Linger(50)

matter. She was so hungry, she could eat anything.

Grabbing the large spoon, she dipped it into the pot and brought it to her mouth. She slurped hungrily at

the food even as her injured hand reached for the cornbread to the side. When she lowered the spoon to

get more, she stuffed a piece of the cornbread in her mouth, chewing rapidly.

She worked at it indelicately, shoveling food into her mouth in an attempt to soothe the desperate hunger

beating at her.

“What the hell?”

She froze and then jerked around, her heart pounding viciously. Jericho stood in the doorway to the

kitchen, his eyes dark and his expression hard. The light was on behind him in the living room. She

hadn’t even registered it or him coming into the kitchen so absorbed was she in eating.

She dropped the spoon with a clatter and immediately sidestepped to try and get around him.

“Whoa now,” he said in a soothing voice. He held out his hands in a placating manner even as he circled

toward her. “I’m not going to hurt you, lady. I just want some questions answered. Like what the hell

you’re doing in my kitchen wearing nothing but my shirt?”

“Jericho?” Hunter’s sleepy voice, laced with grumpiness, reached her ears. “Who the hell are you talking

to?”

Kaya used that moment of inattention, when Hunter rounded the corner of the kitchen and laid shocked,

angry eyes on her, to her advantage. When Jericho turned to Hunter, she launched herself across the

kitchen and past Jericho.

She heard his curse and then the pounding of feet as he took off after her, but she was out already. She

burst onto the porch and flew to the door, her last barrier to freedom.

Fumbling only for a split second with the hook, she flung it open and leaped into the snow. The cold was

a shock to her bare skin, but she didn’t stop. Finding the harder, packed snow, she flew across the ice and

headed for higher ground. The safety of her den.

She couldn’t be certain whether they followed, so she didn’t shift. Her footprints would lay heavy in the

snow, and she couldn’t very well leave a trail that showed human prints turning to animal. And there was

the shredded shirt she’d leave behind.

She backtracked several times, trying to mess up the vivid prints she knew she was leaving. And then, as

the moon lifted higher in the sky, light snow began to fall, and she gave thanks to the great maker for the

protection offered.

She stumbled back onto the familiar trail, numb with cold and fear. The adrenaline that had coursed so

readily through her veins, lending strength and endurance, had rapidly diminished, leaving her weak and

shaky.

The cougar stirred within her, restless and edgy, wanting freedom it was unused to being denied. It sensed

the human was weak and in need of protection.

Kaya leashed the cat, using all her strength to ward off the shift. Not now. Not when she was open and

vulnerable. Just a few more feet. She could make it. She was too weak to shift anyway.

The wind picked up as the snow began falling harder. Bitter and unrelenting, it pierced her skin and the

meager protection Jericho’s shirt offered.

She stumbled across the smooth rock outcropping and hovered precariously close to the edge. Below was

vast nothingness, shrouded in darkness. A river, shrunk down to nothing, carved its way through the

valley she stood above. In the spring, it would roar with the rains and melting snow.

Weakly, she walked, and when she fell, she crawled toward the entrance to the small cave etched into the

rock. It faced south, protected from the fierce north winds. On hands and knees she forced herself those

final few feet until she was out of the wind and snow and into the warmth offered by the cave.

She crawled to the innermost portion and huddled against the wall, exhausted and weak. She needed to

shift. Needed the warmth of the cougar’s fur and much stronger body mass. But she couldn’t keep her

eyes open long enough to allow the cat its freedom.

It was supposed to be an easy mission. But nobody told her that.



Into the Lair

© 2008 Maya Banks



Falcon Mercenary Group, Book 2

Ian and Braden Thomas return to the U.S. to extract Katie Buchanan, the sister of the teammate who

betrayed them. She could very well be the key to taking down the man responsible for turning Ian and

Braden into unstable cat shifters. Unfortunately, they’re not the only ones after Katie.

Katie has no intention of going quietly or of offering her trust on a silver platter. She’s got troubles of her own that don’t include two pain-in-the-ass men who claim her dead brother sent them. She’s too busy

trying to stay one step ahead of Ricardo de la Cruz, the brother of a man she killed.

As the bodies pile up, Ian and Braden are only sure of one thing: Katie makes them crazy. Something