Read Online Roman by Heather Grothaus - Free Book Online Page B

away from the weapon. It began padding toward the fountain, its shoulders rolling. It stopped as its glowing eyes caught sight of the people standing on the opposite side of the pool, but began walking forward almost at once, an air of curiosity quickening its lazy strides.
    â€œRoman?” Isra asked, unable to keep her hand from inching up to pinch a fold of his robes at his left elbow.
    Lou squawked.
    â€œPerhaps I could have chosen a better time,” Roman allowed. “I thought that was the striped horses’ cell.”
    â€œStay where you are,” Wynn called out, striding behind the tiger and heading around the fountain toward them. “Don’t think to run. Brother Roman, you will wish to remove Lou’s hood.”
    Isra began to tremble as Roman did as he was bade without comment, and she couldn’t help her start as the tiger reached the far edge of the pool and stepped up on the smooth stone edge. It crouched there and drank, its wide, flat tongue scooping up the water, but its eyes stayed locked on the people across from it.
    Isra felt they were locked on her . Her fingers took more of Roman’s habit into her fist, until she could feel the warmth of his arm beneath the cloth on her skin.
    â€œShe’s had her fill,” Wynn explained, “so she’ll likely have little interest in eating you. But she will be curious. Only be still, and do not turn your backs to her.”
    To Isra’s dread and fascination, the tiger raised its head and began walking in its rolling gait atop the pool’s edge toward her.
    â€œHave no fear,” Wynn insisted, although Lou did disembark from Roman’s shoulder just then with a warning cry, and the albino monk shoved his way between Isra and Roman, breaking her link with him and holding out his staff across Isra’s chest. “She’s only curious.”
    The tiger slunk around the perimeter of the pool closer to Isra, and the water splashing from the fountain seemed to grow as loud as the roar of a waterfall. On such an elevated walk, the animal was as tall as Isra, and its head appeared so wide that she could not have encircled it with both arms. It snuffed and blew, lowering its still dripping muzzle as it slowed to a stop before her, taking up her scent. Isra, too, could smell the tiger’s unique odor, warm and musky, deep like amber inside her head. She forced herself to swallow.
    â€œEasy, easy,” Wynn said in a low voice, and Isra could not be certain whether the monk was speaking to her or to the creature.
    The tiger pushed its head forward beneath Wynn’s staff, snorting at Isra’s borrowed gown and then swinging up to brush its nose against her shoulder. Isra felt the damp imprint left by that firm bump and then squeezed her eyes shut as the wide head was suddenly before her face, misting her skin with its humid breath, its whiskers stiff as they dragged across her skin. She gasped through her nose as the tiger pushed its face into hers and then rubbed, running its wide head down the side of Isra’s cheek and then onto her chest.
    She dared open her eyes and her hands wanted to lift, to instinctively bury her fingers into the deep fur around the tiger’s face in much the same manner in which she had been unable to resist touching Roman’s falcon, but Wynn’s solid staff cracked down on her wrists.
    â€œNo, lady,” Wynn said in a low voice, and Isra understood that the staff had not been for her protection from the tiger.
    Then the tiger moved on, stopping before Roman to sniff at the lumpiness of his robe and then finishing the circuit of the pool’s ledge to take up a spot on the far side. The tiger lay down, one paw hanging over the stone edge to dangle in the water, the tip of its tail swishing.
    Isra blew out her breath at last, realizing she had been holding it for most of the encounter.
    â€œMy apologies, Wynn,” Roman said from the other side of the albino.