Pride (Shifters #3)(65)

Then Ethan and Reid taped the unconscious stray to the tree. They actually wrapped the tape around both Hannibal and the tree trunk over and over again, heedless of the blood now smeared on their hands.
And for just a moment, I wished I could be there when they ripped all that duct tape off his bare chest. That’ll wake the fucker up…
When they were finished, Reid dug in his bag once again, this time coming out with a packet of antibacterial hand wipes and a clear plastic sandwich bag. To my amusement, he handed a wipe to Ethan, then used another one to clean every single spot of blood from his hands, double-checking with his flashlight before finally tucking the used wipes into the Baggie, and the bag into the front pocket of his backpack.
I liked him more with each passing minute.
After that, we pressed on, Jace in the lead again, this time with Kaci at his side, rather than behind him. She didn’t speak, nor did she look around at the beautiful moonlit night. She walked with her head down, her gaze on the ground at her feet.
Half an hour later, Elias Keller’s cabin rose in front of us, smoke trailing toward the moonlit sky from a picturesque stone chimney he’d probably built himself. Light flickered in the front window—an honest-to-goodness oil lamp, if I had my guess—and the scent of venison stew made my mouth water in anticipation of a meal I had no time to eat. Even if we were invited.
Keller’s yard was nonexistent, trees towering over his cabin so close that the roots disappeared beneath the small building itself. The front steps were made of four huge log halves set into the earth flat-side up. They were unsanded, and a distinct, sunken wear pattern marred the center of each one, the obvious result of a certain pair of huge boots hitting them in the same place day after day for years. Many, many years, apparently.
As is considered courteous when approaching another territory unannounced—which hardly ever happens because most of us have telephones—we made plenty of conspicuous noise to announce our arrival and our intent to do no harm.
We were still a good fifty feet from the cabin when the door flew open and Keller appeared on the top step, his scraggly face screwed up in a snarl, his huge right fist curled around a five-foot-long club apparently made of an entire small tree, stripped of its branches. Moonlight gleamed on the smooth, broad knob at the top of the club, no doubt polished by several years’ accumulation of oil from his own hands.
In front of me, Kaci froze, and I almost walked right into her.
“What—” Keller growled, his low voice rumbling through me physically even across such a distance. Then he squinted into the dark and sniffed the air. His body tensed and the club rose into the air. “Cats. You’d best state your business before I decide the whole lot of you need to be skinned to save the Pride cats the trouble.”
Pride cats? He thought we were the strays? Apparently a bear’s nose was less capable of identifying individual cats by scent than ours were. At least when we were in a group including two cats he’d never met.
But then, having never smelled another bruin, I couldn’t swear I could tell the difference between Keller and his own father if I had to.
“Mr. Keller, it’s us,” I called.
“Faythe?” He clomped down two more steps to stand on the last inverted split log. “Who’s that you got with you?”I exhaled in relief when the tension left his voice and the end of his club settled onto the step by his boots. “This is Ethan, my youngest-older brother.” I pulled Ethan forward by one arm and caught just a glimpse of the amazement he was trying to hide. He’d been told about Elias Keller, but because they were rare almost to the point of legend, seeing a bruin for the first time wasn’t something you could ever really be prepared for. I knew that from experience.
“And this is Reid…” Damn, it would be nice to know his last name. Or his first name. Whichever I was missing.
Reid stepped forward, rubbing one large hand over the shiny expanse of his bald head. He was either much less impressed with the bruin than my brother was, or he was in much better control of his expression. I was guessing both.
“Brother, huh?” Keller laughed, a deep, rough sound like the rumble of a plane overhead. “How many of those do you have?”
“Four.” I had a relatively small family for a werecat, but Keller was an only child. My father was virtually certain of it. Bruins were so uncommon that it was rare for two members of the species to ever meet, much less breed. Fortunately, they lived a very long time—about twice the human lifespan.
Keller seemed to think about my answer, then dismissed it with a shake of his head, thick, grizzly beard swinging. “Well, come on in and have some dinner. I’ve got stew on the fire…” He turned toward the cabin, already clomping up the steps.
“Thank you, Mr. Keller, but we don’t have time right now. We have to find one of the missing hikers before the human searchers show up at dawn.
“What do you need from me?” Keller asked, and I couldn’t help but admire his frank mannerisms. I’d love to be able to say whatever I meant without worrying about the political fallout of my uncensored mouth. Apparently that was one of the advantages of living by oneself. I hoped to have the chance to try it someday.
“Nothing,” Jace said. “We just need a chance to sniff around your backyard so Kaci can find her bearings.” He chuckled, and whispered beneath his breath, “No pun intended.”
“Kaci?” The bruin squinted into the dark. “Is that the kitten’s name? Come on up, child, and let me get a look at you.”
But Kaci wouldn’t go, and I couldn’t really blame her. She clearly remembered Keller—at least to some degree—and I would certainly hesitate to approach the giant who’d hit me on the back of the skull with a piece of firewood.
“It’s okay.” Jace put one arm around her shoulders and urged her forward. Kaci shrugged out from under his arm and clung to me, her wide eyes staring at me in desperation. I couldn’t help being pleased that she still thought of me as her protector, even though we were surrounded by large men. 
“She’s a little shy,” I said, running one hand over the thick length of her hair.
Keller nodded. “I imagine she doesn’t hold any fondness for me, either.” His frank gaze shifted from me to Kaci as he thumped down from the steps and clomped across the yard toward us, staff in hand. “Sorry ’bout that bump on the head, Miss Kaci. I mistook you for some other girl cat rifling through my garbage.”
To my surprise, Kaci smiled just a bit, though I doubt Keller could see it in the deep shadows.
“Come on up and take a look around, and we’ll see if we can’t get you headed off in the right direction.” He stopped halfway across the wooded yard and motioned us forward with one heavy, flannel-clad arm. And this time when we went, Kaci came with us, albeit reluctantly.
“Does any of this look familiar?” He flung both arms wide, the club hanging from his right fist like a broken branch dangling from a huge limb.
Kaci shook her head, staring at the tangle of forest shadows surrounding us. “I know I’ve been here, though. I’ve smelled…all this before.”
“I found her out back.” Keller took off toward the side of the cabin, moving so fast on his long, thick legs that we had to jog to keep up. He came to a stop in a surprisingly normal-looking backyard littered with thick tree stumps, the largest of which was three feet tall and nearly as wide. From its center ring protruded the blade of a single-sided ax with a three-foot handle. Keller’s monster of an ax made the one Marc kept in the back of his car look like dollhouse furniture, yet I knew the bruin’s hatchet would look small and delicate in his huge hands.
“Do you recognize any of this?” Jace asked, and Kaci nodded, moonlit hazel eyes wide as she scanned the yard. Her gaze settled on the woodpile between two twenty-foot oaks, then the large metal trash can by the farthest tree.
“I came in over there.” She pointed toward the tree line to the southwest. “I followed the stream, and it ended…back there a little way. I stopped for a drink and I smelled food. Meat.”
“Venison.” Keller scratched at the tangled mass of his thick brown beard. “There’s plenty more, if you’re hungry.”
I smiled in thanks, but shook my head regrettably. Kaci looked as if she hadn’t even heard him.
“So do you think you can take us from here?” Ethan asked, and Kaci’s gaze settled on him, her eyes seeming to clear. She nodded mutely. “Mr. Keller, do you know where this stream is?”
“Yup. S’where I get my water. I’ve stomped a pretty clear trail ’tween here and there, which is probably how the kitten found me.”
Keller was true to his word. The path between his cabin and the stream was narrow—at least for a bruin—but clear. We walked mostly in silence now, and Kaci seemed to grow quieter and more withdrawn with each step. Ten minutes after we left Keller’s, a soft rippling sound met my eager ears. A quick sniff revealed the scent of mineral-rich water, and a couple of minutes later the stream itself came into view.
I knelt at the edge of the bank and cupped handfuls of the frigid, unpurified water into my mouth, mentally turning my nose up at the bottled springwater in Reid’s backpack. And to my amusement, Kaci dropped to her knees and joined me.