Page 35 of The Hero Within
To protect yourself against shadow cats you needed light.
Fire.
They didn't like the smell of gasoline either.
"Stay here," she told CJ.
Eden rested the shotgun on her knees and started rifling through Colton's pack for his flask. The handful of coals in the small pit smoldered pitifully. The second she doused them with his whiskey they spat and sizzled. Flames roared up. Eden kicked the rest of the kindling they'd gathered earlier onto the fire.
Eyes gleamed out there in the darkness. A grunt sounded. And another feline yowl.
"Colton?" she yelled.
Please let him be alive.
She had no idea what they'd do if he wasn't.
Silence settled through the night like a heavy mantle. Slowly the flames started to die down, but there was nothing moving out there. No response from Colton either.
Shit.The son of a bitch had a lot to make up to her, but at the same time.... She didn't want his life to end here. Nemesis or not, his death would still weigh on her conscience, and she didn't want him to be... hurt. Eden swallowed. The weight of the gun was starting to ache through her arms, and she raked the shadows for any sign of him, her ears pricking.
"Hear anything?" she murmured to CJ, who was moving between the corpses and making sure both shadow cats on the ground were definitely dead.
He looked up.
Shadows moved at the corner of her vision. Eden jerked her shotgun toward them, her finger whispering over the trigger—
"Just me," Colton called, materializing out of the night with his hands in the air. Silver warg-shine flashed across his pupils as if the lure of blood and violence brought the monster within him to the surface. She kept the gun on him a second longer—just in case—but she'd seen Adam in a worse state over the years.
Colton paused and slowly lowered his hands with a questioning twitch of his brow.
Definitely still human. A warg couldn't pull off that amount of arrogance.
Eden released the breath she'd been holding, and lowered the shotgun. "You're alive."
For a second there....
She was surprised how much the thought bothered her.
"Don't sound so disappointed."
"I'm not." Her hands shook suddenly. "Did you kill them?"
"They fled. I managed to sink my knife into mama cat, and the cub bolted." Colton's chest heaved, blood dripping from the end of his knife. He'd lost his hat in the scuffle, and dirt marred his cheek.
"Will they be back?"
"Hopefully not. But I don't want to risk it." Raking his hand through his close-cropped black hair, Colton took in the campsite. Striding toward his bag, he started stuffing his belongings back inside it. "Get moving, guys. Until the sun starts to rise, we're vulnerable. Shadow cats aren't the worst things out there, and there's enough blood here to rouse a warg from a few miles away."
"Are you okay?" Eden asked CJ, noticing the blood on his hand in the firelight.
"Fine," CJ muttered, but he didn't look at her and his voice sounded rougher than usual as he cleaned his blade on shadow cat fur.
The unusual behavior made her frown. CJ sounded like he'd swallowed acid. "Any more bleeding? Light-headedness?"
His nostrils flared and silver flashed through his pupils as he looked up, revealing how close to the edge he was. "Don't touch me."
Eden held her hands up.
