She raised her head and hissed. I was pulling the M4 around to fire when she leaped. And landed on me.
Her fangs caught my elbow, biting deep, tearing flesh. I didn’t feel the pain yet, not with the adrenaline flooding my system. But she was too close to position the shotgun. She growled, and I felt the vibration through the flesh of my arm. She shook me like a wolf shakes prey, to break bones. I felt something inside snap and was instantly nauseous. I fell and rolled with her. Her taloned hands stabbed at me, hitting my jacket and catching on the thin, silvered mesh between the leather and me.
Her jaws ripped out of my arm and I felt it this time. Her fangs tore at my throat, raking at the silver-plated titanium collar, guttural growls coming from her throat. When she couldn’t bite through the mesh, she lifted my head and rammed it against the floor, her talons breaking the skin of my scalp. I saw stars for a moment, sparkles of white on a black surface. My vision cleared with a blink to see a metal bar that became the barrel of a shotgun.
The blast shredded the back of her head. She fell away from me. Leaving me gasping on the floor. A second blast took her through the throat, decapitating her. Eli stood over her, making sure she was dead. “Clear,” I whispered softly, knowing she was the last one.
He raised the gun and I wasn’t surprised to see the M4. I’d dropped it along the way to nearly being vamp bait. He hadn’t understood, or maybe hadn’t heard, my clear, and he walked the perimeter of the entire story, checking for other fangheads while I eased up into a sitting position, fished a tourniquet from a pocket, and clumsily tried to get it around my left arm. The bone was sticking through the leather. “Humerus,” I whispered, and laughed, because it wasn’t humorous at all. My stomach rebelled. I twisted to the side and threw up my lunch.
I was gasping, the room tilting at a ninety-degree angle. The blood spurting across my arm to the floor seemed important, but I couldn’t figure out what to do about it. There was a lot of blood. A lot.
The buzz in my ears went higher pitched, annoying. I shook my head to clear it, but all I did was sling my blood from the talon wounds across my face.
Eli pushed my fingers to the side and secured the tourniquet, his hands feeling hot on my chilled skin. I was going into shock. His lips were moving but I couldn’t hear anything except the roar in my head. My vision telescoped down into a single bright light, and then to the blood-spatter stains on the timbers over my head.
CHAPTER 17
I Know I’ll Have to Choose
My next coherent moment showed me Eli on the cell, his lips moving. He’d propped me against a center roof support. He closed the phone. I went dark again, and woke to see him taking off my boots. Which was just wrong. His fingers undid the Velcro and the ties beneath, pulling off the boot to expose my white cotton sock. I blinked and my eyes felt dry, like I had ground glass in them. I knew that was a bad sign, but couldn’t remember what kind of bad sign it was. “Eli? Whatcha doin’?”
He looked up for a moment and back to my feet. “Good. You’re back. Rick’s on the way. He says you have to shift to heal the arm.”
“You called Rick?” I realized I could hear, the annoying buzz had damped to little more than a high hum. “Why?”
“Boy Toy’s the closest thing to furry I know. You took a blow to the head. He says you might have trouble shifting.”
“Yeah?” That seemed off. “How’s he know that?”
“He’s Big Brother PsyLED. He knows his sh— his stuff.”
PsyLED knew about skinwalkers? How? Oh yeah. Rick would have told them about me. And they probably had lots of old papers and reports for intel, way more than in the woo-woo room in New Orleans cop central. I worried with that thought while Eli pulled off my other boot. PsyLED knowing all about me was info I didn’t know what to do with, so I concentrated on what I did know. Or did want to know. “So, why’re you taking off my boots?”
“And your pants.”
“You try”—I stopped to breathe and realized I was woozy—“to take off my pants”—more breaths—“and I’ll shoot you.”
“I disarmed you.” I looked down and realized that while I was unconscious, he had unzipped my jacket, pulled my good arm out of my sleeve, and taken every single weapon. They were piled close by, but too far to reach at the moment. I looked back down. I had blood all over my nice, clean silk-knit undershirt. “Well, crap.”
“Yeah. Rick said you had to be naked to shift.”
“I can get out of my pants and shirt . . . after I shift . . . if you just undo my belt.”
Eli gave me that little nonsmile, but I saw the worry in his eyes. “And here I was hoping I’d finally get to see you naked.”
“Wish on, Ranger Boy.”
He chuckled softly. “I adore you, you know. If you die on me, I’ll be seriously pissed.”
That idea rested on me for a moment, as heavy as my silver-lined jacket. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. For all you’ve been in a funk for weeks like some hormonal PMS woman, we’re family now. So don’t die.”
“PMS woman.” I giggled. “Puma Monster Skinwalker. Panther Marshmallow Sabertooth.”
“Yeah. Funny.” He pulled off both socks, leaving my feet pale blue and vulnerable. He stared at them as he said, “You have to shift.”
“Okay.” Which seemed a totally stupid thing to say after a declaration of familyhood. I should tell him I adored him back. But I didn’t. I just blinked at him, puzzled. I have a family? “My arm hurts.” I looked down and saw a lot of blood. “Oh. Yeah.” I looked at Eli. “I have a dangerous job. People keep trying to kill me.”
“Yeah. Been there. I took off your vamp collar. Once you shift, Rick says you need to eat, so he’s bringing you some raw steaks. But you need to do it fast. I haven’t called it in, but the neighbors will have heard the shots fired.”
“If I shift,” I mumbled, “I can’t shift back to human.”
“What?” He looked stunned.
“I’ll stay a cat until sunset. That’s the soonest I can shift back.”
He looked at his watch. “It’s an hour to sunset. What the hell am I going to do with a mountain lion?”
“Be dinner, if the steaks take too long to get here,” I deadpanned. And then giggled.
Eli shook his head, as if shaking away an insect or something he couldn’t control. “What do I do to help?”
I raised my good hand and gripped the gold nugget. In the distance I heard sirens. I frowned. “Did you take pics of the dead vamps?”
“You’re going into shock and you’re worried about pictures?”
“Money.” My lips weren’t moving right and felt numb. I licked them, and my tongue was dry, sticking to my lips and pulling on the cracked skin. Not good signs. “I have a family to support, you know.”
I thought about the snake in the heart of the mountain lion tooth. And dropped into the gray place of the change.
• • •
Painpainpain. Like claws of bigger predator, ripping at bones. I saw Eli back away from gray lights and black sparks, moving like prey. Looked down at Jane’s body. It was dissolving like snow in summer sun. Becoming Beast. Pelt and claws and killing teeth.
Magics healed and reshaped. Becoming Beast.
I panted. Pushed paws against floor, rising to sit. Pushed out of remaining Jane clothes. Drew long, thick tail around paws. I was cold, like winter snow and ice had caught me on hunt far from my den.