This Fallen Prey (Rockton #3)(55)

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When I realize what Storm is chasing, I scream at her. “Stop! Storm! Stop now!”

She just keeps bounding after a massive tawny brown cat.

A mountain lion.

“Stop!” Please, please, please, baby, stop.

She does not stop. Does not seem to hear me. She scrambles over the rocks, letting out a happy bark as she closes in on her quarry.

Quarry? No. Storm has no sense of other animals as prey. We have not taught her that.

We should have taught her that.

We didn’t get her as a hunting dog, and we don’t want her chasing down animals. She’s had exposure to many—foxes, deer, rabbits. But they aren’t prey. They’re chase toys. They run, and she pursues until they take cover, and she loses the game. She’s never caught anything bigger than a mouse that she once surprised, and then she just tossed it about until we got it away from her.

In failing to teach her, I have been, in my way, like my parents, failing to prepare me for life’s dangers. Because what she is chasing right now is not a chase toy. It will not take cover. It is a predator, and when it turns on her, she will not flee. She will not attack. She’ll think the game has taken an exciting new twist—not a chase toy, but a playmate. An animal her own size who is turning around to say, “Tag, you’re it,” like her human playmates do.

I’m screaming at her, and I know she can’t hear me. There’s a sharp wind coming off the mountain, blowing my shouts away. I’m not even sure she’d hear me without that. Her ears are filled with the pound of her oversized paws and the heave of her panting breaths and the thump of her adrenaline-charged heartbeat.

I have my gun out. I’ve had it ready since I realized what Storm is chasing. But I can’t get a shot. She’s too close to the big cat.

The cat is drawing her into its territory, its comfort zone. Cougars are death from above. The silent plunge from a tree or a rocky overhang. A dead-weight thump on your back. Powerful jaws clamping around your neck. Spinal cord severed, you’re dead before you hit the ground.

This cougar is luring Storm in. It will make one incredible leap onto a rock—a leap that requires feline hindquarters—and will leave the canine scrambling at the base. Then it will pounce. And that will be my chance. I’ll see it spring onto that rock where Storm cannot follow, and when the big cat turns around, I will shoot. I will empty my goddamned gun if I have to.

We’re scrambling up the mountainside. The cougar looks back a couple of times, obviously shocked that such a massive canine is keeping up. Storm is big, but she’s young and agile, not yet the lumbering Newfoundland she’ll become.

The cat veers suddenly. I see where it’s going—the perfect overhang. But it has miscalculated. That rock is at least twenty feet above the path. The cougar can’t possibly make the leap. Yet it intends to try. Still running, it hunkers low, gaze fixed on that spot. It slows, and Storm is gaining and oh, shit, no. Storm is gaining, and the cat will realize it can’t make that jump. Storm will leap and—

The cougar jumps. I see it crouch, see its hind muscles bunch, see it spring, and as terrified as I am for Storm, I cannot help but mentally freeze-frame the sight, awed by the beauty and perfection of that huge cat in flight.

It lands squarely on the ledge. The shock of that freezes me again. Then the cat disappears, turning around, and I jolt from my surprise to remember my shot.

I raise the gun and look down the sights. The moment the cat appears, I will fire.

At the base of the overhang, Storm barks, jumping and twisting, as if she can reach it.

The cat’s ears appear first. Tawny black-rimmed ears. Then the top of its head, dark line down the middle, perpendicular dark slash over each eye. When the pink nose emerges, I start to squeeze the trigger. A chest shot would be better, but any shot at all should spook it, and if it runs the other way instead of pouncing, Storm will be safe, stuck below—

Storm gives one last bark . . . and tears off. I glance away from the gun just in time to see her racing along the rock. Looking for another way up.

Damn it. This is one time when I really wish I had a dumber dog.

“Storm!” I call. She has to hear me now. The cougar does. Its gaze swings my way, and I’m close enough to see those amber irises. Close enough to make eye contact and feel a stab of regret and a hope that my bullet will miss, and the big cat will be frightened off—

Another bark. The sound of paws scrabbling on rocky ground. The sound of paws finding purchase, finding a path, pounding up the mountainside . . .

Shit!

The cougar’s head disappears. I fire anyway. Fire and hope the sound will send it running. But I only take that one shot, and then I’m running, tearing in the direction Storm went. I can see her, black against the gray rock, making her way up the mountainside, determined to win this game of catch-me.

“Storm!” I call as I run.

She hears me then. Looks back and gives a happy bark. Mom’s playing, too, this is awesome!

“Storm, come—”

I stop myself. Focus. Breathe. I’m cold with panic. Literally icy with it, cold sweat dripping down my face as I shiver, each breath scorching my lungs, my heart pounding so hard my vision clouds. This is terror. Like seeing that sniper in the tree, Dalton lunging, Dalton falling—but that was a mere second of panic, the thin space between seeing him fall and seeing him alive and breathing. This seems to go on forever.