Ilona Andrews - On the Edge

“Why not?”

“Because Rose told me not to talk to anybody about it.” Declan leaned forward and fixed him with his eyes. Jack tensed. If Declan were a changeling, he’d be a wolf, Jack decided. A large white wolf. Very smart and with big teeth.

“Do you always do what Rose says?”

Ooooh. That was a trick question. If he said he did, Declan would think he was a mama’s boy. If he said he didn’t, he’d have to tell him that he was a cat. Jack thought about it. “No. But I always know I’m supposed to.”

“I see,” Declan said.

Jack decided he had to explain, just so there wouldn’t be any doubt that he wasn’t a mama’s boy. “My mom died. My dad left to hunt for treasure. I don’t remember him. He was a good dad, I think, but he might have been not that smart, because when Grandma talks about him, she calls him ‘that stupid man’ sometimes. She can do that because he’s her son, so I don’t get mad.”

“Aha,” Declan said.

“So until my dad comes back, I’m Rose’s cub. So I have to do what she says.”

“Makes sense,” Declan said.

“You like Rose?” Jack said.

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s smart, kind, and pretty. She stands up to me. That’s hard to do.”

Jack nodded. That made sense. Declan was hard to stand up to. He was tall and big and he had a sword. “Rose is prickly.”

“She is certainly that.”

“She’s nice, too,” Jack said. “She takes care of me and Georgie. And if you ask her really nice, she’ll make you a pie even if she’s tired from work.”

“And she’s funny,” Declan said confidentially. “But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her that. If she knew I thought she was funny, she might not take me seriously. Women are like that.”

Jack nodded. He could keep a manly secret, and it wasn’t something that Rose had to know. “If you win the challenges, you’ll take Rose away.”

“That’s the agreement,” Declan said.

“Can we come?”

“Yes.”

“Breakfast!” Rose called.

Jack started for the door and turned. His eyes flashed with amber fire. “I won’t help you win,” he said.

Declan grinned. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

ROSE crouched by him. Jack wished he were bigger. He disliked it when people crouched to talk to him, but he knew Rose did it so she could look at his eyes.

“Focus, Jack.”

He nodded.

“You don’t chase the leech birds. You don’t stop to catch a bunny. You run as fast as you can, and when you get tired, you hide as well as you can. Do you understand me?”

He nodded again.

“Repeat it.”

“Run and hide. No leech birds.”

Rose bit her lip. “It’s very important. I know that Declan saved you and he’s nice to you, but he won’t be nice to me if I have to go away with him.”

“He said we could come.”

Rose stopped. “Where?”

“With him and you.”

Rose hugged him. “Jack, of course he would say that. He would say anything to get the two of you on his side. You can’t trust him.”

Jack squirmed until she let him go.

Rose sighed and took hold of his bracelet. “Are you ready?”

He nodded.

“Run and hide.”

“Run and hide,” he repeated.

Rose slipped his wrist out of the bracelet. The room swayed. The floor buckled and punched him in the face.

ROSE stepped onto the porch. Declan waited for her in the yard, his handsome face serene.

“You wanted a challenge.”

Declan nodded. “I’m a-flutter with anticipation.”

A-flutter. Right. Rose held the screen door open and let Jack onto the porch. He padded out on disproportionately big round paws and blinked at the sun with huge amber eyes. Thick fur, spotted with rosettes of rust and deep brown that seemed almost hunter green, clothed him in a dense coat. Jack wrinkled his muzzle, shaking his white whiskers. The long chocolate tufts of fur at the tips of his large ears trembled.

He looked adorable, like a poufy, stout kitten on long legs, slightly larger than a big house cat, but she knew those big, soft paws hid razor-sharp claws. Even at eight, Jack was deadly. In lean times, when they didn’t have meat, he went out hunting and more often than not came back with a turkey or a hare, sometimes slightly chewed up. Jack knew the Wood like the back of his hand. And when he didn’t want to be found, even an experienced hunter couldn’t discover his hiding place. She had to resort to magic to find him.

“Here is your first challenge.” Rose smiled. She crouched and petted Jack on the head. He rubbed against her knee. She whispered, “Go!”

Steel muscles tensed under the fur. Jack leaped off the porch, sailing through the air as if he had wings. He landed in the grass and bolted, his rosettes blending into a blur. A blink and he vanished in the trees.

Declan looked after him. “What is he?”

“Edge lynx.” Rose straightened. “You have until morning to catch him. If he returns here free by sunrise, you forfeit.”

Declan nodded, picked up a sack lying at his feet, and headed into the forest.

RUN and hide .

Run.

Run.

Run.

A hare scent trail. Tasty. Have to keep running.

Jack leapt over the log and kept going, flying over the forest floor. Heat spread through his muscles. The scents of the Wood bathed his face. He kept going, faster and faster, leaping from one moss-covered trunk to the next. Above him, leech birds circled with guttural cries somewhere high above the canopy.

Run and hide. No leech birds.

He dashed to and fro, confusing his scent trail just in case, leaped and ran deeper and deeper into the Wood, until finally he grew tired and scrambled up the trunk of a huge pine into the dense blanket of needles and lay on a branch, panting.

Birds chirping, little tiny fat birds. Tasty.

A squirrel poked its way out of the hole in the tree.

Jack lay still for a long time. Long enough to make him sleepy. He yawned, closed his eyes, and sank into a warm, happy nap.

A long twisting sound echoed through the Wood, jerking him awake. It wasn’t like any noise he had ever heard. Like a long wail. It pricked his ears, and he rose to a half crouch.

It was a trap.

He lay back down.

It was a trap, because Declan was smart.

What made that sound? What if it wasn’t Declan? Jack rose again and lay back down. Run and hide. He ran and he hid.

He waited for the sound to come again. He waited and waited, but the Wood was full of little animal noises and no wails.

It didn’t hurt to look. He would be very, very careful. Very careful.

Jack slunk up the tree branches, higher and higher, digging his claws into the fragrant bark, until he reached the top of the pine towering above the foliage. The sun shone from high above—he had slept for several hours.

In the distance a tiny star sparkled among the greenery.

Jack crouched in surprise.

The star winked at him, a little shiny spot. Oh, he wanted to see it. First the sound, then the star. Curious.

The spot of light trembled and swayed back and forth, glinting.

He had to see it up close. Just to find out what it was. He would be careful. Nobody would know.

Jack slid down and set out through the branches.

He moved quietly and slowly, like a shadow on soft paws, leaving no sign of his passing, taking his time. Up and down the branches, through the tangles of wild whiteberry, through the sea of dense feathery ferns, up the mossy fallen tree, onward and onward, until he came to the edge of a clearing and melted into the darkness between the branches.

In the clearing a long lean sapling bent nearly to the ground, held by a rope. The rope was attached to a piece of wood, and that piece of wood was thrust into a stick driven into the ground. A spring snare. Jack had seen those before. The piece of wood was a trigger bar. There would be bait attached to the trigger bar by a rope. Jack slunk through the shadows, circling the snare. Sure enough, a taut rope was attached to the trigger bar and on the end of that rope hung a star. Jack lay down and squinted against the glare. Not a star but the knife, the wicked, sharp, pretty knife he had cleaned in Declan’s room.