Chapter Ten
KARL
Some hours later, Karl drew to a halt. The trail was fresher now, with scent and signs clearer each mile, but the cat had begun to flag.
Karl could see the subtle drag in Leon’s stride, the slight hesitation on uneven ground.
It wasn’t lack of fitness and it wasn’t lack of determination.
It was that he wasn’t a wolf. Wolves were built for endurance, and cats weren’t.
Not even the kind of cat Leon was. His shift had surprised Karl—he’d expected a cougar, like all the other cats.
Instead, Leon was a jaguar, sleek and black as deep water, rosettes barely visible until the sun hit them and turned his coat to silken velvet.
He was fast, fluid, and powerful. Beautiful, in the way any apex predator was.
Karl was feeling the miles too, if he were completely honest. Sleep was still eluding him, and he’d gotten up in the middle of the night and joined Tom and Colby out on patrol.
He was also ruing his missed breakfast. The adrenaline from discovering the pack had been under surveillance was fading, leaving space for hunger and fatigue.
He shifted, bones reshaping in the familiar snap and rush of heat. Leon followed a second later, silent and smooth, staying crouched low for an instant after as if he half-preferred the form he’d left behind.
“I’m pretty sure I know where they’re going,” Karl said. “They’re headed for the old logging road, the closest place they could have left a vehicle. They’re taking the easy way, though, which buys us time.”
“Might say something about who it is we’re pursuing,” Leon said, smoothing his hair in a grooming movement so unthinking and feline it nearly made Karl laugh. If he started licking the back of his hand, Karl might lose it.
He dragged his mind back to what Leon had said, Leon’s thoughts about their quarry reflecting his own.
They’d gleaned instantly from the scent that they weren’t after shifters, but that left a lot of alternative possibilities.
Professionals, like Jax’s crew, wouldn’t have hesitated at rougher terrain.
“If they’re sacrificing time for comfort, they’re undisciplined, untrained or unfit,” Leon added. “Or all three.”
“They don’t have to be competent to be dangerous,” Karl pointed out. “A bad shot with a good weapon can still ruin your day.”
There was a flicker of acknowledgement in Leon’s gaze. He was listening, and more—he was taking account of Karl’s thoughts without any obvious arrogance. That was new.
“There a reason we’ve stopped?” Leon asked.
“At the rate we’re catching them, we’ve got time to eat, maybe rest.”
Leon’s eyes glowed briefly at the prospect. He looked around and presumably saw a complete lack of prey that might feed two hungry shifters, because he looked back at Karl, one eyebrow cocked.
“We keep a few stashes out here,” Karl said, leading the way down a wooded slope, heading for the stump in a clearing that he knew well.
“We come out every so often. Sometimes it’s for a longer run or a hunt, or just to get away from everyone for a while—pack’s pack, but it’s pretty close quarters.
” He wasn’t going to volunteer that he seemed to be the only one who needed to get away at times.
“Of course, since everything’s happened with Jesse, one of us has been scouting around frequently out here, which is how Dave found that spot. ”
They reached where Karl was making for, and he crouched to pry loose the panel in the stump.
Christian had crafted it so carefully it looked like part of the tree at a casual glance.
Inside the hollow stump was a plastic crate, lid locked down firmly to protect the emergency cache of MREs, water, and protein bars, together with clothes and emergency blankets.
Basic but reliable and potentially lifesaving.
Karl tossed a fleece-lined waterproof poncho to Leon and dragged one on himself. They weren’t much higher than the ranch, so a weather front must be moving in to make it so cold.
Leon pulled on his poncho, then carefully lifted his hair out from under it, making sure it was arranged to his satisfaction before he wrapped his arms around himself for further warmth. Vanity evidently trumped comfort, though Karl didn’t know who he was trying to impress out here.
“You don’t mess around with this survival stuff, do you?” Leon asked.
“Trouble doesn’t let you know it’s coming,” Karl replied, already sorting through the supplies. “And young wolves sometimes run farther than they mean to during a full moon.”
Tristan, the only youngster the pack had ever had, never roamed far from Bryce, his unofficial foster dad and, for a time, his only security in the world. But there were a dozen other scenarios in which the caches might be needed. Like the one right now, for instance.
Leon looked up from where he was laying out a couple of emergency blankets for them to sit on. “The effect of the moon’s a real thing with wolves, then?”
“It’s a real thing for everything that lives under it. But yeah, full moon hits different. Not uncontrollable, unless you let it be, but it pulls at something.”
“Weird,” Leon said.
Karl paused, examining why the cat’s judgment didn’t make him bristle immediately. Perhaps because there seemed to be no judgment in the word, just honest curiosity.
“You don’t feel it?” he asked. “The pull of the full moon?”
Leon’s gaze flicked upward, thoughtful. “Cats don’t run under the moon. We vanish in the dark.”
Well, that was certainly true of Leon. His black coat had been glossy in daylight, with those all-but-invisible rosettes making it look soft and luxurious to the touch, but in the dark?
Karl had no problem believing he’d disappear.
Karl himself almost did, fading into the blackness of the night, but something about the grace with which Leon moved suggested he wouldn’t just hide in the shadows. He’d become part of them.
Karl tossed him an MRE, and they ate sitting on the emergency blankets a small distance apart, steam curling up from the pouches. The wild pressed in around them, full of rustling leaves and watchful stillness.
Karl tried not to look. Really, he did. But every so often, his gaze snagged—on the sharp line of Leon’s jaw, those damn cheekbones, the stretch of muscle as he shifted position. It wasn’t admiration, but it was awareness. Heightened, and definitely unwanted. Annoying.
“You good for more ground?” Karl asked, more sharply than he meant.
Leon’s eyes flicked to him. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”
Karl gave a tight nod. “Just checking. Wolves go forever. Cats… don’t.”
Leon smiled, all teeth. “I’ll try not to pass out and embarrass your rugged wolfish stamina.”
Karl stood, brushing crumbs off his hands. “Wouldn’t be the first time a cat made things difficult.”
Leon rose, sleek and easy. “Wouldn’t be the first time a wolf needed someone else to solve the puzzle for him.”
The moment held, sharp-edged, a reminder of all the reasons Karl didn’t like cats. Especially this one. And then they stowed the gear and shifted, and there were no more words. Only the hunt.