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We lay there in silence for several more minutes, and at that moment I was really glad that we had thrown on some of the cabin owners’ hunting clothes, which were camouflage-patterned, covered in brown sticks and twigs, and helped us blend into the surroundings. With the hoods of the sweaters over our heads as we reclined on our bellies, we wouldn’t look like people at all if the drone flew directly over our heads.
When I couldn’t hear anything that resembled drone rotors anymore, we slowly stood up and spun around, only to come face-to-face with a mother cougar and two adorable little fuzzy cubs.
“Shit,” Rix said under his breath.
Not that I knew much about the outside world, but I wasn’t stupid enough to assume that the predicament we currently found ourselves in was a safe one.
The mother cougar made a loud, raspy growl that sent every hair on my body standing straight up. Her eyes fell to mine, and she paced back and forth between the space that separated us from her cubs.
The cubs didn’t seem to notice us at all and were happily playing, mewling and wrestling in the moss that covered the bluff rocks.
How had I not smelled her or felt her heartbeat until now?
Was I getting so good at compartmentalizing things that I was tuning out threats?
“What do we do?” I asked him. “They can climb trees, right?”
“Yeah, they can. Really well. It’s just grizzlies and wolves that can’t.”
For some reason, we were speaking out of the sides of our mouths, as if the enormous cat could understand us, so we were trying to be covert. I quickly realized how dumb that was and shook my head while lifting my arms. “Get as big as you can, right?”
“That’s for a bear,” Rix said, shaking his head. “We need to convince her we’re a threat by throwing things at her face. And whennoton the edge of a cliff, slowly back away.”
I put my arms down and glanced behind me and down to the jagged rocks and sloshing sea below.
Crap.
The cougar and her cubs currently blocked our only way off the bluff.
“Should I shoot her?” Rix asked.
“No,” I hissed. “She’s a mother. Those babies need her. Besides, she hasn’t done anything to us.”Yet.
“So we just wait her out?”
I shrugged. “Do you have a better idea … that doesn’t involve orphaning two defenseless little cubs?” I turned to him. “As people who grew up without parents ourselves, you have to know how crappy it would be for these two little guys. I don’t think they’re very old.”
Rix’s lips twitched, and he cupped my cheek affectionately, sliding his thumb along my lower lip. “For a trained killer, you’ve got a real tender heart, Wildcat.”
I rolled my eyes, but I secretly loved that compliment. There were times as I was growing up when I questioned my own humanity considering the things I’d been trained to do and how little interaction I was allowed with people. I harbored so much hate toward Moord and those that poked and prodded me with their daily tests and blood draws that I started to think Iwasa psychopath Kappa.
But to hear from Rix that I had a tender heart meant the world to me.
The cubs drew closer to us, which wasn’t ideal, since that made their mother’s heart rate pick up. I could smell her fear.
And fear made animals do reckless things.
But we couldn’t show her our fear. We needed to remain strong and confident. Worst-case scenario, we used our gun, but I really didn’t want it to come to that. I didn’t want to fire off a warning shot and draw unnecessary attention to ourselves or worry Jorik and Zane back at the cabin, and I definitely didn’t want to shoot the big cat, rendering her cubs orphans.
She gracefully stalked closer to us, and we took a step back, but we couldn’t go any farther, otherwise we’d fall.
The cougar made another growling sound deep in her throat, and I held my breath for a moment, watching her without blinking.
Ignoring Rix, she slowly padded toward me, her nose sniffing, but her heart rate was no longer accelerated like it had been a moment ago. She came right up to me, and as hard as I tried not to tremble, my body had other ideas.
“Cat,” Rix said. “If she attacks you, you will fall over that cliff.”
“I know,” I whispered.
