Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Erik

If you’re going protect a woman by turning into a panther, killing a number of people, and then carrying the woman you protected up the side of a building in your jaws; this is a good location for it. The buildings are old which means I can climb up what might seem like a sheer wall but what’s really pretty easy to scale. I’m on the side of a six-story residence hotel, empty at the moment though occasionally home to squatters. It’s condemned and has been for years. Most of the block is condemned but when the time came to put in a bus depot, it went elsewhere.

That’s eminent domain for you, right?

I always wondered why they would call property taken with eminent domain condemned .

Damn it, I’m carrying a half-dressed girl in my mouth. I shouldn’t be thinking about stupid crap right now. Half-dressed. That’s not entirely true. A better way for me to put that is that she’s dressed too revealingly to safely walk in this area of the city at night. It’s the worst combination because it’s not obviously and overtly sexual like a streetwalker but it’s not demure at all. So, it appeals to a certain element who will see her as innocent but sexy.

Evil loves innocence.

If not for me happening by and then seeing her run, she wouldn’t be on her way to safety right now. As it is, I doubt she would think of what’s going on right now as safety. She’s not heavy at all but it’s a little awkward because if she starts to slip, I’ll have to tighten my jaws and I don’t want to be in a position where I have a split second to decide if her falling three or four stories is riskier than the chance I might crush her spine with my bite.

I get her up to the roof and that calms my worry a little. A lot actually. If she falls now, she falls a few feet to the roof. I can live with that. I carry her to the edge and leap to the next roof. The leaps are okay because the momentum keeps her in my mouth and I never leap more than twenty or thirty feet. I can’t just let loose but I’m not risking her life anymore. Not yet.

I move slowly for me but quickly for a human and get her from the top of one building to another. Finally, I see light and stop. I take her down to the edge of a well-lit filling station and set her gently on the asphalt parking lot. I pull back into the shadows of the alleyway. She’s been out for ten minutes or so, I think. She’s in the light, and that gives me a chance to look her over. She has a very slender form, tiny even. Not childlike tiny but almost wispy and slight. She’s actually quite beautiful. I didn’t notice that before. The situation demanded action and there was too much fear on her face.

Her little purse is a few feet from her body. I pick it up, retreat to the alley again and shift. It’s risky. I’ve gone from being an impossible panther to being a naked man. The panther is more shocking, of course, but the naked man is oddly more likely to draw attention. When people see the flash of a nude human, they notice regardless of how improbable the sight is. When people catch a passing glance at an impossibly large panther, their mind comes up with an alternative to what they saw. They convince themselves they didn’t see anything at all usually. I quickly open the purse. Rylee Dalton. Her driver’s license is from Indiana. She also has matches from a blues-rock bar downtown and a napkin from there as well. The napkin has some sort of a poem written on it. I put it all back, put the purse on the ground, and shift again.

And now I settle down and wait. I don’t want to abandon her when she’s still out. What good would it do to rescue her from one dangerous situation only to leave her open to another one? Of course, this is a much safer spot but still, a woman passed out is not safe anywhere.

I study her face, the delicate features. She is almost like a doll. I guess she’s a dancer of some sort. I’m probably wrong but she would make a good dancer. I picture her gliding gracefully over a stage. I’m in this reverie when she starts to shift around and wake up.

I debate briefly just taking off then, but I find that I want to be sure she’s going to be okay.Or maybe I just don’t want to let go of her yet.

Her eyes open slowly, and then she sits up with a start. “Wha ...?”

I step forward then. I want her to know that she’s not crazy, but that she’s safe now.

She struggles to her feet and stares at me, open-mouthed. I see her fear and I think of how big a mistake this is, but then she closes her mouth and nods and whispers, “Thank you ...I think.” She says this last bit as she looks around at her surroundings. I follow her line of sight as she focuses on a sign across the way. I see relief on her face. “Oh, okay, yes, thank you.”

She looks at me again and there is still fear on her face. I don’t know if it is just the fear of what she saw or if she’d directly afraid of me, if she thinks I might do her harm. I feel such an overwhelming urge to shift back to human in that moment and letting her see me, letting her make that connection that I’m a shifter. She seems accepting of my panther form, at least not completely repulsed. She’s just understandably frightened.

But I know better than to do that to her, no matter if she seems the type of girl who would understand.

I pause for a moment longer and then I turn and jump onto a ledge under a window of the building next door. I scale my way up to the rooftops again. Really, I know that this all sounds a bit like a scene from a superhero movie, but it’s not as campy or cartoonish. I like to think it’s very similar to watching a big cat in the jungle, full of grace and silence and shadow.

Okay, well, enough poetry for one night.

Poetry. I think of the bit of poetry I saw on the napkin from her purse, and I see her face clearly in my mind. I run faster along the rooftops and hold her image in front of me.Eventually, I get to the end and leap down into some brush that turns into a wooded area. I’m free from any obligation to be at the firehouse for the rest of the night, so I give myself a treat. I go hunting.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a hunt, and right now I’m feeling incredibly restless. I take a moment to take in the scents that are everywhere around me and separate one in particular. I start to follow it, enjoying the feel of the trees and the undergrowth and the soft sounds of the area at night.

I hear something in the tree ahead, crouch down and still myself. Panthers are excellent at the art of silent waiting. We are excellent hunters because of that particular skill. We can wait in silence patiently for as long as it takes to grab our prey. And yes, I realize that all can sound a bit ominous and threatening. Don’t be childish, though. I’m a panther right now. Panthers eat other animals. Apex predators and all that.

But my point right now is that I’m just explaining that we are very patient and known for being calm in the middle of chaos. I think that’s what makes us so suited to being in professions that are high stress. Right now, though, my mind is not staying very calm or focused. I keep replaying jumping into that alley. I’m trying to remember the look of amazement on her beautiful face before she faints. Actually, trying to remember her beautiful face, to remember that I saw it as beautiful there in the alley before I carried her to safety. I replay every move, rebuild every detail.

Shifting usually helps to calm my mind, but this time, even as I pursue my chosen prey, I can’t stop thinking about this girl.

So, I know that I’m just going to have to see Rylee Dalton again.