Missing was Levi’s scent. And his brother Cyrin’s. They’d both been with Rebekka and the Tigers when she came from Jaguar lands to these.
A tightness formed in Aryck’s chest. This was not a direct route from the Jaguar camp to the Lion dwelling places.
He crouched. Inhaled deeply. Studied what he could see of the partial prints left in the thin layer of dust that would remain until the rains came.
Rebekka traveled away from the Lion homes. And though he couldn’t be certain, not without examining more of the track, Caius and Canino followed rather than accompanied her.
Their paw prints left impressions on top of hers, never the reverse. And still there was no sign of Levi.
Aryck stood and turned toward Chátima. Despite what his eyes and nose told him, he asked, “Did you bring Rebekka through here?”
There was suspicion in the enforcer’s expression, along with a measure of pity that had Aryck fighting to keep his lips from pulling back in a snarl.
“No. This is not the path we traveled. You spoke to her about what would happen if we found evidence the humans were responsible for the hyenas’ sickness?”
It was no less than what his father would ask in front of the others when they gathered. “Yes.”
Chátima looked in the direction she’d gone. They both knew this valley ultimately fed into the one the Coyotes claimed.
The Jaguar rose in Aryck, flexing its claws through human fingers. The man had no intention of letting anything happen to Rebekka. “I’m going after her. The meeting place is close to the encampment. I will collect Rebekka and bring her with me.”
“When the vote is taken, it will be in favor of killing everyone in the encampment and letting their god sort them out. We can’t risk that even one of them will escape with whatever knowledge has allowed them to wage war on us with disease.”
“I know.”
The Lion enforcer sighed heavily. “Your female is a healer, soft-hearted by nature. And human. She can’t be blamed for wanting to prevent the deaths of the innocent. I will speak to the grand matriarch and then follow you to make sure Rebekka is stopped from warning the humans of our intentions. As you say, the meeting place is in the same direction.”
Aryck spared only an instant to bare his teeth at the implied threat. Then he turned and ran, racing to get to Rebekka before harm came to her, his guilt building with each step at having handled their last parting so badly.
Haven’t I already proven myself to the Jaguars? she’d asked, the words haunting him now.
She had. He was the one who hadn’t yet proven himself, hadn’t been willing to seriously consider starting a pack of his own. There’d be no need for her to stand before the ancestors then.
He still believed he had their blessing when it came to making her his mate. If she agreed but wanted further assurance, he would be the one to stand before them in a Petitioner’s Rite.
DUSK descended in the valley Rebekka had entered a short while earlier. The air cooled with the growing darkness and she knew she would have to take shelter for the night soon.
Ruins stretched out before her. Foliage-covered mounds of concrete forming an intricate, forbidding maze.
A distant ridgeline looked familiar. She wasn’t sure whose territory she was in but she thought perhaps it was Wolf.
Nocturnal animals had already begun stirring. They rustled as they moved around in burrows dug out of rubble and nests built in dense foliage. The sound of an owl hooting seemed like an ominous omen.
She nearly lost her nerve, almost gave in to the temptation to save this task for the morning. The taste of disease now coated her tongue regardless of how often she tried to banish it by chewing on bay leaves or sipping from honeysuckle flowers. The knowledge she was close, very close, kept her moving forward.
“Just a little bit farther,” she told herself, jumping when her words were punctuated by a gun firing close by.
It was a single shot, a rifle or pistol rather than a machine gun. A few of the Wolves had carried them, though she hadn’t seen them among the Lions or Jaguars.
Despite the sense of urgency pressing her, she stopped. Listened. Heard nothing unusual until a breeze brought the faint sound of bleating.
Goats. Penned animals would explain why her destination seemed fixed.
Was she near the encampment then? It was horrifying to think the Weres could be right about humans purposely letting disease loose.
Indecision held her. Go forward or turn back?
She’d seen no evidence of animal husbandry among the Weres. But what if it existed? What if plague had been unknowingly introduced to their flocks and herds?
Just a little farther, she decided. Just far enough to know one way or the other, so she could either heal the sick or hide and wait for help to come.
Aryck would come for her if he returned to the Lion pride homes and found her missing. Levi would say something to his grandmother when he realized she was gone.
Rebekka moved forward cautiously. Once again the breeze brought the sound of goats.
They bleated continuously. Sounds of agitation and distress.
The taste of sickness coated her tongue more heavily. It slid down her throat until she bent over and retched.
She forced herself forward. The rustling of animals hidden in the ruins grew louder.
An involuntary cry escaped when a burrowing owl launched itself upward in front of her like a warning to stop.
Her nerves stretched tauter. Just a little bit farther, she told herself again. Just until she reached the corner ahead.
Thick, wild grapevines began to dominate. They formed curtains in what might once have been windows and trailed across the path, making it treacherous.
As she drew near the corner she thought she caught the whiff of a campfire. She relaxed a tiny bit. The Jaguars cooked over fire pits. Surely any humans in the area would have eaten their meals earlier and doused their fires so they could take shelter.
Rebekka reached the corner and discovered just how badly she erred.
Men approached on another path, from the direction the earlier gunfire had come from.
In a glance she took in the black-and-white-striped uniforms that work-gang convicts wore in Oakland.
The deer carcass carried on a pole between two of them.
The militiamen accompanying them.
Before she could dart out of sight, a convict ranging ahead of the others noticed her. She turned and ran. Hoped they wouldn’t dare follow this close to full dark.
A shout told her otherwise.
Then racing footsteps.
A rifle fired a moment later, sending a bullet crashing into the rubble to her right.
She tripped on grapevines and fell. Scrambled to her feet but the delay had cost her.
She managed another few yards before one of the men tackled her, driving her into the ground.
Two others joined the first. Flipping her. Pinning her arms and legs. Tugging at her clothing. Rape on their minds and in their expressions.
Out of the corner of her eye there was a flash of white. She fought to escape even harder when she realized it was Caius barreling toward her.
Canino followed, and in an instant she was freed, though she didn’t dare rise to her feet. Machine gun bullets sprayed above and around her, shredding vines and ricocheting off stone.
The three convicts lay dead, killed by Tigers or the militiamen. She couldn’t tell without examining them, and didn’t care to. Her heart thundered and fear gripped her as she visually searched the ground near where Canino and Caius had disappeared into the mazelike ruins, desperate to see no evidence either of them had been hit.
“Grab her,” the militiaman holding the machine gun said, his eyes and body making a continuous sweep, his finger never leaving the gun’s trigger. “She goes back with us. She needs to pay for the trouble we’re going to be in because of her.”