The ground moved under Mira. It wasn’t supposed to move, was it? No, the ground definitely wasn’t supposed to be moving. Did earthquakes happen here? Sometimes earthquakes did happen in completely random places. They needed to leave the cave now!
She pushed herself up and opened her eyes in time to see the ground rushing towards her. Two arms wrapped around her and caught her before she landed on her face. The pain shooting through her ribs reminded her of her current physical condition. The arms slowly set her on the ground. She was in a sleeping bag. What the heck was going on? She looked up at Collin in confusion.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Collin knelt down next to her. “You were still sleeping and I didn’t want to wake you. Since you made me promise we’d leave at dawn, I thought it’d be best to carry you.”
After sniffing the air, she nodded her head. The path he had chosen impressed her as did his ability to move while carrying her and the backpack. It was midmorning, which meant he’d been carrying her for several hours at that point. If she had to guess, they were on the other side of the mountain and he’d been sticking pretty close to it. Nothing here smelled quite as threatening. She pushed herself up ignoring the pain and slid the sleeping bag off her legs.
Collin reached down and scooped up the sleeping bag. After he rolled it up against his leg, she walked forward sniffing the air. If they found a decently hidden cave, they could hide there for a little while. Truth be told, whenever she had been hurt badly in the past, she’d hidden in crevice and slept an entire day. That wasn’t exactly an option right now.
“You should probably eat a little something.” He put his bag on the ground and she spun around to watch him. “Oh, and we need to refill on water when we can. I have some, but we’ll run out by nighttime.”
Her eyes traced his every movement before they scanned his body. Spots of blood, more precisely her blood, covered his pants. He hadn’t changed since he’d bandaged her back. Had he even slept? His eyes had slight bags under them, but he didn’t act tired. She lowered herself onto the ground. As much as she hated to admit it, she didn’t have the energy to stand still. She needed to preserve all of her strength for when they were actually moving.
She grabbed the bottle of water out of his hands when he handed it to her. The water felt cool on her throat and she hadn’t realized how thirsty she was until she started drinking. She stopped herself sooner than she would have liked, but he had said they were low on water. When she held out the water bottle for him, he swapped it with a few strips of deer jerky.
“Are you okay?” He sat down in front of her and squinted while looking at her eyes. “You haven’t said anything since you woke up.”
Her eyes closed and she took a deep breath. When she reopened her eyes, she nodded and forced a smile on her face. His face only looked more concerned. She definitely sucked at acting or faking emotions.
“What’s going on?” He reached out and touched her hand.
She jerked back instinctively and could barely keep back her growl. For a second, something that looked like hurt flashed in his eyes, but it was probably something else. He pulled back and stood. After a few seconds of staring at her, he sighed.
“You’re scared, aren’t you?” He watched her face carefully.
She whispered, “Yes.” Her eyes slowly drifted up to meet his.
He nodded and glanced around. “Let’s try to find some kind of shelter. Can you smell any water?”
Her nose twitched as she sniffed the air. “Not nearby.”
“Let’s keep walking until you can. Maybe we can find someplace safe to rest for a bit.” To his credit, he didn’t try to carry her again. He walked forward a few strides before he glanced at her over his shoulder. “Oh, and I’m pretty sure I can handle a couple of rogue wolves if needed. I doubt I could take a mountain lion, though. So if one of those pops up again, we’re screwed.”
She smiled and shook her head at his silliness. He stayed a step ahead of her as she tried to sniff out some source of water. Their pace was slow and he didn’t help it by claiming he needed to take breaks regularly. He wasn’t the smoothest at hiding his real intentions, but she was grateful for his efforts, regardless.
Every time they stopped, he moved around her slowly and gave her space. It was just like one would treat a hurt animal, but that’s exactly how she felt at the moment. All of her senses were on high alert. Every breaking branch or scurrying of forest creatures made her jump. She struggled to keep down the urge to shift the entire time. How would she protect herself against anything as a human? Sure, Collin could defend them to a degree, but she wouldn’t be able to stand by while he fought them off alone.
“I was thinking if we found some place to rest soon that I could set a few traps.” He avoided looking at her, which followed the rule: “never make a hurt animal feel threatened.” “Some fresh meat might be nice and help you heal faster.”
“Do you see me as an animal?” She couldn’t help asking the question while carefully sitting down on the grass. It hurt less that way.
His head snapped in her direction. “What?”
“Do you see me as an animal?” she said more slowly.
The widening of his eyes would have been comical if he didn’t look so stricken. “No, why would you think that?”
“You’ve been treating me like an injured animal since this morning.” She cocked an eyebrow at him.
He groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose. After taking a few deep breaths, he finally answered her, “You’ve been acting like an injured animal since this morning. I didn’t think it wise to agitate you further since you’ve been jumping nonstop since we started walking.”
She smiled at him before she slowly stood up and brushed grass off her legs. “Thank you.”
“It’s the least I can do since you nearly died trying to save me.” He shrugged and started walking.
Her feet refused to move as she gawked at his back. He twisted around to look at her and cocked an eyebrow at her. “Oh, and next time you smell something like mountain lions, tell me. We’ve talked about this before, but I forgive you for lying to me in a misguided attempt to protect me.”
As she gaped at him, he chuckled and continued down the trail. She walked at quick pace to catch him and winced with her hasty footsteps. Human feet and pine needles didn’t exactly get along, and her body hurt enough as it was.
After a couple of minutes, she finally broke the silence, “How did you know?”
He stared straight ahead with an amused expression. “I’m not stupid. I knew something else was around based on how you were acting, but I couldn’t figure out what. And it didn’t make sense for him to attack you, so I connected the dots.”
“Why didn’t you ask?”
“Because you wouldn’t have told me.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “You’re not as hard to read as you think.”
What did that mean? Was he just playing her to get her to help him? It did make sense. Why else would a hunter be so nice to a shifter? It hurt more to think about than it should have, and Mira nodded at him absent-mindedly. She sniffed the air and smelled algae and moss that only grew near a body of water.
The entire time she led them to the water, he kept glancing at her. Despite her refusal to look at him, she could feel his eyes watching her each time he did. He fell a couple of steps behind her. As they neared the water, he cleared his throat, but she still refused to look at him. Something about this area felt familiar, and not just in an ‘I’ve passed through here once before’ type of way either.
“Mira.” Worry was clear in his voice, but she needed to see where they were going before she could answer him.
She couldn’t tell whether the nerves in her system were good or bad. Either they were headed to some place amazing or horrifying. With all her wayward emotions, her head spun slightly.
When she broke through the bushes hiding the small pond at the base of a waterfall, she couldn’t help but curse. She normally didn’t curse, but this situation called for it. Who would have known she would end up so near someplace amazing but in a horrifying situation?
As reality crashed into her, the ground once again moved under her feet before rushing towards her face. Collin’s arms wrapped around her again, and she let him pick her up. Her exertions for the day and the realization she took a hunter to some place so dear to her was too much. She let her head loll against his shoulders before she closed her eyes.