Kiss an Angel(82)

Sinjun roared, revealing lethally sharp teeth curved like scimitars, teeth designed to hold his prey in place while he ripped it open with his claws. The little girl screamed again, the sound more piercing. Sinjun’s powerful muscles rippled and all the blood left Daisy’s head. She sensed him ready to spring. To the tiger, the child with her thrashing arms and shrill shrieks must seem like the most threatening sort of prey.

Neeco appeared from out of nowhere, rushing directly toward Sinjun. Daisy saw the cattle prod in his hand and took an involuntary step forward. She wanted to warn him not to do it. Sinjun wasn’t used to the prod. He wouldn’t be cowed by it the way the elephants were; it would merely make him more enraged. But Neeco was reacting instinctively, handling the tiger in the only way he understood, as if Sinjun were an unruly bull elephant.

As Sinjun turned away from the child toward Neeco, Alex came running from the opposite side. He dashed toward the little girl and snatched her up into his arms to carry her to safety.

And then everything happened at once. Neeco plunged the end of the cattle prod at the tiger’s shoulder. The maddened animal gave a roar of fury and flung his massive body at Neeco, knocking the elephant trainer to the ground. Neeco lost his grip on the prod, and it rolled out of his reach.

Daisy had never felt such terror. Sinjun was going to savage Neeco, and there was nothing any of them could do to stop it.

“Sinjun!” Desperately, she called out his name.

To her astonishment, the tiger lifted his head. Whether he’d heard her or was responding to some unnamed instinct, she didn’t know. Her legs were so weak she could barely lift them, but even so, she moved forward. She had no idea what she was going to do. She merely knew she had to act.

The tiger remained crouched over Neeco’s motionless body. For a moment she thought the trainer was dead, but then she realized he was holding himself very still, hoping the tiger would forget about him.

“Daisy, don’t take another step.” She heard her husband’s voice, quiet but commanding. And then her father’s voice, more shrill.

“What are you doing? Get back here!”

She ignored them both. The tiger turned his body slightly, and they stared at each other. His sharp, curved teeth were bared, his ears flat against his head, his eyes wild. She felt his terror.

“Sinjun,” she said softly.

Long seconds ticked by. She saw a flash of auburn between Sinjun and the big top, Sheba Quest’s flaming hair as she moved quickly toward Alex, who had just passed the screaming little girl off to her teacher. Sheba handed Alex something, but Daisy’s mind seemed to be paralyzed.

The tiger stepped over Neeco’s prone body and riveted all his ferocious attention on her. Every one of his muscles was tensed and poised to spring.

“I have a gun.” Alex spoke to her in a voice barely more than a whisper. “Don’t move.”

Her husband was going to kill Sinjun. She understood the logic of what he was about to do—there were people all over the lot; the tiger was wild with terror and clearly a danger—but at the same time, she knew she couldn’t let it happen. This magnificent beast shouldn’t be put to death merely because he was behaving in accordance with the instincts of his species.

Sinjun had done nothing wrong except act like a tiger. Human beings were the ones who had transgressed. They had taken him from his natural environment, imprisoned him in a tiny cage, and forced him to live his life beneath the stares of his enemies. And now, because she hadn’t noticed that his cage was one of those needing repairs, he would be killed.

She moved as quickly as she dared and put herself between her husband and the tiger.

“Get out of the way, Daisy.” The quiet timbre of his voice did nothing to soften the force of his command.

“I won’t let you kill him,” she whispered back. And she began to walk slowly toward the tiger.

His golden eyes blazed at her. Through her. She felt his terror seep into every cell of her body and conjoin with hers. Their souls melded, and she heard him in her heart.

I hate them.

I know.

Stop.

I can’t.

She narrowed the distance between them until they were separated by barely six feet. “Alex will kill you,” she whispered, gazing into the golden eyes of the beast.

“Daisy, please . . .” She heard the strain in Alex’s desperate entreaty, and she was sorry for the distress she was causing him, but she couldn’t stop her course of action.

As she closed in on the tiger, she sensed Alex shifting his position so he could get a clear shot from another direction. She knew she had run out of time.

With fear filling her chest until she could barely breathe, she sank to her knees before the tiger. She smelled his feral scent and stared into his eyes.

“I can’t let you die,” she whispered. “Come with me.” Slowly, she reached out for him.

One part of her waited for his powerful jaws to clamp around her arm, while another part—her soul, maybe, since only the voice of the soul could so stubbornly resist logic—the soul part of her no longer cared if she had an arm, not if he was to die. She gingerly touched the top of his head between his ears.

His fur felt both soft and bristly. She let him grow accustomed to her touch, and his heat seeped through her palm. The soft skin of her inner arm brushed against his whiskers, and she felt his breath through the thin cotton of her T-shirt. He shifted his weight and gradually sank down onto the ground with his front paws extended.