Page 45 of Mountain Impact

Something heated inside her at the thought.

Are those my ovaries overgripping?

“You okay, Isolde?”

She almost choked on her water bottle, praying she hadn’t spoken out loud.

“Fine. Just fine. It’s pretty hot out here.”

“Feel free to take something off,” he whispered in her ear.

Isolde laughed and shook her head.

“Or not. I have a really good memory.”

She realized she was having a wonderful time.

Finally, it was time to go home. The fifteen-minute hike from the car had seemed short hours earlier but now, her arms and legs shaking from the exertion, Isolde knew it was going to seem a lot longer.

While she struggled up a small hill, Drake walked easily up ahead. Jamie perched on his shoulders.

Lucky Jamie.

Isolde never thought she’d see the day when she was jealous of a six-year-old.

“Neither of you told me climbing was such―”

Suddenly, Drake was beside her. He kept one hand on Jamie’s legs, but his other arm came out to stop her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He pointed ahead of them on the trail. For a moment she couldn’t see anything. Then she heard it. Something rustled behind the bushes―something large.

“Is that a chamois?” she asked, in a thin thread of voice. The chamois was a kind of large goat with small horns that curved backwards. Although rare in most of the world, chamois were a common enough occurrence all around the Mont Blanc massif―and only dangerous if you were a conifer tree.

But Drake wasn’t staring at the bushes anymore―he was staring at the ground in front of them, a dark, foreboding expression on his face.

Putting his finger to his lips in the universal sign for silence, Drake took a step back, urging Isolde with him.

They’d only taken two steps back when the animal walked slowly out from behind the bushes.

Chamois, my ass.

They were staring into the green eyes of the largest cat Isolde had ever seen outside of a zoo.

Suddenly, those ten minutes separating them from the car might be ten light years away.

Not a chamois.

A lynx.

The sight of the solitary alpine predator filled her with a terror so thick she could taste it. As if aware of the effect she was having on Isolde, the large cat hissed, opening his powerful jaws to reveal sharp, white teeth.

“Fuck,” Drake whispered. “Those climbers were right.”

“Is that a lynx? I don’t understand,” Isolde said. “They don’t attack―”

“From the prints on the ground, I think we’re between her and her cub,” Drake said, in a low voice.