Wild Tiger Chase | Book #2 (Complete)

14: sweaty nights in summer dreams (Part II)

— Léon —

Shit. Shit, shit, shit!

Léon averted his eyes and tried not to look as Count Cae cleaned his bloody fist on a rag.

Cae shouted again, "Tell me what you fucking know! Someone here is protecting that monster, and I won't stop until I discover who."

Dammit. Léon's stomach churned and turned, and his throat constricted with that old feeling of regret. He shouldn't have stayed behind.

If Léon had been there, he could have protected Phillip and stopped the child-thief. Since he wasn't, Cae was now punching answers out of innocent people, another kid was taken, and Phillip was bedridden, burning in a fever that wouldn't go down, no matter what he tried.

He closed his eyes.

Why the hell had he stayed behind?

You didn't want to use your powers, Léon. You pathetic, little thing, he thought.

"I t-told you, already!" the villager barked at Cae. He coughed and spat on the ground. His hands were tied and his knees on the dirt, but the villager still managed to keep his head high. "The children always come back cured of the sickness, bringing a handful of weird seeds. We plant them, they go back to normal—that's all I know! That's all any of us know!" He coughed. "We don't have any idea of where the Druid hides."

No. It was more than not wanting to use his powers. Léon couldn't use them.

What could he have done if he was there with Phillip? There was no way he could fight, right? With barely any power left and only one tiger, he wasn't a super anymore. He was little more than a civilian.

...

Shit. He wanted so much to be nothing more than a civilian.

Léon shook those thoughts out of his mind and quickened his pace back to the shack where he, Modraniht, and Phillip would spend the night.

It was late, and the new moon outside was of no help to the weak lamps inside, só Léon crossed the small living room and entered the main bedroom in darkness. He paused. Vanessa's presence in Phillip's room was just as shady as the night sky outside.

And even shadier was the way she cupped Phillip's cheek and leaned in.

Léon shuffled his feet and sighed. As he opened his mouth to ask what was happening, Phillip jerked to life, pulling Vanessa and saying things that were meant to him, not to her.

Phillip was apologizing to Léon. Again.

"Shit," he whispered. And as touched as Léon would normally feel hearing a heartfelt apology like that, something twisted inside him.

Phillip was still caught up in the past, and Léon had no idea of what he should do about it.

Léon cleared his throat to announce his presence, and Vanessa peeled herself off of Phillip, reeling a step.

"Honestly," she mumbled. Her eyebrows squished together, and she opened and closed her lips, no words coming out. Vanessa released a lungful of air in a huff and placed her hands on her waist. Her eyes flicked to Léon and bore into him, studying him like an opened carcass in a dissection table. Her words grew heavier. "Listen, man. You better tell Cae about this. If you don't, I will."

Heat flushed through Léon's body as his muscles tensed. "Cae has nothing to do with my personal life; I won't tell him anything."

Vanessa shook her head. "I'm not talking about Phillip being your ex or whatever; I'm talking about the hallucinations. This"—she pointed at Phillip—"isn't normal. Worst, this is something I've seen before. What happens next isn't pretty."