Fierce Wanderer (4 page)

“He knows who you are. He’ll be tracking it.”

He took the phone from his pocket and chucked it as far as he could, back toward the other side of the truck.

She shook her head as she walked behind him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice just loud enough for her to hear.

“Now I owe you a truck…
and
a phone.”

“Let’s not worry about that tonight.”

Scrambling noises were coming from the hillside behind them. Tobin and the others were chasing them on foot.

Blake slung his pack over his shoulder. “You’re not going to like this.”

“Like what?”

He turned around and picked her up. She held in a squeal.

Then he started running.

He was right. She didn’t like it. She could barely see the trees before they dodged them. But he was so much faster than she was, and he was carrying both her and a giant pack with all his camping supplies. What was he, some kind of alien?

She could no longer hear the sounds of Tobin and whoever he had helping him. She couldn’t hear much, honestly, over the pounding of her heart. She was so
close
to him, and he felt so perfect against her. Had it been that long since she’d been with a man? She could hardly count Tobin a man, anyway—he was more of a selfish child than a man.

“How far away is my bag?” she whispered, knowing he’d hear her.

“About twenty minutes. We were close when they ran us off the road.”

He didn’t even sound winded. There was something up with him. Would he still help her if he knew she’d guessed something about him? He had to know she’d guess. It wasn’t as if he was acting normal. Nobody normal could run while carrying a full-grown person and not even break a sweat. He must be superhuman or something, because she wasn’t a twig girl, either. She had plenty of curves and extra padding, but he held her like she weighed nothing. If nothing else, it was kind of flattering. Maybe, after all this, she’d ask him to stick around.

After a while—maybe twenty minutes, she couldn’t be sure—he set her down. She had to brace her hand against a tree trunk to keep from feeling dizzy. Maybe she’d hit her head or something. Maybe the whole carrying-her-while-he-ran thing had been a hallucination.

He reached past her into the tree and pulled her duffel bag from the branches.

“Thank you,” she breathed, hugging it to her chest. She was glad to have it back only because it meant she was that much closer to passing it off to someone else and putting Tobin behind bars. “Now what? It seems like you know your way around the forest. Where should we go?”

“We can go pretty much anywhere. They’re never going to find us tonight. Nobody can get through the woods like I can—”

“Yeah, about that—”

“—and they sounded even more clueless than your average weekend hiker. Still, I’d feel better if we got a little further away. You up for walking?”

“You mean you can’t carry me, your hiking pack,
and
my duffel bag all at once?”

She could see his lips turn up slightly in the moonlight.

“I could,” he said, “but I think it would freak you out even more.”

So he knew she was curious, but he wasn’t offering up any explanation. She could, what, demand one? While he was running through the wilderness, helping to save her life? No, if he had a secret, she’d let him keep it. He deserved at least that much.

She sighed. Well, that and a new truck. And phone.

Chapter Ten

Blake didn’t think he was an impatient person, but he was tired, and his head ached where he’d hit it when they skidded down the hillside. And Hera was slow. Molasses slow. Snail slow. Glacier slow. He wanted to put as much distance as possible between them and the goons. Even though there wasn’t a chance the goons would catch up tonight, he didn’t want to be rushing around tomorrow. They’d need to plan, figure out where to find a car. Maybe if he shifted he could run out to the ranch and talk to Jude, borrow his Range Rover.

But first he needed to rest, and he wouldn’t get rest if they were walking at sloth speed.

“Just over this rise, there’s a perfect place,” he encouraged.

Hera frowned. She could probably hear his frustration. But he’d already risked enough, carrying her like that. Jude would be furious if he found out.

Her breath was coming fast from the exertion of going uphill. He stopped thinking about resting, and thought more about Hera. It was too obvious for him to keep turning around to watch her, so he instead tried breathing in the perfume of her scent. So perfect, so
her.
He wondered if she could feel the tension growing between them, the sweet feel of possibility.

Well, she’d feel it soon. He just remembered: he only had one sleeping bag.

He felt something on the back of his neck and slapped at it, thinking it was some kind of bug. But his hand came away wet. “What the—”

“Blake,” Hera’s voice was high-pitched with worry. “I think you’re bleeding.”

His head. He’d banged his forehead during the crash, but he’d barely noticed the back of his head had been hit, too. Harder than he thought, apparently. The fact he’d guessed wrong about the extent of his injuries meant he was
way
worse off than he’d thought. He needed to shift, and fast. If he didn’t, his body would do it for him. He’d risk falling unconscious and shifting by accident—in front of Hera.

“I have to go do something,” he said. “Wait here. Please, promise me you’ll stay right here.”

“What? How long? What am I supposed to—”

He couldn’t wait to explain. Even now his vision was off. He hadn’t noticed before, thinking it was just the darkness. Dammit, he’d been paying too much attention to
her
. He’d been worried about her injuries, her head, how well she’d be able to navigate the forest. And now he had to abandon her to shift.

“Bathroom!” he called over his shoulder. “I gotta shit!” Shit—it was one letter away from shift. Close enough.

He stumbled downhill, gripping tree trunks to keep his balance as he went. It was all making sense now, his inattention, his scattered thoughts, the darkness of the forest. The acute pain in the back of his head. Must shift, now. Shift now. His body was telling him it was time, but he needed to get farther away from Hera.

There was no more time. Already his vision was fading. He shrugged the backpack to the ground and stripped off his clothes so they wouldn’t be shredded during his shift. Then he fell against the base of a pine tree, and shifted into a mountain lion.

He awoke in cat form, and Hera was ten feet away, staring at him.

Chapter Eleven

Either the sleeping mountain lion in front of her had waited for Blake to strip out of his clothes before devouring him, or the sleeping mountain lion in front of her was Blake.

She shook her head. Impossible. Neither scenario was possible.

But there were Blake’s clothes. His t-shirt with the superhero emblem, the pants that fit against his butt so well, his shoes, his pack. All of his things. But where was
he
?

She took a step back, trying to be quiet. A few minutes ago, she’d heard him groan, a decidedly not-bathroom sound, and had come to see if he was hurt. His head injury looked bad, all the blood. What if he’d fallen and needed her?

But this wasn’t at all what she’d expected to see when she followed the sound of the groan.

She took another step back. If Blake was gone, if the lion had eaten him, where was the blood? Why were those clothes in perfect condition? Sure, she might miss a detail here and there in the dark, but not piles of blood and gore. And would it even have been possible for a mountain lion to consume an entire human in less than ten minutes? She doubted it.

One more step back. She’d just ease away, pretend she never saw…this. Whatever this was.

The lion opened its eyes.

Blake’s eyes.

She gasped.

No, she’d seen too many movies. There had to be another answer, another explanation.

The lion stood up. She was done for—there was no way she’d survive an encounter with a mountain lion. They were vicious. Every report she’d heard about man-killing mountain lions flashed through her head.

“Blake,” she whispered. Maybe he was nearby, maybe waiting to help her. Maybe he really was off, relieving himself behind a tree somewhere. Because everyone gets completely naked to go to the bathroom, right?

“Blake?” she said again.

The lion took one cautious step toward her. She froze. If she ran, it would only invite the lion to chase her. Were they like domestic cats? Would they chase anything, even if they weren’t hungry? Even if they’d already eaten something…or someone?

Placing its paws carefully on the needle-strewn ground, the lion approached her slowly. Its eyes were wide, projecting calm. So like Blake’s eyes.

He was within kicking distance, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. Instead, she stood stiller than the pine trees, as the large cat came right up next to her and rubbed its cheek against the back of her hand.

Scent-marking. She’d heard that cats did this, rubbed their faces against things to mark territory.

She hoped he wouldn’t pee on her next.

A low, rumbling sound came from his throat.
Purring
?

A small sound escaped from Hera’s lips. It wasn’t a gasp of fear—it was more like an, “Awww.” She did what her instincts wanted her to do, which was reach out and scratch her fingers behind his ears. He purred even louder and leaned into her. She nearly fell over, and laughed. He moved away again. That’s when she saw the cut on the back of his head. A raised area, with a little dried blood around it.

It couldn’t be, but this whole thing was surreal and unbelievable anyway.

“I know this is stupid,” Hera said, “but are you…are you Blake?”

The lion backed away to stand next to Blake’s clothes. As she watched, its fur seemed to shimmer. The front legs got shorter, the tail disappeared. Kneeling on the ground in the lion’s place was a very naked Blake.

“Hi,” he said.

Chapter Twelve

She kicked a clump of pine needles at him. “You scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry.” He picked up his pants and shrugged them on, watching how she carefully did not watch him. She’d reacted so much better than he ever would’ve expected. She didn’t run away screaming, she didn’t faint, she didn’t attack him. Well, other than the pine needles.

“Can you tell me what you’re thinking?” he asked.

“Oh, so you’d like some kind of explanation? That’s really interesting, coming from you, Cougar Kid.”

“Cougar Kid?” He couldn’t help it, he laughed.

To his surprise, she broke into laughter, too. It wasn’t entirely natural laughter, though.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I know this is a lot. I’ve never…revealed myself to anyone before. When you found me like that, as a cat…it was almost like I could tell what you were thinking. I had to show you, had to explain.”

“All those things about you, that I thought were strange.”

“Yeah.” He pulled on his shirt and picked up the backpack. Already he felt stronger, and his vision was clearer. His head barely ached at all. “We should get up to the top of the rise and make camp.”

He could hear her behind him again, moving slowly. He waited so she could walk next to him. “You could have told me, before,” she said. “I’d never tell anyone else.”

“I’m not supposed to. It breaks so many pride laws—”

“Pride? Oh, right. Because you’re a were-lion.”

“Shifter.”

“But I thought mountain lions don’t live in prides.”

“It’s different for shifters. We’re not real mountain lions as far as personality goes.” He grimaced. This was going to be difficult. She was actually taking it easier than he would’ve expected, but still. She was a human. There was no way to make the transition into this kind of knowledge easy.

They walked up the hill in silence. Well, he was silent. She made all kinds of noise, slipping and sliding on the needle-strewn ground. He wanted to help her, but thought maybe she’d want a little distance while she processed the big fucking revelation that he was a mountain lion shifter.

“Here’s a good place to camp,” he said.

In silence, he set up the tent. Hera paced, so he asked her to help with a couple of things even though he didn’t really need help. She just seemed listless. As soon as the tent was up, he stowed his pack and her duffel bag inside. She hesitated a moment before clambering in after him.

“Are you uncomfortable with me?” he asked. “I can sleep outside as a lion, if you want. If you need space.”

“No, it’s just, I hardly believe it’s the same day it was when I left Winston.”

“It’s not,” he said. “Not only do shifters exist, but you’ve entered a wormhole.”

“Shut up,” she laughed.

“Are you hungry?”

Her face wrinkled in disgust. “I don’t eat dead bunnies.”

What? She was already jumping to random conclusions.
This
was why they kept themselves a secret—

“I’m totally kidding!” she said.

He choked back another laugh. “I mean, I have granola bars.”

She smiled. “I know you weren’t offering to go kill something for me. Yes, please, a granola bar would be great.”

Damn, she was beautiful when she smiled. He fished a couple of bars from his pack and handed her one.

She pointed. “Is that a bottle of tequila in your backpack, or are you just happy to see me?”

“Both.” He grinned. Mav had thrown the bottle in there when Blake was packing last week, telling him to “lighten up.” Now, Blake couldn’t believe his luck. He was in a tent with a smokin’ hot woman who had an amazing sense of humor, with a bottle of tequila to share between them.

And she knew he was a shifter, and she was still flirting with him.

“Do you, ah, want some?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said without pausing. She must’ve seen the doubtful look on his face, so she rushed on, “Today was the scariest day of my life, but I’m still alive. I lived through all of this, in just one day. I’m still here, and I’m not going to take another second for granted.”