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“It can’t go on that long,” Jerome said. “You know how expensive that would be, stringing this whole place up with silver wire? Someone’s just trying to keep us off the path.”
That mysterious someone again. When I got my claws on that someone…
“Which way?” I said. “Left or right?”
Jerome considered, then started walking to the right. Right was downhill, a little easier. I followed him. Even though we followed the silver fence line, we kept a respectable distance between it and us.
Vagrant breezes carry information to a wolf’s nose: what’s going, what’s coming, what passed this way before and how long ago. How to find food, water, friends; how to find your way home. A sudden, intrusive smell can cut across the normal tapestry like a razor, sharp and sudden. Destructive and wrong.
I stopped cold and turned into the slight breeze, trying to catch hold of what I’d sensed for only a second. I turned in place. My feet throbbed; my muscles ached at being wrenched out of their rhythm. I’d lost track of time, but the sun was high, probably well past noon. Several hours at least had passed. We’d run maybe half the distance.
Jerome stopped a few paces ahead of me and looked back. His body heaved with deep, steady breaths. He didn’t speak, just gave me a focused look, then turned his own nose to the air, looking for what I searched for.
Skin, sweat, clothing, rubber—human. Just a glimpse. Maybe hikers, maybe a mountain biker. I’d caught only a hint. It was gone now. Maybe moving away, maybe gone downwind.
I looked at Jerome. He shook his head.
A sound like a whip cracked past us; Jerome twisted, dropped to one knee, and clapped a hand over his shoulder, where a rod, maybe ten inches, protruded. Blood dripped in a thin line from the puncture wound.
Breath left me in a gasp. I knelt beside him and touched his arm. At the same time I looked out, toward the direction the arrow had come from. Where I’d sensed a trace of human hunter. When would the next one strike?
Jerome’s breaths heaved, and his face twisted with pain.
“Jerome?”
“Get it out, get it out—Jesus, get it out!” He bared his teeth, and his skin prickled under my hand, rippling with newly sprouting fur. His face was changing, stretching. Pain was pushing him over the edge, making him shift.
“Jerome! Hold on, keep it together!”
“Get… it… out!” He screamed.
I braced my hand on his shoulder, grabbed the arrow, and yanked. Jerome arced his back and howled—part human shout, part wolf cry of anger.
The wound was shallow, the arrow stuck in the outer layer of muscle. It wasn’t even bleeding much. But Jerome was shivering, wracked with pain. I looked at the arrow in my hand, short and sleek—a bolt for a crossbow. The tip—smooth, not barbed—gleamed, even through the sheen of blood. I touched it, held my finger against the metal—and my skin started itching, burning, in an allergic reaction.
Silver. The point was silver.
When a silver weapon struck lycanthropes, the wound didn’t kill them. The silver poisoning the blood did. Jerome was dying. His wolf was trying to take over, trying to battle it. As if it would help.
“Jerome!” I cried, clinging to his arms, trying to meet his gaze. My heart was racing, a howl building in my throat.
Another arrow ripped through the air. Jerome lunged into its path—between it and me. It struck his back.
“No!” I gave a full-throated scream.
He looked at me. He was trembling, his eyes wide, glazed, inhuman. Black streaks marked his veins, crawling from the wound in his shoulder, poisoned blood flowing through his body.
“Kitty. Run,” he said through gritted teeth. He had fangs now, in a long mouth.
“Jerome.” My voice was thick with despair.
“Run!” he said, and it was a growl. He twitched, convulsed, pushed me away.
I ran.
I took off through the trees, hoping to get some cover. Didn’t look back, sure that the next silver-tipped bolt would strike me. The thought pushed me over an edge—I couldn’t handle this situation, not like this. Not as a human. I could run fast on two legs. I could run faster on four, I could hide better, and right now that was all I cared about.
I pulled off my T-shirt, my bra, and didn’t fight it. When I wanted it, when it came fast like this, it didn’t hurt so much. I leaned into it because this time, it could save my life. My back rounded, a wave passed through me, my body turned liquid, bones and skin melting, re-forming, fur prickling. Shoved my sweats and panties down in the same moment—
S he shakes herself and keeps going, can’t stop. A hunter has attacked and she’s alone now. Run, that’s all she thinks of, legs pumping, taking deep breaths, scenting for danger. Catches traces of an enemy and moves away.
She tastes the air and feels the wind like fingers through her fur. Nothing can catch her like this. Nothing. But she keeps ru
But she can’t keep ru
Time passes.
She slows to a trot as she approaches the den where she hopes to find safety. Strange smells—too many people, the two-legged ones, have passed here. Some of them may be hunting her. She whines, because she can’t trust where she is. Can’t trust any of these smells. But the human side, the two-legged self, nudges her. There are friends here. At least, there should be. She has to hope.
The trees end, opening to a wide, exposed clearing, and the large human structure in the middle of it. Full of danger. Her fur bristles, her tail is stiff, her head hangs low. She circles, tracking every smell, every hint of danger. Searches her memory, finds the area smells much like it did when she left. Nothing has changed; the hunter has not followed her. The blood in front of the structure is old, from this morning.
She paces slowly, carefully around the building, spiraling closer. Ready to flee the moment the air feels wrong.
The den draws her in. A noise startles her—she flicks her ear. Footsteps sound hollow, and a two-legged figure stands before her, looking out. She stops, stares. He doesn’t stare back. Drops his gaze, doesn’t offer challenge, and she feels better. He smells familiar. A friend. He has helped her before. She remembers. Her throat whines, because she’s been afraid for a long time now and wants to rest.
More footsteps, more people, too many, and her ears pin back, her hackles go rigid, and she braces, ready to run, ready to fight.
“Stay back. Go back inside, all of you,” the first man says. The one she wants to trust.
“What is it? Oh my God—is that—”
“It’s Kitty,” he says.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, you don’t seriously expect—”
“Conrad, shut up!”
“What happened?” another says. A female.
“I don’t know. We won’t know until she turns back. We need to get her inside, to safety.”
“And how do you propose we do that? It looks… she looks… I mean…”
The first one, the male, acts like an alpha. “Everyone needs to get back inside and give her space. She’s spooked. Go upstairs. I’ll take care of this.”
“Odysseus, are you sure?” Another male, an odd-smelling one—he smells like fish and rivers—says this. “If she bites you—”