He turned abruptly, eyes flashing gold, and started up the ladder.
Addie, instead of screaming at him to wait, climbed quickly out after him. She’d figured out that Tiger didn’t answer direct questions or take orders or bother to explain what he was doing. He did what he did and everyone else had to figure it out. Jaycee followed Addie, Zander coming behind her.
Tiger stood at the top of the ladder, looked around for a few moments, then started off to the west, his strides even. Counting paces, Addie realized as she hurried after him, his strides never varying.
The sun touched the horizon. Red and gold rays streamed up into the soft blue sky, a Texas sunset in all its glory.
Tiger moved about a hundred paces from the entrance to the shaft, then turned and walked south. He stopped on a patch of ground that looked no different from any other to Addie—the grasses and dust were identical to all other grasses and dust around it.
“Here,” Tiger said. “This is the best way in.”
Zander scanned the ground, his white braids swinging. “You see a hidden door that I don’t? Nothing here but solid earth.” He stamped one booted foot on the grass.
“Here,” Tiger said, and started taking off his clothes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Addie stared as Tiger’s body came into view, then she spun on her heel when he started to slide down his jeans. She saw the jeans land on the grass, a very small pair of underwear on top.
There was a rush of air, and Zander said in awe, “Holy shit.”
Addie risked a glance behind her. The giant tiger that had confronted her at Charlie’s ranch stood like a statue on the vast plain, the dying sun’s light burning its orange fur golden. Tiger let out a tiger growl, then he planted his sharp claws in the grass and started to dig.
“Seriously?” Zander said to him. “You’re going to dig forty feet down with your bare paws?”
Tiger paid no attention. In the space of a minute, he had soft earth moved aside and was going deeper.
“Thirty-nine feet now,” Addie said, coming to the hole. “Don’t stop him unless you have a better idea.”
“A backhoe and a giant drill,” Zander said. “But what the hell. I can’t let a tiger best me.”
He threw his duster to the ground, tugged off his boots, and peeled his T-shirt from his torso. He was as tightly built as Tiger and almost as big.
Addie averted her gaze as Zander slid out of his jeans, and saw that Jaycee was undressing as well.
Zander growled and Addie looked at him in time to see him complete the shift to very large, snowy white polar bear. Addie had never seen a polar bear apart from ones in zoos, and then only from a distance. Now she stood an arm’s length from Zander, who was larger than any wild polar bear would ever be. His black nose and claws stood out vividly from his pale fur, as did his very dark eyes.
Zander gazed at her soulfully for a moment, then he put his giant paws down next to Tiger’s and began to dig.
Jaycee was much smaller than both of them but her leopard was a thing of grace. She darted in between the males and began to dig, her paws spewing up dirt faster than they could.
Addie, not to be outdone, found a piece of board and joined them. She couldn’t dig as well as they did, but she could scrape the loosened earth out of the way.
They worked while the sun sank, bathing the sky in hazy purple twilight. By the time it was fully dark, a half-moon rising, they’d made it down about fifteen feet.
Zander decided they needed to shore up what they’d dug out, or the walls would collapse. He shifted back to human to ask Addie to help him drag over the doors from the hidden entrance, and used the timber to brace the shaft they were creating. Zander didn’t bother dressing for this, but by this time Addie was used to Shifters thinking nothing of standing around naked. Zander was beautiful, though, the man with stark white hair and black eyes, touched by moonlight.