Free Captive Moon by C. T. Adams, Cathy Clamp Page A

food.”

    “Just right, luv. It’ll give me time to learn to play a couple of instruments, the didgeridoo and the boomerang, which apparently is a percussion instrument that keeps time with a ritual dance. I’ll have to perform at my bora initiation well enough to please my totem.” He shrugged once more. “And I’ll have to bring a gift of something I’ve hunted or gathered to the tribal elders. Daku said a few rabbits would do. So, as soon as I have all the thingos prepared, I’ll train whomever we find to care for the cats in Reno, and then catch a plane to Sydney.”

    He pulled his feet off the table and spun around to rest them on the couch. He set the bottle on the table and looked at Tahira. “But, that’s enough about me, other than to know that you’ll all be putting up with sawdust around the house until I finish all this bloody carving. How about you, Tahira? What’s a knockout sheila from the States doing in a jail cell in Germany?”

    Antoine cleared his throat in annoyance, and Matty flushed a bit and fidgeted. “That’s not our business, Matty. Tahira is our guest, and is not required to explain herself.”

    “No, it’s okay.” Tahira smiled, a bit embarrassed at the compliment. She straightened out her legs and leaned forward to put her empty wine glass on the table. So, I’m still in Germany—not that it helps much to know. A burst of frigid air on her neck made her shiver. A glance to the left told her why. The fire had burned down to coals and icy wind was coming down the chimney. She stood up and walked over to a hammered copper wood box and selected a few triangular pieces of pine while she spoke. “I don’t mind, because I really need to try to remember what happened and why I am here. Talking about it might help.”

    She moved the logs to one arm and grabbed an iron poker to stir the coals. But the walk-in fireplace was deeper than she expected. She had to step nearly into the coals to reach the grate. The heat from the coals made her face hot as she leaned far inside the stone cavity.

    Tahira felt movement behind her. She smelled Antoine’s scent and felt the light tingling of his power as he touched her arm and pulled the logs from her grasp.

    “Allow me to help, mon chat du feu.” The words were quiet and warm, meant only for her ears. She didn’t know what the last part meant, but it sounded amazing!

    She turned her head and saw intense amber eyes that glowed golden from the coals. Her heart started to pound in her chest, and the swirling smoke caught the thick scent of piñon, pine resin, sand, and Antoine’s strangely sweet musk. They stared at each other for a long moment and it didn’t even occur to her to move until the smell of her palm scorching from the hot metal made her jump. She nearly dropped the poker. One corner of his mouth turned up and his scent was amused. She quickly stirred the coals and backed up, bumping into him as he bent down to add the logs to the fire.

    She was strangely flustered when she returned to her seat on the couch. Matty was studiously ignoring her, staring at the ceiling. Margo had a small smile on her face that disappeared when she saw Antoine’s warning expression as he returned to the couch.

    Tahira cleared her throat and glanced at the dark red mark on her palm that was already starting to fade. “So… um. Well, I guess my story starts right before Halloween. Rabi—that’s my older brother—and I had been staying with our grandparents for about a month, trying to learn how to be proper tigers. We had gotten into a habit of going running at dawn, before our grandparents started breakfast. That way we could talk about things. They trained each of us differently and we wanted to make sure that we were both learning the same things.”

    “Why would they teach you differently?” Antoine seemed innocently curious, but Grammy’s words echoed into her head: Tell a Sazi nothing they can use against you.

    She shrugged and