“I thought I was free!” I yelled back at him.
He didn’t say anything, but I kept running, until my shoes hit the riverbank. I turned and ran. I knew he was close. Rocks crunched from downstream.
“The thing is, I alwaysfindmy prey,” he called out.
I turned a sharp left and climbed up the bank and back into the woods.
Mew. Mew. Mew.
The sound caught my attention, and I froze in my tracks. It was high-pitched and something I hadn't heard before.
Yow. Yow. Yow.
I stopped and looked around. Was he making noises to fuck with me?
Mew. Mew. Mew.
I jogged toward where I thought the noise was coming from.
Mew.
I looked down. Something moved in the leaves. I knelt on the ground. There was a kitten. Its eyes were still shut. I scooped it upinto my arms and held it close to my chest. I looked all around the woods. I didn’t see any—
Except Quinn walking toward me.
His brows were narrowed. “I thought your endurance was better than that.”
I ignored him. I held the little grey and black-striped kitten to my chest. It was cold. It stopped crying when I picked it up. Its little ears were barely there, small points.
Oh shit.
It was a bobcat kitten.
I frantically looked around. Its mother had to be somewhere. Leaves crunched as he neared me.
“Get up and fucking run!” he yelled.
“That might just turn you on,” I called back. My eyes were still scanning the ground.
“Just as much as you sweat,” he said.
He got closer, but I wasn’t running. I was trying to save the baby in my arms, except I didn’t know what to do.
“Any chance you smell a bobcat out here?” I asked.
“What are you on about?” he said.
“You can hear just fine,” I snarkily said. He was nearly on top of me.
“Well… I do smell something, now that you asked,” he said.
“Like a big mama smell, perhaps?” I asked.
I was pissed at him, but Ineededhim right now. I could be pissed at him once we found the mother.
“I don’t know if it’s adult or not. What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
He was standing right behind me, so I spun around to face him.
