"Not yet," I growl.
But I'm running now, abandoning any pretense of caution. My boots slip on wet rock and I catch myself with a hand, keep going. Jump over a stream that didn't exist this morning. Duck under a fallen branch.
Her scent is getting stronger, which means I'm getting closer, but it's also more diffuse. She's panicking, moving erratically, getting more lost with every step.
I stop at a place where the trail splits, except it doesn't split, not really. One path is the trail. The other is a game path, barely visible even in good weather, that dead-ends at a cliff face half a mile ahead.
Her scent goes down the game path.
"Jesus Christ," I breathe.
I follow it at a dead run.
The path deteriorates rapidly, becoming less of a path and more of a suggestion. She must have lost the main trail in the rain, grabbed onto this by accident.
There's a steep slope ahead, slick with mud and rain. I see where she went down, where her feet lost purchase. The slide marks are fresh, torn through the undergrowth.
I go down after her, controlled, using my weight and strength to manage the descent. At the bottom, there's blood on a tree trunk. Not much, but enough.
The bear is clawing at my control now, desperate to shift, to find her faster. It knows what I know. She's running out of time.
"Hold on," I tell it. Tell her, wherever she is. "Just hold on."
Her scent leads me deeper into the forest, into terrain that's dangerous even for me. She's moving downhill now, probably following some survival instinct, but she's going the wrong direction. There's nothing this way except more wilderness, steeper drops, and eventually a gorge with a fifty-foot waterfall.
If she reaches that in this visibility, she's dead.
I push harder, ignoring the burn in my lungs, the protest of muscles that have been awake since before dawn. The bear lends me strength, surging just beneath my skin, making me faster, stronger, more than human even without fully shifting.
I can feel her now. Not just smell her, but really feel her. Like there's a rope tied between us, pulling taut, vibrating with her fear.
The mate bond.
No. That's not possible. Mate bonds are fairy tales, stories bears tell themselves. I've never believed in them, never wanted them.
But I can feel her terror like it's my own. Can sense her heartbeat, too fast and then too slow. Can taste her desperation on my tongue.
She's dying.
"HOLD ON!" I roar into the storm, not caring if she hears, just needing to say it. "I'M COMING!"
And then I see it—a small structure, barely visible through the trees. An old ranger outpost, abandoned decades ago. I'd forgotten it was even here.
Her scent is everywhere around it. She made it to shelter. I'm at the door in seconds, slamming it open hard enough to rip it offits hinges. She's on the floor just inside, curled in a ball, her skin pale as death. Not moving.
"No." The word comes out broken. "No, no, no."
I drop to my knees beside her, pressing my fingers to her throat. There's a pulse. It’s weak, irregular, but present. She's in the late stages of hypothermia. Her body has stopped shivering, which means it's shutting down. Her breathing is shallow, her lips blue.
I need to get her warm. Now.
I strip off my jacket, my shirt, not caring that I'm soaked too. My body temperature runs hot. Bear shifter metabolism, and I'm nowhere near hypothermic despite the rain.
"Come here," I mutter, gathering her against my bare chest. She's so cold it's shocking, like holding ice. "Come on, stay with me."
I wrap my jacket around both of us, then the emergency blanket from my pack, layering everything I can to trap what little heat she has left. Her wet clothes need to come off, but I can't do that here, in this freezing shack with no way to warm her afterward.
I need to take her to my cabin. To heat and dry clothes and safety.
