Shifter Planet

by D. B. Reynolds

  She glanced over at Rhodry. He didn’t seem to have stirred while she was gone, though he seemed more peaceful than before, his face less creased with pain. Once again, she thought how much easier it would be if he’d wake up and take animal form like a sensible shifter. She was increasingly worried that he couldn’t, that his injuries went beyond what she could see.

  What would happen to a shifter who couldn’t shift? She had a feeling there was only one answer to that, and it went counter to all of her efforts to save him.

  “How about some dinner?” she asked, talking to him as she’d done all through the night. “I found some goldbud and stickberries. They’ll help your head too, I think. And there’s a rabbit roasting on the fire outside. You should be able to smell it soon.” She was working as she talked, breaking up the deadwood into pieces she could use, cutting into the bark with her knife so the wood would burn more efficiently.

  “The snow’s a little lighter today, although it looks like there’s more weather coming in. Maybe tonight. I can smell it on the air. Not that I mind so much. If we’re snowed in, so is everyone else, including whoever did this to you, and I’d really rather have you on your feet before anyone finds us.

  “By the way, I’d like to take credit for finding this perfect shelter. Honestly, though, it was dumb luck. When I dragged us in here this morning, it could have been an ice bear den, and I wouldn’t have known the difference. You probably know all about snow survival, don’t you? Coming from the mountains and all. I’ve never been to your mountains. Too busy getting ready for all of this. Someday, I’ll get there.”

  She struck a match and blew the small flame into a fire. The wood was dry, and it caught quickly. She settled her snow-filled canteen into the flames, topping it off as the snow melted in what by now was a well-practiced routine. When the water was hot enough, she dropped some of the herbs and berries she’d found into the cup, covered them with water and set it aside to steep.

  As predicted, the scent of roasting rabbit soon drifted in from outside and combined with the fragrant goldbud in the tea to fill the small space. It was surprisingly soothing, and Amanda found herself smiling as she ducked back outside to begin the unfamiliar task of constructing a pair of snowshoes.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Rhodry woke all at once, his brain suddenly alight with the knowledge that something was badly wrong. His body felt like he’d been run through a thresher, his head was throbbing, and he was weak as a kitten. Memories flashed rapid-fire. He’d been ambushed. Betrayed by shifters, by his own cousin. He’d fought back, and he’d been… He felt someone move against him and he froze. What the hell?

  He inhaled, drawing in the familiar scents of the forest, along with another scent, this one known, and far less familiar. He cracked his eyes open slowly to the dim glow of a tiny banked fire, and saw Amanda fast asleep right next to him. She’d saved his life. He remembered now.

  She stirred again, curling her legs up, her butt pushing against his thigh suggestively, tensing his body in a way that it could not follow through on, even if they hadn’t been wound up together in some sort of… Where the hell were they?

  He closed his eyes again and concentrated, letting his senses roam, hearing the soft drip of melting snow, the scratch of a squirrel’s feet along a branch far overhead, the rush of wind through the trees. Closer in, there was the snuffle of a vole poking through some bushes, dry and crackling.

  The smell of blood was strong, his own and, fainter, definitely there, hers as well. She’d been injured badly enough to draw blood, and like his own wounds it was at least a day old. Maybe more. Beneath the smell of blood was the musk of the vole he’d heard rooting nearby, the slightly dusty smell of dirt and old brush, and the fresh, welcome scent of new snow. A thicket of some sort, then. Sensible woman, she’d found a dry place to shelter them from the weather.

  And knowing that, he realized they were in a sleeping bag. Hers, of course. She’d have needed one for the Guild trial, having no fur of her own, although he didn’t remember seeing it. Her head was very close to his, her breath light and steady with sleep. As injured as he was, he knew it must have taken a tremendous effort on her part to get them to this safe place. What was it Fionn had said about her? That she was remarkable.

  He lifted his head slightly, bending his neck to see her, his shifter eyes dilating to see in the near dark as he looked down the long line of her body, lying so close to him beneath the thin covering. A sharp stab of pain threatened to send him under once again, and he let his head fall back, closing his eyes.

  “You should lie still,” she said. Her voice was heavy with sleep and beneath that an uneasiness, maybe embarrassment. They were lying as close as lovers, and yet they barely knew one another. Survival demanded practicality sometimes. She stiffened minutely so that their bodies were no longer touching with such intimacy, and he heard the rip of a zipper being undone. She rolled away and sat up, placing a cool hand to his forehead in the darkness.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Alive,” he croaked, then coughed, surprised by the roughness of his voice. She put a canteen to his mouth, and he drank gratefully. The water was cool and soothing. “Thank you.” He sounded pitifully weak to his own ears and he frowned. “How long have we been here?”

  She didn’t answer right away, focused instead on stoking the fire. He caught the scent of cooked rabbit and his nostrils flared with hunger. The flames jumped, then steadied, and she glanced over her shoulder.

  “We’ve been here,” she gestured at the cave-like enclosure, “for most of a day. It must be nearly midnight by now, and we crawled in a few hours after dawn this morning. If you’re asking how long since you were attacked, I’m not sure. I found you soon after, I think. You weren’t dead yet.” She slanted a quick grin at him, then sobered to add, “The hycats were circling. It took me most of the night to patch you up and get us this far.”

  “I remember the cats. How did you get rid of them? They don’t usually—”

  She turned completely and gave him an expectant look. He stared back at her.

  “You killed them,” he said, not quite believing. “All of them?”

  “I let the youngster run home. The three adults… I thought it unlikely they’d be willing to let you go otherwise.”

  “You really did save my life.”

  “Ouch, huh?” He could hear the smile in her voice, though she’d turned back to her fire, and he couldn’t see her face. “What hurts worse, the bump on your head or admitting that to me?”

  “A difficult choice,” he admitted grimly.

  She laughed, a carefree sound that was incongruous with their circumstances. “I bet,” she said. “I roasted a rabbit earlier, and I made a sort of tea with goldbud and stickberries. You drank some of that already. If you’re up to it, you should eat some of the rabbit. Your body needs more than tea if it’s going to get better. Speaking of which, I’d like to check your wounds before we do anything else,” she added.

  When he didn’t say anything, she gave him a quizzical look. “Do you mind?”

  Amanda met Rhodry’s gaze, his eyes shining like hot, melting gold in the firelight.

  “It’s a bit late for modesty, I imagine,” he said drily.

  She stared, unable to look away. “You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen,” she said, and felt her face flush. What an idiot. “Sorry, it just struck me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen eyes like yours, not even on another shifter.”

  “They run in my mother’s family.”

  She muttered a wordless acknowledgment, suddenly embarrassed, and scooted over to his side, thinking it was far safer to consider him a patient than a handsome man with beautiful eyes. She gave him a single warning glance, then flipped the covers back and began lifting his shirt up over the many bandages. He hissed, whether in surprise or pain, she didn’t know. “I’m sorry. You were cut up pretty badly. I had to put a few stitches in.”

  He looked
down at his chest, his scowl turning to alarm when she unfastened his loose pants and tugged them down toward his groin. “Stitches?” His voice went up a few octaves, and Amanda had to fight the urge to laugh.

  “Stitches,” she managed to agree somberly. She ran her fingers lightly over the wound high on his chest. “Don’t worry. I’m well-trained and actually rather proud of the job I did on you, given the conditions. I’ve never sewn on a shifter before.” She looked up to find him watching her. She blushed nervously and joked, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

  He gave her a puzzled look, obviously unfamiliar with her mother’s old movie collection, which only made her blush harder. “Never mind.” She began pulling his clothes back into place, slapping away his hands when he tried to help. “Save your strength, big guy. You ready for something to eat?”

  “I need to go outside.”

  “Sure. Maybe after you’ve eaten something. It’s dark—”

  “I need to go outside now.”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh! Right. Okay.” She backed away toward the opening, cursing herself for not thinking about this before. Not that they had many options. “This is going to be a tight fit. You need to let me help you.”

  “I can—”

  “Rhodry,” she said, forcing him to look at her. “You need to let me help you.”

  His handsome face took on its usual scowl as he gave her a grudging nod of acceptance.

  It was more than a tight fit to get him outside without ripping any of his wounds open or inflicting any new ones. She reached down and helped him sit up, wrapping her cloak over his shoulders.

  “Let’s just rest here for a minute.” She was panting nearly as hard as he was. “When you’re ready—”

  “I’m ready.”

  Amanda blew out a frustrated breath. Damn shifter pride. “Okay. I’m turning this on,” she said and clicked on her flashlight, careful to turn it away from his eyes. “It’s for me, not you. I’m blind out here. Now, the snow’s deep, so I’m going to help you.” She shoved her shoulder under the arm opposite his injured pectoral and stood up, taking him with her. It had to hurt like hell, and she gave him credit for doing little more than grunting, though she’d never tell him that.

  Naturally, the minute they stood, he tried to shake her off, taking a determined step away. She grabbed his arm. “Watch your step and stay on the hill where the snow’s not so bad. I’ve cut a path, so we’ll go that—”

  “I know how to take a piss in the woods on my own, woman, and I’m familiar with the concept of snow.”

  “Yeah? Are you familiar with the concept of falling on your ass? Because that’s what’ll happen if I let go of you.”

  He was breathing hard, his face already sweat-soaked with effort. His mouth tightened irritably, and he must have been feeling really crappy, because he let her help him, all the while grimacing in pain and, probably, disgust with himself. She wondered if he’d ever been helpless before. Big bad shifter.

  When they reached the trees set beyond the top of the hill, she turned her back as a courtesy and pretended not to hear anything. She waited until she thought he must be finished, then looked over her shoulder cautiously. He was slumped against a wide tree trunk, his head thrown back on the rough bark and his eyes closed.

  She hurried forward. “Rhodry? Are you all right?”

  His eyes opened long enough to locate her, then shut again. “Yes. I needed the air, the open space. I miss this in the city.”

  “I understand. I feel the same way. I can’t spend two days in the city without going back out into the Green. It’s as if my lungs seize up and I can’t breathe anymore. Too many people, too much noise.”

  “And the smell,” he added.

  “And the smell. Though it’s probably worse for you.” She watched him a while longer. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “I owe you my life.”

  She smiled. She’d read enough Harp history to know that the mountain clans prided themselves on their somewhat rigid sense of honor and duty. “Nothing so drastic as that,” she said lightly. “I was just wondering why you haven’t shifted yet.”

  Rhodry reached deep within himself, looking again for the shift, and uttered the most foul oath of his mountain upbringing, one his mother would have been horrified to hear him speak in front of a woman.

  “Rhodry?” she asked in alarm.

  “I can’t shift,” he spat. He caught her look of pity, and rage burned away the embarrassment.

  “Is it the head injury?” she asked. “Because I’m sure that will—”

  “Not my head. They fed me rockweed.” It was in the trail bar, he knew that now. He’d wondered at the sweet taste, probably honey added to cover the familiar herb.

  “Rockweed?” she repeated, then frowned in thought. “I remember that one from my studies; it’s an anti-seizure medication. I didn’t read anything about—”

  “No,” he agreed, hating the weak sound of his own voice. “You wouldn’t have. It grows wild in the mountains. We use it to ease the transition through puberty for young shifters. In small doses, it—” He struggled for the right word. “It dulls the urge to shift to animal form.”

  She stared at him, her eyes growing wide. “Why would—”

  “In larger doses, it prevents the shift altogether. They poisoned me so I’d be unable to shift and fight back or even heal myself afterward. They knew this storm was coming. They wanted me dead, and the evidence destroyed. And they would have succeeded, if not for you.”

  “Who are they?” she demanded. “And why would they do this? I thought you shifters—”

  “Politics, woman,” he cut her off, and saw her stiffen angrily.

  “Look, de Mendoza,” she snarled. “I may be only a woman, but I’m the woman who saved your mighty shifter hide, and I’m also the one who’s stuck with you until we get out of this. I’m not going to pretend I know everything that’s going on, though I sure as hell don’t need you to tell me that those wounds were caused by another shifter. Maybe more than one. You’ve got defensive wounds on your hands and arms, so you put up a fight, and someone must have decided you were a little too lively, because they whacked you on the head for good measure.

  “Now, I’d like to think that whoever did this is already dying a slow, painful death somewhere. Since that’s unlikely, I need to know what the fuck is going on, or you can just lean against that tree for the rest of your natural life, because you’ll never make it anywhere else without my help! And stop calling me woman!”

  He studied her in the darkness, her features as clear to him in the clouded moonlight as they would have been in full sun. She was angry as hell, her fair eyes narrowed to slits, her plump mouth set in a tight line. And she was right. He wouldn’t make it two steps without falling on his face. He did enjoy watching her temper flare, though. She was a lovely woman with smooth, even features and a lusciously full upper lip on her soft-looking mouth. And she was far too smart for her own good.

  He smiled slowly. “You’re right.”

  “I’m… What?” She’d clearly been all ready to lay into him some more. His agreement had surprised her.

  “You’re right,” he said simply. “And I’m sorry. Sorry for being an asshole since almost the day we met, sorry for being rude, sorry you’ve been dragged into this mess, and sorry there’s no getting you out of it. Not until we’re back in that stinking city anyway.” A wave of exhaustion swept over him and he closed his eyes again. “I’m tired. A few lousy steps in the snow and I’m tired.”

  “Let’s get you back inside,” she said immediately. She came to his side, slipping her shoulder under his once again, her arm around his waist. He let himself lean into her support as they started back down the hill, questions about traitorous shifters, rockweed, and everything else forgotten. At least for now.

  Amanda took pity on him once they’d maneuvered down the hill and back inside their makeshift shelter. He was in such obvious pain, and his inability
to shift had to be frustrating and more than a little terrifying. He didn’t say anything to her as she settled him back into the sleeping bag—after making him wait while she took everything outside and shook it out in the fresh air. He was almost pale with exhaustion by then, and his hand when he raised it to cover his eyes shook visibly.

  “How long before the rockweed wears off?” she asked quietly.

  He answered without looking at her, without uncovering his eyes. “I can’t be sure how much I ate. If I was stronger, I could do something physical, chop wood or climb a tree, hell, help my mother rearrange furniture—anything to use energy, metabolize the drug faster. Like this? Another two days, maybe more.”

  “Or maybe less,” she said encouragingly. “I don’t know how long you were lying there injured and fighting off those hycats before I found you. And while you’re not chopping wood, believe me, your body is burning energy. You’ll be back to kitty form in no time.”

  He rolled his head in her direction, and lifted his hand long enough to glower at her where she sat cross-legged by the tiny fire. She just smiled back, one elbow on her knee, her chin propped on a fist.

  “I could stick some more needles into you,” she offered. “That’d get the juices flowing.”

  He gave her a reluctant smile. “No thanks. I’ll take my chances.” His eyes closed heavily, and soon his chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm. She thought he’d gone to sleep, until he said, “We can’t stay here much longer.”

  “I know.”

  “You could—”

  “If you’re about to suggest I leave you here, you’d better remember who’s still got her knife.”

  She saw his hand drop automatically to his waist where his belt knife would have been. “My weapons?”