company of another.
But she wasn’t scared at all. She felt… safe.
This feeling for him was beyond attraction. It was a magnetic pull, as if every cell of her body was at his beck and call.
Odin seemed unaware of her longing. He stalked through the forest silently, his focus on the darkness ahead.
With her screen activated in night-vison mode, she could see the forest was more alive than she could have possibly imagined. To the naked eye, the forest seemed to be asleep. But on her display, glowing infrared dots lit the trees as if they were decorated for the Terran holidays.
But she was a long way from one of her family’s holiday parties. Even the smells of this forest were different from the woods back home. There was a deep, loamy scent and a crispness to the air that could only come in a climate as rich with water as Lachesis was.
She tried her best to move silently, but she obviously didn’t have Odin’s espionage skills. At first, she thought her ineptitude might trigger his temper. But he was so laser focused on what was ahead that he seemed unaware of her failings.
She wondered if he could already smell or hear something with his superior senses. But she didn’t dare ask him. It was bad enough to keep snapping branches and snagging her cloak. She didn’t have to start whispering too.
Without warning, he stopped in his tracks. She barely managed not to crash into him.
Together, they crept very slowly to the right until the screen on her hand flashed red.
She realized they were looking at the mouth of a cave. Because they had come at it from an angle, her infrared hadn’t been able to pick up anything inside until they reached the entry point.
But there was no mistaking it - something big was in there, along with something long and low.
They stepped a little closer and Odin ignited his laser sword, bathing the area in its cool blue light.
A deep rumble echoed through the cave.
Her eyes quickly adjusted to the new light source, and Liberty barely suppressed a scream.
Odin had mentioned big cats, but this creature was massive. Its smoky gray body took up nearly the entire cave. It stood over something protectively, its eight powerful legs obscuring whatever it hid. Huge ridges of muscle bristled under a pelt of velvety fur. Snarling lips revealed a mouthful of dagger-sharp teeth.
The snarl turned into an ear-splitting roar and an iridescent frill extended around its head, making it look even larger than before.
Behind them on the path, Keerah began her own low, throaty growl. Liberty held up a hand to stay her. The big, energetic tree-hound was no match for the creature in the cave.
She honestly wasn’t sure if any of them was, or even all of them together. She suddenly felt very silly about insisting on coming along without so much as a stick to shake at the thing. She was a liability. No wonder Odin was angry.
“Wh-what is that?” she managed.
“A jaguarootte,” Odin said, lifting his sword to a striking position. “Stay perfectly still.”
“But something is behind him,” Liberty whispered. “You don’t want to hurt the sheep.”
“It’s not a sheep,” Odin said.
“What is it?” she asked, lowering her screen and relying on the light from Odin’s sword. “Oh.”
On her display, the blob of infrared had made it look like something was lying behind the creature, but now that she could see it for herself, Liberty could tell that it wasn’t something long and low like she’d thought.
It was three very small somethings, sitting next to each other. The terrifying creature at the front of the cave wasn’t a he, it was a she. And she was a mother.
“She has babies,” Liberty whispered. “She didn’t hurt the sheep.”
“It’s a predator,” Odin said. “A predator whose hunting territory includes the farm. It’s going to be hungry soon, and need extra food to provide for these young. This creature is a threat, and it needs to be eliminated.”
“No,” Liberty said firmly, stepping between Odin and the big cat.
The jaguarootte let out a bloodcurdling yowl and hissed, her ears down flat and her frill popping up so fast it quivered.
Liberty fought back another scream, but stood her ground.
“You have to be kidding me,” Odin said. “Was there a chapter on befriending farm predators in your stupid book?”
“I don’t need a book to tell me the difference between right and wrong,” she said, turning and taking a step closer to the cat so as