Damiano stared out at the rugged outline of the snow-capped mountains. There was no glass to block the chill. Just a simple cut-out with a crude flap that could be drawn down to prevent a draft. This place that Marcus had brought him to was stark and beautiful, but the accommodations were lean.

The floors were made up of packed dirt, made smooth by repeated footsteps. Just a makeshift hut erected on the ground. Sturdier than a tent but nothing that would withstand a strong storm.

Surely they had them at this elevation. The snows would come in but a few weeks.

Fatigued from the journey, from the weight of his worry, he pulled clumsily at the flap and turned away to the pallet on the floor. Remnants of the sedative still traveled sluggishly through his veins and tugged at him, calling him to rest.

He might need more. What if he woke on the fringe of a shift? Marcus hadn’t seemed worried. He said they waited for Nali. Whoever that was.

Damiano lay down on his back and stared at the poorly constructed roof. How had this place lasted as long as it had? It wouldn’t surprise him if the ceiling fell in on him during the night. Or was it day? It was a testament to his state of mind that he had no idea if it was morning or evening. He only knew he wanted to close his eyes for a while and forget all that he’d become.

He drifted tiredly toward sleep. But in the shadows he saw the tiger. He saw Ty and himself as children on the streets of Prague as they looked in sympathy at the caged predator.

“We should free him,” Damiano said fiercely.

Ty looked at him with big, worried eyes. She twisted thin fingers nervously in front of her. “It’s dangerous.”

He hugged her to his side in an effort to reassure her. “He is like us, Ty. He wants to be free. The orphanage was our cage.”

The rich gold and amber eyes stared at them from behind the bars of the too-small cage. They called to Damiano in a way he didn’t quite understand. He only knew that somehow he and the tiger were connected.

He walked forward, and the tiger’s keeper immediately issued a sharp reprimand to stay away.

“He eats children like you!” the man jeered.

Damiano scowled. “I wish he would eat you,” he muttered.

“Let’s go, D,” Tyana whispered urgently. “We don’t want to be caught. I don’t want to go back to the orphanage.”

Reluctantly, Damiano turned away and took Ty’s hand in his. But to the tiger, he silently promised that he would return.

He turned restlessly on the pallet, the fingers of sleep pulling him deeper into the twisted myriad of his dreams. He saw himself standing on the street in the black of night, only he was alone. Where was Tyana? The streets were completely deserted, and when he looked again at the cage, the tiger was gone.

This wasn’t how it happened. He’d freed the tiger. With Tyana’s help. He turned, his bare feet scraping against the jagged cobblestone, and there it was.

Standing a few feet away, the tiger stared thoughtfully at him. Damiano froze, afraid to move, afraid to breathe. And then they were no longer standing on the streets of Prague. Damiano was on the island, in the game room, watching helplessly as Tyana fought for her life against the tiger. Why had he attacked her?

He tried to lunge forward as the tiger ripped the crutch from Tyana’s hands, but he was frozen, paralyzed. Never before had he felt so utterly helpless.

And then it was just him and the tiger, face to face in the rugged Nepalese mountains. Damiano stood naked before him, his hands at his sides, his palms facing forward. An eagle swooped down behind the tiger and landed on a tree branch a short distance away. From behind rock outcroppings, more animals appeared. He knew them. They were all the animals he fought so desperately when the shift came over him.

“You are one of us,” the tiger said, startling Damiano. “Why do you fight us so?”

“Our brother,” the eagle cried.

“No,” Damiano whispered. “I’m just a man.”

The tiger tossed his head. “You are flesh, but your spirit cannot be confined to your human form. Free yourself as you have freed me.”

Damiano shook his head. Sweat beaded his forehead as he struggled with invisible bonds.

“Damiano. Damiano! Wake up.”

He heard Marcus’s voice from a distance. He stared back at the assembled animals. One by one, they disappeared until only the eagle and the tiger remained. Then the eagle took flight, circled once overheard and disappeared into the clouds.

Embrace us.

Damiano’s eyes flew open as his body jerked to awareness. Marcus knelt over him, his brow creased with concern.

“Are you all right? Do you need another injection?”

“No,” he croaked.

Slowly he sat up with Marcus’s assistance.

“What happened, D?”

Damiano shook his head. The images so vivid before now blurred into a mass of confusion.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “God, I don’t know.”

Marcus put his hand on Damiano’s shoulder and squeezed. “You’re going to be okay. We’re going to beat this. You have to believe that.”

He looked up into Marcus’s eyes, and for the first time let all the doubts and fears flood him. Before he’d kept a positive attitude, more for Ty than for himself. But she wasn’t here. He was alone, and there was no reason to keep living a lie.

“I’m not okay, Marcus. I’ll never be okay. What are we trying to do here? How is any of this going to change what I’ve become? Am I looking at spending the rest of my life anticipating the next time someone sticks a needle in my arm? Will I have to forever separate myself from the people I love for fear that I might kill them?”

Marcus blew out his breath and let his hand fall from Damiano’s shoulder. “You can beat this, D. I believe that, and you have to believe it or you’re going to lose. That’s all I can offer you. Tyana believes in you and so do your brothers. Don’t let them down by giving up. Don’t let yourself down.”

Damiano reached for Marcus’s hand and grasped it tightly. “I don’t know that I’ve ever thanked you for everything you’ve done for me and Ty.”

“Falcon saved me,” he said simply. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to repay that debt.”

Damiano shook his head. “You’re family now. There are no debts among family.”

A sound outside the small room had Marcus turning his head. He got awkwardly to his feet and extended a hand down to Damiano. “That’ll be Nali. Come, and I’ll introduce you.”