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“What happened?” I gasped out as I broke into their cluster. Pebbles were still tumbling down the staircase behind me, but I didn’t actually remember working my way through the intervening space. Somehow, though, I’d ended up at the bottom while Liam was still nearly at the top. Meanwhile, the roar of the waterfall must have muffled the clatter of my approach because Tank and Crow responded as if I was an enemy, leaping to their feet and arraying themselves protectively between Kira and myself.
Allen, on the other hand, remained seated, cradling the teen’s sweat-sodden head in his lap. “She collapsed,” he said simply, recognizing me before the others did. Then he scooted sideways and let me take over his position, Kira’s limbs flopping doll-like as she was transferred from his embrace to my own.
“No wonder. She’s starving and thirsty,” I explained aloud, trying not to berate myself for dragging a thirteen-year-old along on a journey that would have stressed a full-grown human. But even while latching onto a rational explanation, I knew there was likely more to it. Because Kira’s stamina, until this summer, had been better than that of a marathon-running horse.
“Here.” A bottle of water pressed into my left shoulder blade, one of the shifters having come prepared for a thirsty and comatose kid. But I lost track of both bottle and companions as my sister’s eyelids fluttered open, the dark orbs below watery with unshed tears.
“Mai?” she whispered, trying and failing to sit up under her own volition. “Ow,” she mouthed as she gave up on the motion, falling back against my knee while cradling her own head.
Then two shifters were leveraging her halfway vertical, a third was unscrewing the cap and tilting water between her barely parted lips. The liquid seemed to do the trick, too, because Kira’s breath started coming a bit easier, the sweat I wiped away from her forehead failing to immediately reform beneath my hovering hand.
“Do you guys have a granola bar? Some beef jerky? Crackers?” I couldn’t quite understand why Allen, Tank, and Crow averted their eyes at this question, so I continued listing what I considered readily available snack food. “Cereal would work also. Or a sandwich. It’s been almost a day since Kira ate last.”
“You’re starving too,” my sister murmured, her eyes squinting as if the dusky light of evening was instead the glaring sun of midday. In fact, her words weren’t even audible over the roar of the waterfall—I was forced to read the rebuttal in the motion of her lips.
“I’m fine,” I promised, placing both of my hands on my sister’s shoulders, barely finding a spot around Allen and Tank’s supporting fingers and arms. “Well?” I asked again, meeting the eyes of each male, one after the other.
They were silent for one long second. Then: “We don’t bring food to the gathering,” Allen explained. “We hunt as a pack....”
“You can’t go on a solo hunt even when there’s a sick child who recently fainted due to hunger?” I raised both eyebrows, unable to believe that we’d need Ransom’s say-so before giving my sister food.
The guys’ lack of answer served as confirmation and I wanted to shake them. But I didn’t have to kowtow to the Atwood pack leader. Better to solve my problem than to vent my spleen.
So, gently releasing Kira, I rose to my feet and turned back toward the forest. “If anyone wants to help me, I’m going to find food for my sister. If not, I hope you’ll at least keep her safe while I hunt.”
***
LIAM WAS THE ONLY SHIFTER who offered to join me, and even he was more trouble than he was worth. Oh, the male willingly dropped his shorts at the cliff top and shifted into fur form just as I did. But every time I thought I was close enough to pounce upon a critter, the blundering werewolf scared my prey into flight.
“What are you doing?” I demanded half an hour later, curling into my human body after a particularly plump squirrel had scrambled away up a tree trunk to escape our approach. I’d lapped up a couple of sips of water at a stream we’d run alongside a few minutes earlier, but I still felt like I could have drunken an ocean and swallowed a whale without stopping. That measly squirrel had looked pretty darn good to me.
Apparently not to my companion. “You want to eat a rodent?” Liam asked, joining me on two feet and standing just a hair too close for comfort. I’d become accustomed to the lupine disregard for personal space while spending time around Gunner and his pack mates, but I was still a little squeamish about having a near stranger—and werewolf—inches away from my unprotected neck.
And perhaps that discomfort is why my words came out sharper than I’d intended. “I want to find something edible for my sister,” I bit out, magic sparkling around my fingertips as my star ball responded to my adrenaline-fueled reaction. Then I sighed, expecting Liam to retreat at this evidence of my kitsune nature.
But, instead, he merely cocked his head and apologized. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Which way should we go next?”
Liam sounded so much like his twin in that moment that I couldn’t hold onto my anger. Instead, I offered an apologetic smile of my own before turning away, scanning our surroundings in search of something small enough to capture with vulpine jaws.
Fresh deer scat peppered the leaf litter beside me, but I dismissed the evidence of an animal far too large for my fur form to bring down unaided. The sulfurous stink of stagnant water from the south, on the other hand, suggested a pond might be within easy walking distance. The evening was nearly dark already...surely birds would now be roosting for the night?
They must be called sitting ducks for a reason, I decided, hunger making my mouth start to fill with digestive juices. Sleepy waterfowl should be well within my abilities, even though I’d apparently wasted my childhood becoming an expert at swordplay rather than learning how to hunt.
“Let’s head....” I started, then spun as a strangled yelp emerged from the spot where I’d last seen Liam.
Where Liam still was...only in wolf form instead of on two legs. He wasn’t the sole wolf present, however. Instead, another beast had joined us while I was gazing in the opposite direction. Had joined us...and leapt upon Liam as if intent upon tearing out my companion’s throat.