Other claws sank into bark and wood. Opened mouth. Bit into back of coat. Knocked things on top of Lego.
Medical supplies, I thought. He was trying to treat himself.
Littermate heart is stopping, Beast thought, grief racking through us both. Littermate is becoming meat.
No. I need two hands.
Beast thought for a moment. Cannot stand on two paws on tree.
Okay. We need to let him down. Not drop him. He’d break a bone and then he’d be dead fast.
Is better than being dead slow.
No. We still have three paws. Can we hold him in one hand and teeth and climb down the tree?
Am not jaguar or leopard. Jaguar or leopard can walk down tree with dead prey better than Beast. Puma concolor can climb with dead prey. Can drop dead prey. Cannot walk to ground with dead prey. Call new/old littermate?
I remembered the smell of big-cat in the snow. I hadn’t wanted to accept it, but I had known the truth of what Beast was saying now. Ayatas FireWind had been on the vineyard grounds. He might still be here, somewhere. Maybe close enough to hear if I screamed for help. He would know the call of a puma. He would know it was me. But the chances that he was close by were small. I hadn’t smelled him, not anywhere on my trek.
To save Eli, I was going to have to shift into half-form, on this branch, without falling, without dropping Eli, and toss him over my naked shoulder and carry him to the ground. Yeah. That worked. I backed slowly, pawpawpaw, pulling Eli into place on the branch. Precarious but stable for now. His heart was racing, too fast. Stuttering.
Beast, I thought. Half-form. With retractable claws on all four paw-feet and a full puma face. And fast.
Beast thought a moment. Jane will hurt.
Kinda figured that. Hurry.
Jane will hurt like prey in fangs of sabertooth lion.
I reached around the branch and sank my claws in. Go. And she was right. It was bad.
CHAPTER 13
My Blood to Your Blood. Your Heart to My Heart.
When the pain eased and the shift was over, my snout was fully mountain lion. My arms were some funky form of puma/human and fully pelted. I still had my fangs in Eli’s jacket and was holding on with both hands under his arms. There was a lot of blood and he stank of near death. If he hadn’t had access to vamp blood in New Orleans, he’d be dead now already. I gripped the bark with my retractable back claws, let go his jacket. Pulled him up over my shoulder as I sat up. Straddled the branch, getting snow and bark in places I’d be sorry for later.
With Eli over my shoulder and his blood dripping down my spine and through my pelt, I scooted to the trunk of the tree. Sinking my claws in, I pulled myself to a standing position. I was breathing heavily by the time I managed it. We were twenty feet up. At least. I gripped the tree, four-footed support, arms around it, bare boobs scraping on the bark. And I began the torturous descent. I was cursing steadily through Beast lips by the time I reached the ground. Relief swept through me like boiling oil, and I broke out in a sweat. I stumbled drunkenly through the snow, overbalanced by my partner, bark rash up my belly to my neck and all along the inside of my thighs. I opened the back hatch of his SUV and lay him gently on the floor space, shoving weapons and Eli stuff out of the way.
Over the sound of my own breathing I heard a heartbeat. It was fast and irregular.
I raced back to the tree and gathered up the medical supplies and slung the bow over my shoulder. I evaluated Legolas as I raced past. He had two arrows in him, the silver points buried in his chest. Silver was a deadly poison in vamp blood unless he was überpowerful or his master was handy. Not him. I sprinted on to Vampire Two and found him with a carbon fiber and ash wood arrow lower down, in his belly, the silver tip all the way through and out the back, the wound paralyzing but no longer poisoning, keeping him in a type of stasis the same way a stake would. “You’ll do.” I shoved the arrow deeper and grabbed his left arm. I ducked and drew him over my shoulder,