“How dare you!” Dr. Elihu shouted from the floor. His voice was thick and choked, and blood ran down his chin.
Catalina laughed. Then a sharp pain stung her shoulder. One of the guards had nailed her with a dart. She slid to the ground, paralyzed. People walked in and out of her field of vision, and then she was unceremoniously hefted on to a cold metal table.
This is really it, she thought. I should be terrified.
But she wasn’t. Part of her simply couldn’t believe that she was actually going to die. Shane would rescue her, or that strange shifter would change his mind and bite her after all, or she’d simply be lucky and beat the odds. But another part, which did accept the possibility that this could be the end, was filled not with fear, but with sadness for everyone who would mourn for her.
My family, she thought. My kitties. Ellie. And Shane— what will it do to him if another person he loves dies here?
Then darkness swept her away, and all her thoughts with it.
Chapter Eleven
Shane
Shane fought his way up through the rapids, snatching gulps of air when he could, trying to keep himself afloat. The current slammed him into a boulder, knocking the breath from his lungs. But he didn’t panic. He’d been trained for exactly this sort of situation. Instead, he let the river carry him downstream, not trying to fight for air, until his diaphragm relaxed and he could breathe again.
He swam at an angle so he wasn’t directly battling the current, trying to make his way to the bank. Once he came almost close enough to touch it, only to be flung back into the middle of the rapids. But Shane persisted, though even his strong panther’s muscles burned with exertion, until his outstretched paw touched sand. He clambered ashore, then collapsed on the bank, exhausted and sodden and chilled.
He lay coughing and gasping for a minute, then shook the water from his fur and looked around. He was at the base of a cliff so steep he doubted even his panther could climb it, and on the wrong side of the river to even try. Shane didn’t want to swim those rapids again if he could help it. And he’d been carried far downstream. He could be as much as a mile away.
At least the bear has to be gone, he thought. But what’s Catalina going to do when I don’t come back?
He hoped she’d stay put and wait for him. Without enhanced shifter senses or special training, she’d have no way of tracking him and would only get lost herself.
He stood up, shook himself again, and set out along the bank, walking upstream. The sooner he got back, the less likely she was to get worried enough to decide that looking for him was the best of bad alternatives.
Shane set a brisk pace, loping along the bank as the sky brightened from indigo to blue. He finally spotted a tall hedge at the top of the cliff that he thought marked the place where he’d fallen. But the river raged beside him, and he didn’t want to risk getting swept downstream again if he tried to swim it.
Frustrated, Shane kept heading upstream, hoping the current would get less fierce. It didn’t, but he came to a place where several boulders protruded above the waterline. They were wet and looked slippery, but they seemed like his best chance. Shane leaped from one boulder to the next, landing lightly and launching again before he had a chance to slip, until he made it to the other side of the river.
And the cliff.
It loomed before him, very high and nearly vertical. His panther could climb any tree in existence, digging his claws deep into the bark, but this cliff was something else entirely.
Well? Shane asked his panther.
He felt the big cat’s reluctance to admit to weakness, a trait matched by his own. But after lifting a paw to test the rock surface, his panther admitted, I’d fall right back in the river.
Shane considered hiking further in the hope that the cliff would get more climbable. But he’d already been gone for an hour, at least. Catalina would be worried. If he was gone for long enough, she’d start searching for him— in an area that already contained one pissed-off grizzly bear.
Shane became a man again. Nude and shivering in the cold dawn wind, he looked up at the forbidding cliff.
“Here goes,” he said, and began to climb.
He’d gone rock-climbing before. It was a hobby of Destiny’s, and she’d often invited the entire team to accompany her for a climb and a picnic. And of course he’d climbed on obstacle courses and rappelled down. But even the rugged outdoors climbing Destiny enjoyed had been nothing like this. For one thing, he’d had ropes to prevent him from falling to his death if he slipped. For another thing, he’d been wearing clothes. He had to press himself right into the rough cliff-face to keep his balance, which was painful in at least three different ways for his most sensitive areas.
Protect your mate, his panther reminded him.
Shane clung to the cliff, his fingers and toes jammed into narrow cracks, and muttered aloud, “Just because it hurts doesn’t mean I’m giving up.”
He clambered upward, not looking down. Often he was forced to balance on only one foot, with one hand clinging to a smooth knob of stone.
A piece of granite broke off under his foot. He dropped down with a terrifying jolt, catching himself with three fingers on his right hand. For a precarious moment, he hung on, supporting his own body weight with those fingers alone. Sweating, he felt around for a new foothold. His searching toes found a crack. Shane crammed them into it, caught his breath, and then reached up for the next handhold.
Shane could hardly believe it when he finally hauled himself over the edge of the cliff. He became a panther so he could again leap over the bushes— no way was he shoving through those thorns naked— and began retracing his path back toward the cave.
But when he reached the cave, he found it empty. Catalina had gone, taking the tranquilizer guns and one set of her own clothes but leaving everything else. He nosed at his discarded jeans, and gave a huff of dismay when he found his Swiss Army knife and lighter still in the pocket. If she’d set out to rescue him, wouldn’t she have taken those?