Chapter 9 #2
Better to zip and swerve between campfire pits than smash up boats and houses on the private property that surrounded the rest of the lake.
Step two: Once they grabbed the panther’s attention, they started dashing toward the water and back, forward and back, trying to draw the thing out of the water.
Once it climbed up, the plan was to do running attacks that slowly sliced up the monster.
It wasn’t glorious work, but it was the standard wolf pack method of taking down a larger creature.
Hamstring it and, when it topples over, take out the throat.
But that was hard to do with just two of them. Which was why Yordan was grateful when two of the puppies joined them. But even four wolves yipping into the lake and back were not enough to hold the panther’s attention.
Well, hell. For whatever reason, it seemed intent on where the two human puppies were trying to warm up McNabb.
Yordan cursed loudly—which came out as an angry, growling bark—then dashed forward.
Why, oh why weren’t the geeks running away?
Sure, they thought they were being heroic, staying next to the possibly dying McNabb, but if they would just dash away, the creature wouldn’t do more than ignore The Scot as so much driftwood.
That was the nature of predator cats. They saw movement, not downed Popsicles.
See me! yipped Yordan. Over here! Look at me!
He made as much noise and commotion as he could, but the panther was stalking closer to the puppies.
“Run, you fucking idiots!” Marsha bellowed.
Yordan glanced back. She was on her hands and knees as a naked woman, slowly climbing to her feet. Well, hell. That was one less wolf. He had no idea how soon she could shift back to canine, but he had to assume not anytime soon.
Then he looked back at the human puppies. They were dragging The Scot away from the water’s edge. They weren’t naturally strong humans, and McNabb wasn’t exactly small. It took the both of them, and now they presented a single, slow-moving target to the panther.
God save him from puppies.
“Leave him!” Marsha screamed, but apparently they were the stubborn kind of heroic. So that meant it was going to be a tooth and claw fight.
Fine. It was his job to stand between monsters and idiots, and Yordan embraced his mission as holy law.
He was running full tilt toward the puppies and intended to leap into the breach, when the panther readied his attack.
The puppies didn’t see it coming, but the panther was starting that clicking noise that cats made.
And its butt was twitching. It was about to make a killing strike.
Then the absolute worst thing happened. McNabb started to wake. He’d probably been shivering for a while, but Yordan was too far away to see it. Now the guy curled into himself and moaned.
Not good! Not good!
“Stay still!” Marsha bellowed. She was running on two feet but was much too far away to do anything.
Then the panther lunged. Yordan had no idea how so large a body could leap out of water so easily, but it did. It was one of the crazy things about magical monsters. They didn’t obey the laws of physics.
That was okay. He was used to impossible monsters, and he timed his leap perfectly.
He caught the panther’s face just as it came down. Scaly lizard legs landed on the sand with an oomph, enough to knock the puppies back. But Yordan caught the panther’s face with what was essentially a headbutt.
And—hallelujah—the panther was now laser focused on him. Cool. He could fight a cat any day. Even one twice as large as he was.
The cat lunged again, Yordan dashed away and tried for a side swipe. No go. It wasn’t that the skin was too tough. Nope, his claws would slice it right open. But the cat was so damned fast, he missed by a few key inches.
Next time. Nope.
Next time. Shit.
His peripheral vision showed him that McNabb was waking, coming back to full consciousness. Good. Maybe the guy could shift and help in this fight. Another trained wolf would be a godsend. Yordan was good, but he was getting tired. Magical gummy aside, no one could keep this up for long.
To the other side, Marsha was organizing the puppies, and pretty soon he had slower, stupider wolves dashing in and out. It helped. Gave him a breather and all, but it wasn’t enough.
And then. Sweet heaven, thank you. He saw the telltale shimmer around The Scot. Good. The guy was finally going wolf—
Fuck!
He’d been distracted watching The Scot and had missed an attack. Got a panther paw rake against his flank.
It wasn’t fatal, but it stung like a bitch. That leg was going to be slow now.
On the upside, the strike had pulled the panther into perfect position for wolfy McNabb to leap and sink his teeth straight into the creature’s neck.
Like right now.
Now!
Where the fuck was The Scot?
“Merowwwww! Mew, mew. Whimper. Meow!”
What was that?
Yordan wasn’t the only one looking. The panther reacted as any feline mother should. It sniffed, cocked its ears, and turned its whole head to where wolf McNabb should be standing right now. Except there wasn’t a wolf there. Instead, Yordan saw a large kitten squatting miserably in the sand.
What the fuck?
Not only was it a kitten, but it was one of those Scottish floppy-eared things. It wasn’t even a proper cat! Was that The Scot?
Couldn’t be. He’d never fought directly with McNabb before, but he’d heard the tales. The guy was a big gray wolf. He was sure of it.
Except right now, he was a mewling, pitiful gray kitten. He had big, limpid eyes and ears that fell in adorable little folds. If Yordan weren’t so shocked, he’d be laughing his ass off. Or cursing because the damned kitten was about to get eaten.
The panther dashed forward, dropping its head down as it sniffed then opened its mouth.
No!
Yordan and every wolf on the beach started barking, trying to distract the creature, to no avail.
With a grumbling kind of purr, the panther put its mouth around McNabb’s neck and lifted the kitten up by his scruff. Well, hell.
The Scot dangled from the panther’s mouth like a naughty kitten with his feet hanging down and his shoulders up around his folded ears.
Talk about a sight Yordan would remember for the rest of his life. It was downright hysterical until he realized the panther was taking the kitten back to its lair or den or wherever mamma cats took their kittens.
Too bad this cat was a lake monster. Its home might very well be under the freezing water. That was not going to work for The Folded-Eared Scot. But what the hell was Yordan going to do about it? And what the fuck was McNabb doing? Was he in pain? Was he trying to wriggle free?
It looked like The Scot was swinging back and forth, harder and harder. Enough to make the panther slow down as she tried to fight his momentum.
Weird.
And then Yordan watched the cleverest use of insta-shift he’d ever seen in action. Right at the moment of farthest arc, the kitten was covered in the golden glow of a shift. McNabb was shifting back to human with all the change in weight and dimension that entailed.
It never would have worked for Yordan. He took too long to change. But the insta-shift meant that the panther was abruptly carrying the weight of a full-grown man, who looped an arm around the creature’s neck rather than go flying back out into the half-frozen lake.
The panther toppled sideways onto the sand with its neck stretched out from the pull of McNabb’s human weight. And bam, there was a perfect target for Yordan and any puppy within reach.
Perfect, if one ignored the fact that The Scot’s back was ripped open by the creature’s teeth. McNabb’s kitten scruff had become human flesh. God willing, it had been McNabb’s back and not his neck.
Either way, Yordan couldn’t deal with it now. He took the opportunity McNabb had sacrificed his back for and attacked.
Success.
He ripped out the monster’s neck, and just as the creature’s lifeblood began to drain away, the thing splintered into a thousand pinpoints of light and disappeared.
Gone. Back into the lore that created it.
In its place lay The Scot, who was a bloody, shivering mess.
Marsha got there before Yordan did. He needed to shift back to human before he could help. And honestly, he was supposed to stay wolf just in case the lake decided to throw a third monster at them.
But the discipline was hard. McNabb was on the ground with blood staining the sand like sick ink, and there was nothing a wolf could do to stop it.
Yordan made room for Marsha, splitting his attention between watching the surrounding area and seeing if The Scot was in his death throes.
“Are you all right?” Marsha gasped. “What do you need?”
The Scot opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out. Instead, there was the telltale shimmer as he turned back into a kitten in all his bedraggled, floppy-eared glory.
“Meow.”
Never had a kitten sounded more disgruntled with his life.
A single, short meow as it sat there and pouted.
Apparently, he couldn’t shift back to human yet.
Insta-shifts often had a lag time between changes.
That meant The Scot had to stay kitten for what was going to feel like a humiliatingly long amount of time.
Fortunately, the kitten looked fine. The Scot would live. And Yordan knew just what to do. No stranger to humiliating antics, he padded over and gently, carefully picked up his boss’s boss by the scruff of his neck and carried him back to base camp.
And if he drooled a bit on the kitten head, then who could complain? Wolves weren’t exactly neat when carrying itty-bitty, fluffball kitties.