Page 32 of The Hero Within
"How do you know so much about this?" Cole asked. "I've never come across anyone who knows anything more than how to kill a warg."
"My father's people kept records." Pushing to his feet, Johnny crossed to the small pit where the last of the night's coals had died down. "He told me about the different strains and a couple of years ago I spent a month in the ruins of Black River Testing Facility, and managed to find some of their sealed records. They were one of the military centers that experimented on wargs."
"Do you think there’s a cure?"
Wishful thinking. He kicked dirt over the coals, turning into the breeze. "Doubtful. We don’t have the technology or the—"
The faintest hint of scent wafted past him.
Johnny froze.
He slammed a hand out, beckoning the kid into silence. Every hair on the back of his neck felt like it rose.
"What is it?" Cole breathed, slowly shifting to his feet.
Johnny’s nostrils flared. The scent was gone. But it had been there. Musk and iron, and something faintly cat-like. If the wind hadn’t shifted in that precise moment, he doubted he’d have even sensed it.
He’d smelled that scent before.
Mierda. Something was downwind, and it was stalking them. Worse. He knew what it was.
Tension unfurled within him. Where the fuck was his shotgun? His hand settled slowly over the gun at his belt, and his gaze shifted to the knife he’d left buried in the dirt by the log he’d been sitting on. Cole followed his glance and tugged the knife free, tensing in reaction.
Part omega or not, right now he could feel the kick of his heart and knew his scent would be sharpening.
"Don’t move suddenly," Johnny said, in a conversational voice that sounded distant to his ears. Eden was still wrapped up in her blankets as snug as a bug, but he caught the glint of moonlight on her eyes. Awake and listening to them, and probably had been for a while. "Eden, can you get up?"
"What is it?" she breathed.
"Something’s out there and it’s stalking us." His heartbeat jacked through his ribs, and he tried to hear over its sudden drumming pulse. Except for that brief drift of scent he might not have known. There was no sound. No more scent. Nothing except the fine prickling of the hairs along his forearms and theknowingthey weren't alone anymore.
"A warg?"
No. "Worse. A shadow cat."
His mother's people had called themsombra que acecha la noche.
And if they had any luck it would only be one.
Chapter Eight
"What do you mean shadow cats?"Eden whispered harshly, kicking her blankets aside. "You said they'd be the least of our concerns down here."
"Don't. Move. Quickly," Colton said, holding his hands out, almost as if to warm them in a nonexistent flame from the quenched coals. His head tilted slowly. Listening maybe. "We want it to think we're not aware of it."
"It?"
"Hopefully it. A single shadow cat will go out of its way to avoid a warg, and vice versa. Cole and I have been marking the trails all day, so it will know what we are. Usually that's enough to warn them away." Moving slowly, Colton retrieved her shotgun from her bag and shoved it at her. He reached for his knife and CJ jerkily handed it over. "They're solitary creatures except for mating season, and we're a month too late for that. But if this is an adult female with cubs and we're in her territory, she might be bold enough to attack."
Shit.Where were her boots? Eden spotted them and dragged them on, moving with slow, cautious movements, even as her heartbeat ran ragged.
"She might back off if she thinks we're a threat to her cubs," CJ muttered, pumping two rounds into the chambers of his shotgun.
"Unfortunately not." Colton knelt low beside a boulder, peering over the top of it as he scanned the near dark. The moon was sinking toward the horizon and visibility had dropped. Eden could barely see him; he blended into the nightscape like a shadow himself. "The females are the dangerous ones. They've got poisonous spurs, and they do most of the hunting. They'll kill to protect their territory and if her cubs are almost fully grown then they'll be with her. We want this to be a male, as they tend to be less violent."
"That's a turnaround from humans," CJ said.
"You ever broken into a woman's house when she's got kids in there?" Colton murmured distractedly.
