Hayyel was bright and fast and flew like helobird, but without humans in his belly. Hayyel had offered Beast freedom. Had offered Beast new life. Beast had refused. Did not want to leave Jane. Overhead, big helobird flew away.
Drew in night air. Cool. Clean. Delicate nostril membranes fluttered. Many new smells, some with value, some without. Unimportant: smell of flowers, spiky plants, hot earth, small creatures cowering in rocks, small snakes and big snakes. Rattlers. Dangerous hunters, stupid hunters. Would strike even at Beast, who was too big for them to eat.
Foul smells were distant: gasoline, rubber, hot road, oil on road. Men were not many here. Ridge of land, not far away, looked out over empty-of-man world. On ridge, Beast could see/smell/hear farfarfar. Beast would walk to ridge, take in new world. Maybe look for brothers who hunt together. Beast needed new mate. Strong mate would be good. Strong, smart mate would be better. Even better still, to have two of them.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Man Who Killed Me
I woke with my head on my boots, my body veiled by my hair. A spider perched only inches away, a big black hairy thing thrown into monster-sized silhouette by a dark gray dawn. It skittered way, shrinking to palm sized, as I pushed to my hands and knees and then to my feet. I threw back my hair and studied the situation. The car I'd been driving when forced off the road, then crashed, then been shot in, was canted at an angle, the engine silent. I could smell the road nearby, an overlay of exhaust placing it to my right.
Overhead, a hawk flew, black against the dark sky. It called, greeting the day with a piercing cry. I was muzzy-headed. And shivering. And hungry. Confused. Yeah. Confused. But I knew that it was too early for most species of hawk to hunt. Something had disturbed it.
My clothes were in a pile at my feet, which was weird, because I'd been in the car, and no way had I made it here before shifting into big-cat. I'd been too close to death. Beast had forced a shift when I couldn't, but I didn't remember anything after that, which wasn't normal. Even in the worst of shifts, when I was on the brink of death and only a shift into another form brought healing, I always, eventually, found myself inside Beast's body, along for the ride, just as Beast was along for the ride when I was in human shape.
I always remembered at least something of my time in fur. I didn't remember anything this time. Yet I was alive. I bent and found my panties and bra and pulled them on, making a face at the dried blood. I pulled on the ruined pants and stuck my fingers through the hole in the shirt. Two fingers. One hole. Yeah. It had been a big-assed gun. I found the new scar under my left arm and between my ribs, which corresponded to the hole in the shirt, and tried to figure what had been hit to make me bleed out so fast. And then I found the other scar on the right side, a little lower. The bullet had blown straight through me at an angle, probably taking out a kidney, maybe the bottom tip of my lung, and the top of my liver on the right. Bowel for sure. But kidney and liver were the likely kill spots; both organs had juicy blood supplies. I had an indentation on the right side big enough to put two knuckles in, so a big chunk of tissue had been taken out. I'd have to shift several times to smooth that out, and like the other, older kill shot on my upper chest, it might never go away completely. The old scar seemed to be permanent, I figured, because I had only shifted the one time, before I wandered out of the woods to be found by humans, and I had stayed in human form for years. These days, I shift often enough that most of the lethal wounds disappear. Most. Eventually. Even the scars on my neck from several near beheadings. Vamp hunting is dangerous business. My stomach cramped with hunger. I needed to eat. Soon.
Headlights lit up the road in the distance and I hurriedly finished dressing, shoving the empty gun into my waistband, holstering the others, and pulling the boots on over my bare feet. My socks were nowhere to be found.