Shards of Hope(23)

You’ll never be alone again. I will always be there for you.

He’d made that promise to the suspicious, ferocious girl she’d been. Tonight, on this desolate landscape under an unfriendly sky, he made it again to the strong, determined, just as ferocious woman she’d become. “I will never leave you. No matter what.”

No answer.

“Stay awake!” He shook her slightly, only breathed again when she made a protest. “Tell me about your first assignment.”

“I cocked it up.” Her voice was sluggish and almost inaudible in the howling wind, but she was still breathing, still conscious. “I was sent in to retrieve evidence of a serial killer and I got caught in the room with him.”

“Since he ended up dead, I don’t think you erred.”

“Everyone ends up dead around me. You should be careful.”

“You’ve kept those in the Venice compound alive and functional and they’re some of our most fractured.” He squeezed her when she didn’t reply. “Zaira.”

“ ’m awake,” she mumbled as the rain suddenly slowed to a light drizzle then cut off altogether, almost as if they’d passed the line of demarcation of a heavy cloud bank. Aden knew the lull wasn’t going to last, so he took the chance to scan the area, saw a large stand of trees not far in the distance. They appeared much more solid than the ones under which they’d previously taken shelter—and as far as he could see, none was in any danger of collapsing.

If he and Zaira made it there, they could hunker down and he could try to figure out how to fix her injuries. Part of his brain tried to tell him it was too late, that he didn’t have the equipment to fix the damage, but Aden wasn’t about to give up. He would fight for her till the last beat of his heart and hers.

“Aden, my mind wants to reach out.”

“Fight it.” Another burst of pain could incapacitate her. “Think about the next dinner at Ivy and Vasic’s house.”

“Do you think,” she said between gasped breaths, “Ivy expected so many Arrows to take her up on her offer of an open door?”

“Ivy is an empath. She likes people—she even likes Arrows.”

Zaira’s body got heavier, but she continued to drag her feet forward. “I think I’m hallucinating.”

She sounded too lucid to be hallucinating. “What do you see?” He couldn’t see anything of interest.

“Giant paw prints in the mud.”

Stilling, he glanced toward the ground. He hadn’t focused on it except to make sure they didn’t run into anything, but Zaira’s head had been hanging down. He lowered her into a seated position against a large rock and, wiping his hand over his face to rid it of the water dripping from the hood, took out the penlight.

“You’re not hallucinating. I can’t be certain, but I think they’re feline.” And very fresh. The prints had to have been made since the rain stopped, and that couldn’t have happened more than two minutes earlier.

“What kind of cat has paws that big?”

Using the penlight to trace the edge of the print, he saw the shape of claws, measured the size of the pad using his gloved hand as a comparison. “A changeling cat. One of the large predators. Tiger, leopard, jaguar.”

Zaira’s body rocked with another wave of shivers, her teeth clattering together as she tried to form words. “A-a-r-re we—” Clenched teeth, clenched fists as she brought the shaking under control with icy strength of will. “Are we in the Sierra Nevada?”

While the Sierra was SnowDancer wolf territory, the SnowDancers had some kind of a treaty with the DarkRiver leopards, so Zaira’s question was a valid one. “We might be, but probability is low—the chopper would’ve never escaped SnowDancer notice.”

Everyone knew the wolves were very unwelcoming when it came to outsiders—“shoot first and ask questions of the corpses” was their rumored motto. “A small cabin, a small group—that could’ve flown under the radar in such a vast territory, but the chopper would’ve lit up their surveillance satellites and, bad weather or not, we’d be drowning in wolves by now.”

“Terrain wrong for DarkRiver.”

“Yes. I don’t think we’re in Yosemite.” It was possible they were near the territory of another feline pack. On the other hand, given the cats’ reputation for roaming far distances in their youth, it was equally possible they were near a single solitary changeling. If Aden could locate the owner of these paw prints, that changeling could go for assistance—if he or she didn’t attack them on sight. Many changelings remained leery of Psy.