Free Shadowlander by Theresa Meyers Page A

what the hell could be scarier that lurked in the woods?
    Cate urged her big cat up closer to Rook’s, so that he was just a whisker’s breadth in front of her. She kept her mouth shut and her eyes open as her catamount stalked through the trees and snow on silent feet. Her nose was going numb and her cheeks stung. Rook maintained silence. The crack of the trees ricocheted through the area. A limb broke under the weight of the snow and it fell in a cascade of white. She jumped and her heart pounded in her ears, deafening in the silence of the woods.
    Up ahead stood a pile of stones capped with snow. It wasn’t rubble, but neatly cut oblong black stones that stepped up into a mini pyramid. “What’s that?” she whispered.
    “The border marker,” he replied in low tones meant only for her ears. “On this side of the stones we are in Shadowland. The trees beyond are Wyldwood.” Rook’s gaze penetrated the trees, his shoulders tense, one hand on the sword hilt sheathed at his waist.
    Cate peered into the Shadowland side and saw an enormous evergreen, nearly as big across as the catamounts, with an ankh symbol the size of her hand carved into the trunk. She jerked her head. “Is that one of the portals?” Her words came out a mere breath of whitish mist in the cold air.
    He merely nodded in response. But then his eyes went wide. “Go!” he shouted, his face contorted with anger. “Ride! Don’t stop until I come for you.”
    Cate whipped around to catch a glimpse of what had startled him. Men clothed in long scarlet tunics were running toward them on foot from deep within the trees, weapons drawn.
    She spun around, kicking her cat and yelling “Forward!” The catamount snarled and shied sideways. Two of the attackers came at her from either side of the road and tried to grab the reins.
    The animal hissed and reared—swiping its great paws, armed with scythe-size claws—at the attackers. One fell, nearly cleaved in half. The other dodged out of the way and swung wildly at the cat with his sword.
    That only pissed it off. The catamount let out a loud roar that shook Cate’s spine, then lurched forward and bit the man in two like an oversize rodent. Bile surged up in Cate’s throat as what was left of him toppled in a bloody mess against the snow. She sucked in great gulps of icy air, letting the sting of it in her lungs scour away the sick feeling.
    Clutching the sides of the cat with her legs, she fought desperately to stay mounted as it wheeled around to slap at the attackers now coming at them from behind. “Get me out of here, you stupid cat!”
    The catamount reared up on its haunches, nearly spilling her out of the saddle. Cate barely had time to register what was happening before she saw Rook leap from his big cat, taking on four men. The glint and clang of metal filled the cold air. His face seemed to change, his brows protruding, shifting, until they became felinelike, with long canines catching the dim forest light, but she couldn’t be sure. Perhaps she was seeing things. It was all happening too fast.
    The cat twisted away from the noise and fury and started running, its whole body lunging as it sped down the trail. The trees quickly swallowed them up and while she could still hear the battle, she could no longer see it. Her catamount didn’t slow until the snow drifts lessened, then disappeared completely, its sides bellowing in and out, its breath hanging in great white misted clouds in the freezing air.
    Cate was not only scared out of her mind, but totally lost. She didn’t know if she was still in Shadowland or had cantered off into Wyldwood. It all looked the freakin’ same to her.
    She considered scratching the big cat behind the ears as she’d seen Rook do, but it was simply too daunting. “We’d better wait for Rook here,” she said quietly to the cat, hoping it would see fit to agree.
    Little faces, some of them wreathed in leaves nearly camouflaging them in the foliage, pointedly