Page 69 of His Claim
Halfway up, the trail narrowed to a seam between two slabs of granite. My boots slid on the loose shale; my steps sent stones skittering down into the ravine. Lightning lifted the world into stark white for a heartbeat—spires, jagged edges, the ridge ahead—and then slammed it back into shadow. I pushed on.
The wind changed again, bringing a biting cold and whipping my hair into my eyes. Then I heard something that made me freeze.
A growl came from above me. Close. Too close.
I looked up and saw a mountain lion, crouched on a ledge six feet overhead, tawny and lithe, shoulders rolled tight, yellow eyes fixed on me the way I’d fixed on that rabbit. It flicked its tail once, twice.
And then it launched.
“Shit—” I threw myself sideways as it came off the rock like a loosed arrow. Claws raked my sleeve, hot pain scoring my biceps, and I slammed shoulder-first into the stone slab, theimpact exploding stars behind my eyes. I tumbled onto my hip, sliding toward the drop.
The cat hit where I’d been and whirled, low to the ground, ears flat, rumbling growl shaking the air. My fingers found the knife at my thigh and yanked it free, the handle cold and slick in my palm. My breath came high and fast, the storm beginning to stir above us.
It stalked toward me. I backed toward a wedge of rock that created a corner, unsure if it was protection or a trap. Knife up, every nerve on fire, I prepared for the lion’s attack. It feinted left and I bought it, but then it lunged to the right, its claws catching my forearm. I hissed and slashed, the blade catching fur, skin, just enough to make it snarl and dance back. Not enough to stop it.
Thunder rolled so loud the ground shook. The terrifying animal lunged again. I stepped into it and the world snapped to a different kind of bright.
Fur rippled under my skin, bones dialing the wrong way, my jaw lengthening into a muzzle in a strobe of lightning. The change lanced through me, too fast to think, only heat and rage and the electric taste of the storm. I hit the cat as a wolf, teeth slamming into its shoulder before it could adjust to the new rules.
We went down together. Its weight slammed against my ribs and my claws skittered for purchase on wet stone. It twisted, hind legs kicking, claws carving lines of fire down my flank. Pain flared, white and hot, but my wolf drove me onward. I shook my head, jaws locked, tasting blood and wildness and fear. The cat’s paw connected with my muzzle, and the world rang; I loosened my teeth just enough and it wrenched free with a scream that was part anger, part fear.
We separated by a breath and then leapt together again. It met me midair, forepaws on my shoulders, trying to roll me. I braced and shoved, felt something give under my weight and the ledge crumbled. We slid, granite and dirt and claws flying. I scrambled for a purchase.
I grabbed the only thing there was—stone—claws digging into a tiny seam, muscles screaming as I arrested my fall. The cat slid past, scrabbling, snagging a root with one claw. It hung there, hindquarters dangling into space, eyes wide, mouth open and panting. One wet root between life and the ravine.
We stared at each other. Thunder cracked. The root tore.
It fell.
I lay there shaking, claws buried in the seam, every breath burning. The storm almost seemed to laugh at me, dumping sheets of cold rain over me. I clung to the rock and let the animal part of me go, forced my body back down through the heat and the pain until human skin knit over bone again. I climbed up and collapsed on the ledge, back to the rock, chest heaving, rain washing blood into rust-colored streams down my forearms.
After a few minutes, I pushed myself up. My knife and my gun lay a few feet away; I crawled to it and wrapped my bloody fingers around the hilt. I found my pack and dressed in one of my spare sets of clothes and tugged my feet back into a pair of boots.
I looked down. The mountain lion was a smear of tawny fur and red blood against jagged boulders far below. My stomach flipped.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and meant it. I hadn’t wanted to kill it. We were both starving things a long way from safety.
I moved more carefully after that, on hands and knees where the slope went treacherous. The wind and rain bit through the fabric of my shirt, and the cuts across my body stung like the dickens, but still I kept going.
The storm didn’t quit. It drove needles of rain into my face, shook the pines until branches cracked and clattered down the slope. Once, a dead tree gave up its tenuous grasp on the soil and fell across the trail in front of me with a sound like the mountain splitting. I froze, heart pounding, then climbed over the tangle, my hands slippery, the bark shredding under my fingers, the world too loud and bright and wet.
On the far side, the trail broadened into a shelf beneath an overhang of dark stone. The rock shielded a shallow cave, dry enough to crouch in. I ducked inside, throat tight with relief, and sat with my back to the wall, legs pulled to my chest.
I took stock. Knife: fine. Gun: cold and heavy at my back. Map: wrapped in wax cloth, safe in my pack. Me: bleeding, bruised, alive.
I forced myself to do what Varek would have told me to do—fix what you can fix. I tore a strip from the inside hem of the flannel and bound the worst of the claw cuts around my ribs, teeth gritted, breath hissing through them as I cinched the makeshift bandage tight. I cleaned the blood from my hands with rainwater in cupped palms, then drank until the ice in it made my head and my stomach ache.
Thunder rolled again, a little farther away now. The storm was passing and that thought made me feel a bit better.
I watched the rain and let my heartbeat settle. I set the handgun in my lap and thumbed the slide. Two rounds left. Maybe that was enough for dinner.
When the worst of the storm had spent itself, I stood. My body complained, but it obeyed. I gathered my belongings, stepped back into the wet world and followed the narrow ribbon of trail along the cliff under dripping firs. The sky cracked open in a thin seam of blue between black clouds, and through it a peak shouldered into the light. I smiled at the sight.
It was proof the world still remembered how to be beautiful.
I moved more quietly now. A grouse burst from the brush at one point, but I didn’t scream. A shadow passed over the trail and I looked up instead of ducking, seeing that it was a hawk riding the wind, looking for some small creature to eat.
Miles later, when the sun finally bled through the clouds and turned the rain to steam, I found tracks where the game trail met a wider path. I didn’t see animal tracks, but human footsteps. Not many and not fresh, but I could make out several toe scuffs, and the outline of a boot here and there.
