Chapter 2
Shannon Rafferty's schedule was all screwed up. She hadn't eaten for two days now, when she'd had every intention of finding a cave to sleep in, and then hunting for some dinner. Instead, she’d had to rescue the boy. She hoped Mikey's head injury wasn't too bad and that he hadn't suffered too gravely from the effects of hypothermia. Or that her rescuing him hadn’t given him nightmares. But she was afraid it would.
She had slept most of the day in another cave farther away from the first and then when it was dusk, she would have to risk hunting.
The sky grew darker as Shannon stared out the entrance of the cave, watching for any sign of danger. She hadn't seen any hikers or hunters. Yes, she'd noticed the tents at the campsite near the lake. She'd even considered that after the men retired to their tents and their sleeping bags tonight, she could go there and catch a fish in the lake. The campers wouldn’t be able to see her at night. Then she'd have it made. But once she’d rescued the boy, she nixed that idea. If they somehow did catch sight of her, they would know she was a dangerous predator, looking for a new source of meat. Maybe even them.
It didn't matter. She couldn't have let the boy drown. Several times she'd woken during the day, thinking she'd heard a child screaming. Forget his having nightmares about last night. She was having them!
The moonlight softly illuminated the golden aspen, the leaves fluttering in the chilly breeze. She closed her eyes briefly.
She had enough nightmares to deal with without piling up any more on top of those. She had intended to stay here in the area because she hadn't located any sign of wolves or black bears. If she ran into a black bear or wolf pack? Both predators would push a cougar out of their territory or kill him.
She hadn't smelled either in the vicinity. Only cougars. And a lot of them. Cougars didn't run in packs. Which was why a cougar would be at risk when encountering a wolf pack. A lone wolf was no match for a cougar's claws and teeth. But with a lot of cougars congregating together? It had to mean they were shifters. And they kept the other big predators away. So she thought she had half a chance at surviving here. Bears and wolves would find some other place to hunt.
She'd never smelled so many cougars in one area before though and it did worry her that they’d locate her and then what? Interrogate her. Why would a female shifter run in the wilderness by herself with no camping equipment anywhere?
Even if they didn’t learn who she was, she couldn't go to any of them and ask for help. Not in her cougar form. Without clothes, she couldn’t just walk into town naked, either. Besides she was a wanted woman, and she was certain no one would believe her word over the rest of her boyfriend’s family. Not when Hennessey Kelly was a cop, which meant she was on her own.
The crimson sky turned to blackness and all that was let was the moon and a sprinkling of stars. Shannon rose, listened, her ears perked, trying to hear anything other than the sound of the breeze rustling the leaves down below. She heard no sign of humans and leapt down to the next ledge. Thankfully, her kind could leap eighteen feet in one bound, up or down. And horizontally? As much as forty to forty-five feet. At a sprint, she could run full out for short distances at forty to fifty miles per hour, which was what she planned—to race back to the lake, despite discounting the idea earlier, and then take however long it would take to catch her meal.
She'd made it to the second rock ledge when she saw something move in her peripheral vision. A man standing on a lower ledge off to her right, his hands reaching for his rifle slung over his shoulder. How could he see her at dusk?
He moved quickly as if he was a military man and not just a hunter. Before she could leap at him, he fired a shot, the sound ringing in her ears, echoing across the rocks. The last thought she had as she collapsed on the rock ledge above him was that she had lived a month longer than she thought she would have ever managed.
