The fangs broke through beside me. Took my bleeding wrist between them, fangs clasping and meeting on the other side. Occam. Occam had saved me. His sleek spotted body, as supple and graceful on the water as on land, bumped my side as he swam me to shore while I coughed and gagged and spat. When we were knee-deep he let me go and splashed back into the water and under. Where the egg was.
Something long and quick swirled through the water and grabbed for me. I spun in the shallows and scratched it, my fingernails catching it on the . . . face? Its blood boiled into the water and over my hand. Blue blood. Heated. Bubbling. Metallic and sour. It felt wrong on my hand. Wrong under my nails. Wrong, wrong, so very wrong.
But it was blood. Bloodlust gripped me. I reached out and the blood spewed over my hand and I . . . I fed it to the water. Drained it. Knew it. Salamander. Flaming being. Very nearly immortal. Fishy. Scalding. I killed it. Broke it into its composite parts. The cells floated away. Disintegrated. Others of its kind were caught in the bloodlust. I pulled them apart and broke them down, taking as many of them as I could. The rest of the tadpoles took off for deeper water, leaving us safe. The water cooled.
I pulled away and back to the shore.
Occam’s head emerged from the water, his nostril flaps opening and blowing, breathing and closing, and dipping back underwater. Shock zinged through me, followed by relief so intense it made me shiver. He hadn’t noted my killing the salamander tadpoles. My bloodlust had bypassed him. He was batting the egg across the bottom to the sandy beach. I crawled on my hands and feet out of the water and far up the bank against the rock wall. I threw up again, losing all the water I had swallowed. Heaving, losing everything I had eaten in the last hours. Dry heaving when that was gone.
Exhausted, I rolled over and sat where I could see the water. Now heaving breaths. Nothing had ever felt so good. Air. Blessed air. Pea curled up beside me and made worried moans.
I had thought I didn’t need Occam—a man—to do this thing for me—a woman. I needed to listen more and not let my preconceived notions make me do something stupid. I lay on the sand in the sun and breathed.
I was still holding my gun. Guns aren’t designed to shoot in water. Normal bullets aren’t fabricated to fly true through water. Useless underwater except for the one shot, which I had somehow missed. I pulled the holster to me, around my waist. I needed to service it, give it a good cleaning and oiling. I holstered the Glock. Bloody water squirted out of the hard plastic holster. I was bleeding freely from so many places I didn’t know what to put pressure on. And I didn’t care. I breathed. Just breathed.
Occam came out of the water, pawing the egg before him, up onto his clothes, his pants and jacket and shirt that were scattered in a small area. They appeared to be in ruins. Occam had shifted. Faster than I thought possible. That had to have been an agony.
He had tried to stop me. In the way of cats, he had scented danger on the air. He had saved me when the things—the young salamanders—had taken me under. Had tried to drown me. Occam had saved me. Tears spilled down my cheeks.
The spotted leopard trotted across the sand, dripping, splashing, padding, paw to paw, a sleek, killing machine. He fell at my side and dropped his huge head on my lap. Chuffed. His golden eyes met mine. He squirmed his jaw over my thigh, back and forth, scent-marking me. It wasn’t the first time he had done so. And Pea didn’t seem to care. She rolled over and turned her belly to the sun, closing her eyes.
I lifted a hand that now felt as if it weighed a ton. Placed it on his head. His wet hair was silky smooth. My blood flowed over his pelt. He sniffed. Growled. He sat up and held my eyes with his golden ones. Growled again. “I know. I’m still bleedin’,” I said. “Not having werecat healing abilities, there’s not much I can do about it.”
Occam looked surprised, tilted his head, pushed to his feet, and pawed down the shore and around a huge rounded, pitted rock that appeared to have fallen there long ago. He disappeared. “You better not shift and walk back here all nekkid,” I said. And smiled at the image of Occam, the way I imagined he would look, human and naked, stalking along the beach.
He chuffed from around the rocks. And trotted back to me, half carrying, half dragging a small green plant in his fangs. It was an evergreen, with leaves, roots, and all, pulled alive from the ground. It looked like a boxwood shrub, yanked from the dirt, but it wasn’t. I didn’t know what it was. A waterweed or rock-face weed of some kind.
Occam padded up to me and extended his claws, digging in the soft sand until he had scooped out a hole several inches deep. Water rose in the hole, but he shoved the roots in and then pushed the sand back over it. He looked at me and chuffed, saying clear as English, Draw from the land. From this little tree. Heal.
“You’re a smart kitty cat.” I reached to the small plant and placed my hands on the leaves. Dropped into the earth. And into Soulwood. Not that far away. I closed my eyes. Laid my head back. And felt pain I hadn’t consciously noted flow out of me. I dropped deeper into the earth. And breathed. Just breathed.
When I opened my eyes, the sun had moved and I was in shadow. No. Not the sun. The little shrub was a tall tree, maybe fifteen feet high. There were other trees and water plants growing all over the beach, which had been bare of greenery only moments before. I inspected my arms and ankles and bare feet. My abdomen. I was healed. I was also growing leaves from my fingertips and my toes. I reached up and felt leaves and twisty little vines, like grapevines, growing from my hairline all around.
“I didn’t know if I should trim you or let you grow,” Occam said wryly. I looked around at the voice. He was sitting on a rock, in the shade of a lower branch of the sapling, dry, dressed in ripped clothing.
“I grow leaves and vines now, when I . . .” I made a small flapping motion with my hand. Noticed my fingers were brown and wrinkled like the bark of a young tree. The leaves trailing from my fingers swirled with my motion. I sighed softly. “Oh dear.”
“So I see. Your hair grew out about six inches, Nell, sugar. It’s brighter, like the heart of a cedar tree.” His voice dropped, a caressing sound. “Your skin is still soft and smooth, but the color of bark. With my cat nose, your leaves smell of lavender and cedar and just a hint of eucalyptus, but also, just before I shifted to human, the scent was threaded through with catnip. My cat wanted to roll around in the leaves, the way he might if you were catnip.” There was a laugh in his voice. He sounded happy. I met his gaze, which had gone catty golden again. “And your eyes . . .” His voice trailed away. “Oh, Nell, sugar. Your eyes are emerald and tigereye and just a little blue fire. You are, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”