Chapter 147 Chapter 147
By the time they caught up to the others, Blair had gone through a whole gauntlet of emotions and that alone put him in the mood where he just wanted to kill something. He had had the realization that Kobie could have died in that fall—then what? He didn’t know, but he’d had to reign in his cat as they processed that thought. Next, it was that Daisie could have fallen—he wasn’t sure, but his own feelings on that weren’t much better than the idea of something happening to Kobie. He didn’t know what in hell was going on with his head, but it needed to smarten up. He didn’t have time for all this emotional shit. He had nine other lives to get to safety. This was no time for feeling all this other crap.
Once assessing that everyone was fine, Kobie chuffed her intentions of leading and took off down the incline. Despite his internal chastising, Blair hung back for a minute and checked that Daisie, was in fact, fine. He even gave Annamarie a quick once over to make sure she was well—unhappy with the state of her boots, but otherwise, she was in good health.
Turning, he scented the direction Kobie had gone and then took off as soon as he processed another familiar smell. Calum was close by and another jaguar. Even though Calum was his friend, and his cat knew the other man’s the scent still registered as a danger. Someday he’d build up the courage to ask Calum why that was, but for now, he just had to catch up to the crazy fast she-cat. Her speed, along with other aspects he was finding, filled him with pride that she was as incredible as she was.
He cleared a heavy vegetation area and came to a quick halt, paws sliding on the dried needles covering the ground. Kobie was hunched down, ready to spring, her ears flat on her head. As Calum cleared the bush on the other side, Blair leaped toward Kobie and placed his body in her path. Bumping her, he gave her a not so gentle verbal command to stand down.
Calum stopped and sat right where he stood, Blair could see his amusement even in his cat’s eyes. The look told him he was amused that the spitfire of a female was ready to take him on to protect her clan—or he was laughing at Blair because of the predicament he’d been through the past few days. He wasn’t sure which.
Nudging Kobie with his head, he got her to turn around and head back to the others. Once she started moving, Blair watched Calum look behind him as a huge black jag came running out of the trees carrying a backpack in her mouth. Calum swung his head and looked back at Blair as if to say, ‘she insisted on bringing it’. A lot had happened in his friend’s life too, it seemed. He looked forward to the distraction of hearing about it.
Turning, Blair took off in the direction Kobie had gone. He knew he didn’t need to lead the jags to the others. It was Calum, he would know their exact location.
As he reached them, he could hear their chatter. For a group of shifters, they too often forgot about making too much noise when they otherwise should be quiet. Stopping out of the way, he shifted back and got dressed. His legs reminded him with each movement how much he’d been doing in cat form since he met that Fish guy on the side of the road. His cat might take it all in stride, but it left his human form with stiff and sore muscles.
He went around the tree to see Kobie still in her cat form. She spun toward him and even from this distance, he could see she was unhappy about something. He barely got to sit when she bound over and knocked him onto his back and held him there with one large, firm paw. He frowned. She couldn’t be this pissed that he’d stopped her from attacking his friend. “Hey…”
“Blair, you had two phone calls.” Daisie came bounding over. “Mom read who called for me. I think Kelsey is a pretty name and,” she held out the phone, “Layna too.”
Shit. He turned and looked up at the she-cat giving him a hard look. She gave a low yowl at him and then released him and walked into the trees. He blew out a breath and glanced to see Calum leaning against a tree with his arm around a woman with long black hair. “Thanks, Daisie.” He held out his hand for the phone and sat up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kobie come back and almost wished it was the cat returning, the look she gave him was not friendly. He did not know why she was mad—okay, getting calls from two women in the past hour made him look like some kind of playboy, but there were explanations. Getting up, he looked over to see Calum’s amused look. Shit. He’d missed a step or something somewhere.
“This is my friend Calum and his mate…” He had no idea what her name was.
The woman smiled, “Shaelan.” She held up the backpack. “I brought stew and,” she smiled, “coffee.”
Just like that, she was everyone’s favorite person. Blair stood back as all the women chatted quietly. He felt Calum come up beside him.
“Feel like I missed something,” Calum said softly.
Blair snorted, “same.”
Calum chuckled. “Go grab some stew and we’ll find a spot to keep watch,” He shrugged one of his big shoulders, “let them rest up before we hike down.” He glanced in the direction they’d come from, “there’s a few rough spots.”
Blair gave him a blank look. “I’ve already done my acrobatic moves for the day.”
Calum grinned and rubbed his hand along his jaw. “I might need details for that.”
Pushing away from the tree, Blair motioned to Shaelan with his chin, “yeah I think I need some too.”