Tiger Prince

He was lifted high and the next moment deposited on the elephant's back. "This is too much. I did not want you to—"

Togetherness, bonding, and something else . . .

Power.

He had never felt so strong or so complete.

Danor began to walk slowly across the glade toward the herd, his gait smooth, almost rolling. He felt no pain as he did when mounted on a horse or mule, Li Sung realized with amazement. His bad leg was lifted and held at an angle that was without strain. He felt whole again, as he had as a boy before he had become a cripple.

A wild sense of exhilaration flowed through him. He lifted his face and felt the wind touch his cheeks and something else touch his soul. Makhol? It did not seem such a bizarre idea now. He didn't know what bond there was between them, but he knew he had never been more content or alive than at that moment.

"Jane! Wake up!

Li Sung's voice, Jane realized sleepily, but there was something strange . . .

"Jane!"

She came fully awake and the next moment she was off her cot and at the tent entrance. "What's wrong? Is there—"

Li Sung sat on Danor's back just a few yards from her tent. "Li Sung!" she whispered.

"I wanted to share it with you," he said simply.

She didn't have to ask what he had chosen to share. It was all there in his expression—joy, exhilaration, exultation.

"How did it happen?"

"Danor." He patted the elephant's head. "He has great determination."

"I noticed that. You look very comfortable up there."

"It's like nothing . . ." He trailed off. "I can't explain."

"You don't have to." She smiled. "Makhol."

A brilliant smile lit his face, and he suddenly looked younger than the boy who had come to Frenchie's that day so long ago. "Makhol." He touched Danor's left ear, and the elephant turned away from Jane's tent. "We are learning to accommodate each other, but I may have to stay up here all night." He made a face. "I still have not figured out how to tell him I want down. . . ."

His words trailed off as Danor moved back across the clearing toward the herd.

Jane gazed after him for a long time before she let the tent flap fall and turned back to her cot. Tomorrow would be another exhausting day, and she must get some sleep. She was happy for Li Sung. How could she not be happy when he had found something that made him look like that? Nothing had really changed. He had come to share his happiness with her as a good friend would.

She was foolish to feel this aching sense of something lost forever.

"You ca

"But of course I can." Abdar smiled. "I'm the maharajah."

"You have not been crowned yet. It will be another month before you're free to go to Ci

"I ca

"You're taking them with you?" Pachtal asked. "All of them?"

"Of course, and Benares must also come in case I find anyone worthy of Kali on Ci

"You will need an army."

Abdar frowned. "Do you question Kali's power?"

"I do not question," Pachtal said quickly. "I only suggest that Kali might triumph sooner with assistance."

"I agree." Abdar's frown disappeared. "We shall have an army."

"Not until you ascend the throne."

"Why do you argue with me? Do you think I'm not aware of the difficulties? I have thought of a way to solve the problem." Abdar smiled. "Can you not see I am devastated by grief over my father's death? My physician has become so concerned that he insists I must leave the city and seek a change of scene."

Pachtal waited.

"We will a

"And the army?"

"I'll need a large escort to protect me on my journey. Everyone knows that the British colonel would like nothing better than to find a way to oust me from power. If we catch MacClaren by surprise, I will not need more than a few troops. You will arrange to have a ship ready downriver."

"But will these troops follow your orders when they learn you are breaking the mourning and going to Ci

"Oh, I believe they will. Once you point out that when we return from Ci

"It could succeed," Pachtal said slowly.

"It will succeed. The plan was given to me by the divine Kali and she ca

"And what if Pickering suspects your plan? He is no fool."

"I ca

"You are joking," he said, startled. "I ca

"Not death. Merely a temporary stomach disorder that will make him too ill to care what I am doing for a few weeks. Is that not possible?"

Pachtal smiled. "Entirely possible."

"Why so quiet?" Ruel filled Jane's coffee cup and his own before sitting down beside her before the fire.

"I don't have anything to say." She sipped the coffee, gazing down into the flames. She was aware of the usual friendly hum of talk around the candmar but felt oddly remote from it. "Do I have to talk all the time?"

"Not all the time. Just when something's wrong. I hate like hell knowing there's something bothering you and not knowing how to fix it. Is it me?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"The hell you don't," he said roughly. "What did I do?"

"Nothing."

He reached out and covered her hand with his own. The warm, hard touch of his flesh against her own made her gaze fly to his face.

"That's better," he said curtly. "You're looking at me. Now talk to me. You've been working yourself into the ground for my sake trying to get this damn track laid and yet for the past three days you've never even smiled at me."

"I didn't realize smiling was required."

"It's not required. I just miss it." He turned her hand over and began tracing patterns on her palm with his index finger. "It . . . warms me."

She looked at him, startled. "Ruel . . ."

"I thought it was getting better. Do I have to go out and find another baby elephant to pull around just to get you to smile at me?"

The motion of his finger on her palm was causing little ripples of sensation to tingle up her wrist and arm. He had touched her like this when he had sat beside her on the veranda in Kasanpore, she remembered. He had stroked her palm and talked of Ci

She felt a flush heat her cheeks. Like the woman in the painting, she had knelt for him in the summerhouse. She had felt him inside her, his hands caressing her while he rode her as if they were two mating animals unable to get enough of each other. The erotic memory was suddenly there like another presence beside them in the firelight. She could almost feel his hands cupping her breasts as he plunged—