He saw! He saw!
“No—don’t—!” he exclaimed, taking a step towards her, but she didn’t wait to hear the rest.
Kylie bounded off into the night, running as though the Devil, himself, was on her heels, dodging trees and brush and jumping over exposed roots with an almost preternatural grace even as her mind was in full-blown freak-out mode. She had shifted! Another shifter had seen her! How had this happened?
Like a mantra, those thoughts ran through her mind over and over as she raced through the dense forest with no destination in mind except away. She ran as fast as she could even though she couldn’t tell if he was following her, couldn’t tell if his scent was among the thousand different scents that she drew in as she panted. The assault of unknown smells almost overwhelmed her, fueled her fear and panic, and Kylie had no idea how to separate herself from it.
So she just ran until she could hear the hum of various vehicles zooming down what she hoped was the east highway out of Riverford and could see the faint flashes of their headlights through the trees as they drove past. By now, her breathing had become severely labored, and various muscles were beginning to scream with pain in places she was not used to.
She slowed down to a more manageable pace and turned west to run parallel to the road but still well hidden by the trees and the darkness. I have to get home! I have to call Paul!
Never mind that she had been attacked and abducted by what was probably a serial killer or that she had been seconds away from ripping out his throat. The only thing that mattered now, that could matter, was that she had shifted and had been seen by another shifter.
She had to get to Paul. He was the only chance she had now.
CHAPTER THREE
Kylie dashed across the highway and back into the cover of the forest, making it across before any more cars managed to come around the bend. The way her heart pounded within the chest of her new form felt utterly unfamiliar and scary, but she knew now was not the time to freak out about it. She had no way of knowing if she had managed to lose the black-haired man back there in the forest, or if he had even decided to give chase in the first place. She would have plenty of time to fall apart once she made it back to the relative safety of her apartment.
This area was thankfully familiar. The road was definitely the east highway out of Riverford. She moved through the trees as fast as her waning strength could sustain, heading north along the perimeter of the city towards a children’s neighborhood park that skated along the edges of the forest. It was only a few blocks from her apartment complex.
It was still the dead of night, so hopefully no one would be out to see the large jaguar moving through the shadows. Being shot by a frightened neighbor on top of everything else she had already endured that night would just be the rotten cherry on top of a sundae gone sour.
By the time she reached the park, Kylie’s entire body trembled with exhaustion. She was unable to even prevent her tongue from hanging out of her mouth as she panted. Her bones also ached in a strange way that made her feel as though she had injured them somehow and they were dangerously on the verge of shattering. Even so, she only paused long enough behind one of the trees along the edge to take in a few deep, wheezing breaths while her eyes swept the length of the park within her field of vision, looking for any signs of movement among all the swing sets, slides, and jungle gyms.
Only when she was satisfied that section of the park was empty did Kylie shoot out from the cover of the trees as though she had been fired from a cannon and raced across the grass to the street and the first apartment building to the right. Keeping to the shadows, she slunk along the building to an alleyway that she hoped would offer her more protection than moving through the residential streets.
As Kylie bounded down the alley, her once sharp vision began to blur, and she could no longer see the far end of the dark alley as clearly. Then something that felt like the worst muscle spasm she had ever had rolled across her entire body, starting from her shoulder to the tip of her tail, causing her to stumble and fall onto her belly just when she emerged from the alley into the street.
For one, panic-filled moment, Kylie couldn’t get up, all four limbs shaking as though she was starting to seize. Shit! Was she starting to shift back?
“Whoa! What the hell!” a young male voice suddenly yelped, causing Kylie to instinctually turn her head and snarl in the direction of the voice.
A surge of adrenaline shot through her veins, and Kylie was instantly back on all fours before she had even made the decision to move, crouching defensively as a pair of teenaged boys stood frozen along the curb of the street a mere five feet away. That same acrid scent she had smelled after she had attacked her abductor back in the forest filled the air, and it was then that Kylie understood what it was she smelled.
Fear. Pungent and sharp and exciting, it was not a sweet scent, or even a meaty, organic scent. The scent of fear did not even remotely resemble anything she had ever smelled as a human. The aroma was almost an emotion, one that the feline part of her understood very well.
It was then that the urge to lunge at the two boys nearly overwhelmed her, and only the small part of her that was still completely human, the part that realized the horror of what she was on the brink of doing, managed to turn her body just as she started to pounce on the nearest boy who had suddenly become prey and sprang off in the opposite direction instead. With her own fear and disgust spurring her on, Kylie ran down the street with a renewed vigor, her control hanging by a thread.
She had to get home. She had to get home before she accidentally ran into someone else because she wasn’t so sure she would have the strength of mind to run away a second time. That fear drove her down street after street at a speed she should not have been capable of as exhausted as she was, a large shadow just a bit lighter than the surrounding night that could very easily be mistaken for a large dog to anyone who may have caught a glimpse of her.
At the first sight of her apartment building, Kylie couldn’t help the whine of relief that burst out from deep within her throat. Her vision was already losing its feline acuity, and the strange spasms of before were once again spreading across her body. She made it a few feet across the parking lot before her body simply collapsed mid-lope. She fell onto her side, and her body began to violently seize, causing her to accidentally bite down hard on her lolling tongue. The salty, coppery taste of blood filled her mouth as she felt various parts of her body tighten, then stretch until she felt as though her muscles were about to tear.
Kylie opened her mouth to roar, but a very human cry of pain shattered the silence instead. Startled, she opened tear-filled eyes and saw her once again human hand, her fingers stained dark, lying on the asphalt near her face. She shuddered, with both the chill of the night air and the lingering spasms that still rocked her body and drew in an equally shaky breath. However, when she tried to lift her head, a wave of utter exhaustion washed through her body so powerfully, so heavy, that for a few terrifying moments, it was almost too much effort to breathe.
Fighting off panic, Kylie forced herself to relax completely and concentrate on merely breathing, trying not to think of the utter mortification she would feel if she passed out right then and there and someone stumbled upon her naked, unconscious body in the morning. However, instead of going away, her exhaustion only seemed to be getting worse and her eyelids heavier, and Kylie realized being found naked was exactly what was about to happen if she didn’t somehow manage to drag her butt over to her parking space where she prayed to everything holy her car, and more importantly her backpack with her key to the apartment, would be. She still only had vague memories of her head being bashed against the doorframe of her car, but she wasn’t altogether sure it had happened here in this parking lot.
She gritted her teeth and forced herself to roll over onto her stomach. Then drawing a deep, steadying breath, she managed to climb onto her knees even though it felt as if someone had dropped a hundred pound weight onto h
er back. How ironic that she was now forced to move on all fours while in her human form.
It was slow going, but Kylie finally made it to the end of the lot without incident and literally felt tears well up in her eyes when she saw her little black sedan parked next to her neighbors’ SUV. At least now she knew where she had been attacked.
Thoughts of her attacker, of the pain of the rope cutting deeply into her flesh suddenly flooded her mind, and Kylie viciously cut off that line of thinking. She couldn’t handle any of that right now. She would fall apart, and she could not allow that to happen again, especially out in the open like this. Losing it had already caused her to involuntarily shift. What if it happened again and some of her neighbors happened to stumble on her?
Maybe the universe finally decided to take pity on her because as Kylie dragged herself between the two vehicles, her eyes immediately caught sight of her keys just a little ways beneath her car. She had been afraid that they had been lost somewhere in the trunk from hell she had awakened in, and seeing them there lifted just a little bit of the enormous weight on her back, enough that she was able to force herself upright onto her knees on the first try.
Please let it be there…
Kylie tugged on the handle of the rear driver’s side door and found it unlocked. On the floorboard was the item she sought. Leaning farther into the car, she grabbed her backpack and unzipped the small pouch in the front. Pulling out her cell phone was like finding the prize after running a marathon.
She could finally call Paul. He would know what to do.
Her windows were tinted pretty dark. It would probably be okay for her to hunker down in the backseat of her car for the twenty or thirty minutes it would take him to drive to her apartment because she really didn’t think she had the strength to make it to her door, even though her apartment was on the first floor.
Using the last dregs of her strength, she thrust herself onto the backseat in a sort of dive, pulling the door closed after she had wiggled around and was situated. Just that simple exertion caused her head to swim and her breathing to become as labored as though she had been running for hours. Her energy reserves were nearly completely depleted. How long before her body just said “screw it” and just shut down? Skipping dinner today was seriously coming back to bite her in the ass.
Kylie took a couple of deep, calming breaths and quickly turned her phone on to call Paul. After the fourth ring, a bit of panic began to surface. Had he forgotten his cell phone in his office again? Like her, he did not have a landline, his reasoning being that he was seldom home. If she managed to survive this horrendous night, then maybe they should both rethink the matter.
On the fifth ring, the phone went to his voice mail, and Kylie hung up with a curse. Leaving him a message was absolutely out of the question. She slowly turned towards the apartment building with a look of despair. She wasn’t sure she could make it to the building, much less her apartment. She looked down at her phone. Did she dare call one of her friends? But—how in the hell would she even begin to explain what she was doing sitting in her backseat naked and seconds away from passing out.
No. No one except Paul could know anything had happened to her at all. It was too dangerous. It was also too dangerous to stay in the car. If she passed out and someone found her before she managed to get a hold of Paul…
Her phone’s ringtone suddenly went off, nearly scaring her half to death, the sudden adrenaline surge making her chest constrict painfully. For a couple of seconds, Kylie had to fight off the blackness that had begun to enter the edges of her vision before she was able to clumsily tap the “talk” button on her phone and bring it up to her ear. For a split-second, she had a momentary panic when she realized that she had answered before checking to see who was calling, but then a familiar deep voice said her name anxiously, and relief like she had never felt washed through her like a balm.
“Paul…” she said, her voice cracking as she very nearly lost her hard-fought battle against her threatening tears.
“What happened? Are you hurt?” Paul demanded, fear making his voice sound deeper than normal.
“I can’t—can you please come to my apartment?” Kylie pleaded, hating how young and pathetic she sounded. Now was not the time to fall apart, dammit! “Too much has happened. Just please come.”
“Kylie…” Paul replied, sounding anguished. “I’m not in Riverford. I’m in Dallas for the conference, remember?”
Her heart instantly sank. She had forgotten. Kylie glanced at the clock on her phone. Ten after five. It was much later in the morning than she had thought. Even by plane, he was at least a little over an hour away. It would take a miracle for him to reach her in less than two, and by then, probably three-fourths of her apartment complex would be heading to the parking lot for work or school. There was no way she wouldn’t be seen before Paul could get to her.
“Paul—I shifted,” Kylie told him urgently.
She could practically hear his shock in the sudden silence on the other end. “Did someone see you?” he demanded, the fear even more blatant in his tone.
“Yes,” she admitted in a small voice.
“Another shifter or a human?”
“Both.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m in my car in the parking lot of my apartment building.”
“Why are you still—no there’s no time. Listen to me, Kylie. Get inside your apartment, and turn your phone off. Don’t call anyone. Don’t answer the door unless you hear me say the secret word. I would tell you to destroy your phone, but not having one would be worse. I’ll be there as soon as humanly possible.”
Kylie glanced out the window and zeroed in on the faraway door of her apartment that was, at the most, the length of a football field away but might as well have been miles. Why oh why did she have to live in a complex where the parking was all the way in the back for everyone? Nevertheless—there were no if ands or buts about it. She would just have to make it on her own. Paul was on his way. She would have to draw strength from that thought alone.
“I’ll be waiting,” she said with as much determination as she could muster before hanging up immediately, sure she would start crying if she heard his voice again.
There was no use adding to his worries just yet. Kylie had a feeling everything would come crashing down soon enough.
Kylie wasn’t sure how, but after at least thirty minutes of alternating between short spurts of dragging herself and pausing to fight off the darkness that was threatening to overwhelm her mind, the door to her apartment was finally before her. She let out a sound that was half-sob, half-laugh. For one terrifying moment, she had very nearly teetered over the knife-thin ledge she had been moving along into unconsciousness halfway there, but by some miracle, she had managed to hold onto consciousness by the skin of her teeth.
The level of exhaustion that she was currently feeling was unlike anything she had ever experienced. She was sure that she had just scraped her knees and elbows raw, but she was so tired that the only thing she could feel was a bone-deep numbness. By sheer force of will, Kylie forced herself to her knees and leaned against the door as she struggled to slide the key into the lock.
After what felt like an eternity of fumbling, she finally managed to get the door open and promptly fell across the threshold with a weak grunt as she landed face-first onto the carpet of her living room. The world was quickly fading fast, but Kylie shook her head in an effort to clear the haziness that had started to creep in and struggled to pull herself the rest of the way inside.
Her hand moved on autopilot to close the door, and her last thought before her mind lost the battle with consciousness was that she hadn’t locked the door.
CHAPTER FOUR
Loud pounding sounded right next to her ear, and Kylie’s eyes flew open, her heart practically tearing out of her chest. It took a couple of seconds before the room blurred into focus, and with some confusion, she realized that she was lying down on the carpet ne
ar the front door.
What in the—
A series of rapid, loud raps on the front door made her jump a second time, and Kylie scrambled onto her knees, nearly face-planting on the floor when the world suddenly did a one-eighty. She squeezed her eyes closed with a groan and grabbed her head between her hands, the unexpected vertigo making her feel queasy. It was then, her head bent down as she slowly opened her eyes again, that she noticed that she didn’t have a stitch on.
“Shit!” Kylie cried as she scrambled unsteadily onto her feet, memories of last night’s horrors finally beginning to rise out of the confusion of her still sleep-fogged mind.
That was probably Paul at the door!
Kylie started to turn, intent on going to her bedroom to throw on some clothes, when she froze. No—it couldn’t be Paul. She hadn’t heard him say it. The secret word.
She only had time to take an alarmed step back before the knob started to turn. Shit! The door wasn’t locked!
Kylie dashed forward and slammed both hands against the door as hard as she could just as it started to open. However, the door was pushed heavily from the other side, and whoever was standing there managed to wedge a white-sneakered foot into the crack that had momentarily opened. With a cry of terror, she shoved at the door with all her might, but it was as though she was trying to move a brick wall for all the door budged.
“I just want to talk,” a vaguely familiar male voice said, sounding much too calm given the battle of force they were engaged in.
“You have the wrong apartment,” Kylie said through gritted teeth. She was still feeling incredibly weak from her ordeal last night and could feel that she was just seconds away from losing the battle.
The guy snorted. “We both know that isn’t true,” he said, sounding rather matter-of-fact. “I can smell you.”
Tempted by the Jaguar #1: Transformation (Riverford Shifters) Page 2
