“I’m about to yak all over your shirt.”
Vampire reflexes got me to the side of the road instead, and then he crouched there, brushing my hair away from my sweaty cheeks as I made good on the first part of my threat. He sighed. “One day, you will say it to me again. You will be sober. And you will mean it.”
I was actually terrified that I already meant it. A guy just might be a keeper if he hears your cry for help in his head. And comes into a den of thieves to get you out. And then holds your hair while you throw up for ten minutes.
Then again, I was in no condition to judge. But that old saying kept rattling around in my head. “In vino veritas,” I whispered, faintly appalled.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I looked up at him as he pulled me back to my feet. “Let’s go home.”
HUNT
Rachel Vincent
The forest was singing, and its song was all mine. The others couldn’t hear it, with their human ears. They heard only the crackle-roar of the campfire and their own voices. Huddled in down jackets and sleeping bags, they thought they owned the world, by virtue of their ability to tame it, and that was an understandable mistake. But they’d never really seen the world. Not like I saw it.
*
Soon I’d have to go back to the campfire. To their idea of “roughing it” with battery-powered radios, canned food, and no-rinse bathing wipes, guaranteed to keep you fresh, even days into a showerless camping trip. Soon I’d have to put on my human skin and put away my feline instincts, so I could be Abby Wade, normal college sophomore. I could do that. I’d been hiding that part of my life for a year and a half, and my secret run was just a temporary reprieve from all things human.
Still, the next few moments were mine.
My paws snapped through twigs and sank into underbrush, pushing against the earth to propel me faster, higher. I was a streak of black against the night, darker than the forest, yet a part of it, as I hadn’t been in weeks. Small animals fled just ahead of my paws, scurrying through tangles of fallen leaves and branches. The scents of oak, birch, maple, and pine were familiar comforts, relaxing me even as they pushed me for more speed, greater distance. Thorns caught in my fur. Cold air burned in my nose and stroked the length of my body as I ran, like a caress from the universe itself.
I was welcome in the woods. I belonged there, at least for the next few minutes.
When I’d run fast and long enough to satisfy that initial need for exercise, I slowed to a gradual, soft stop, huffing from exertion. It was time to eat and replace the energy I’d burned during my Shift.
My ears swiveled on my head, pinpointing the sounds I needed to hear. Werecats can’t track by scent, like a dog, so we hunt with our ears and our eyes. On my run, I’d smelled mice and a couple of weasels, both of which stay active in the winter, but I was holding out for a rabbit, or even a beaver. No use wasting a deer with only me there to feed on it.
Something scuttled through the underbrush several yards to the southeast. Too fast and light to be a raccoon. Probably a mouse or a rat. Too much effort for too little meat.
I slowed my breathing and listened harder. From the north came a soft, rapid, swooshy heartbeat, but no movement. Whatever it was, it knew I was close and hungry. I turned my head and sniffed toward the north—I could pinpoint it with my ears, but would have to ID it with my nose. A rabbit. Perfect. Its fur wouldn’t be white yet—not in mid-October—but my cat’s eyes would still spot it. As soon as I flushed it out of hiding.
I pounced. The rabbit sprung from the underbrush and landed three feet away. I got a glimpse of brown and white fur, and then it was off again, racing through the woods and jumping over low shrubs and fallen logs.