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in to the shallows, all three were back in the water, wading out waist-deep on the rock ledges that ran
beneath the surface. Bowdie stood up be-fore Kurvan could help him, and the lake water ran off his
bowed legs like waterfalls. He took a step, slipped, and went under. A second later, he broke the
surface again. Painfully, he got to his feet, pulling Nitpicker up onto the rock with him. With Striker
supporting Nitpicker on the other side, the four waded out of the water.
Wren waited for Tsia while the others staggered to the shel-ter of the trees. She swam in until her knee
stubbed painfully against rock almost the same moment her fingernails jammed into the rough stone.
Wren offered her a clublike hand, and she took it gratefully. "I'm all right," she said hoarsely. She hauled
Nitpicker's blunter from the water and gave it to Wren in trade for her own. Quickly, she shrugged into
the sleeves and wrapped her arms around her waist. The wind had slapped the cold back into her bones
the minute she rose from the surface.
Wren gripped her arm. "Doetzier found an overhang be-tween two lava bombs. We can shelter there till
we figure out what we're going to do."
She nodded without speaking and staggered clumsily after him. Her numb feet seemed to hit every
ragged bump and crack beneath the water, and she wondered that Wren didn't feel them through his
boots. Lake grit dried across her cheek, and she peeled the enbee from her face to seal it in her har-ness.
A few moments later, her feet hit the lake bank, and she trudged, then forced herself to jog behind Wren.
As she reached the trees, she stepped on a sharp, hidden stick. She swore quietly, and put her foot
down directly on another. "Daya-damned digger dung," she cursed.
Wren glanced back at her mincing run, then pointed toward the bank where he had originally waited.
"Your boots are back there. I only brought the blunter."
She nodded and limped after him until the sharpness of the bruise subsided. The cold mud squelched
beneath her toes, but she seemed oddly immune to the storm. Was she so numb she could no longer feel
the chill? The wind gusted and drove a thin sheet of rain across the lake, and she felt it ruffle her fur. She
stopped midstep. Her lips raised in a silent snarl.
She was still taking her body heat from the cub. Through the gate.
This time, the chill that crawled through her bones was real. When Ruka first gave her heat, she had not
thought beyond the gratitude that the chill was no longer a danger. But now she accepted the heat as if
it was instinctual. As if it was all right to take this from the cub.
She stared toward the brush where the cougar crouched. This was not the same as touching an adult
cat's mind. No full-grown tam had ever given her an energy that she took in as her own. No watercat had
ever quenched her thirst by men-tal thought. What Ruka was doing was it normal? Or was it a sign that
Tsia had stepped beyond the law of the Landing Pact? Contact when the cats requested it that was
accepted by any guide. But to take from the cats automatically and to take heat, to take energy itself&
If the cub responded like this to her unspoken needs, what would he do if she acciden-tally projected a
need for action?
She had to force herself to move forward when Wren glanced back with a frown. But a flash of tawny
skin melted into the shrubs beside her. "Go back to the beach," she whis-pered. "East. Go east. You can
find your family if you hurry." Deliberately, she turned her back. You can't stay with me. She sent the
message through her gate as strongly as she could cre-ate the images. / don't want you here.
The scent of mud seemed suddenly sharp, and she closed her gate abruptly. "No," she snapped. She was
not aware she had spoken out loud until Wren turned back.
"What is it?" he shouted over the wind.
She shrugged, unable to answer.
He came closer and studied her expression with narrowed eyes. "What do you feel?" he repeated.
Her teeth, when she looked up, were clenched. "The cub."
Wren regarded her for a long moment, his flat, gray eyes un-readable. "Following?"
She jerked a nod.
He watched her for a moment. Then he turned and contin-ued thoughtfully toward the shelter.
Ruka slunk through the forest to her right The cord between them almost choked her when she tried to
snap it off at the biogate. Blankly, she stumbled after Wren. How could she have let her gate grow so
strong? Only once before had she felt this kind of immersion in the senses of the cats, and that was when
she had first become a guide when she hadn't even known control. What was her excuse this time?
Wren waited while she stopped to pull on her boots in a heavy wash of rain. The rain was not alive
except with phys-ical power, but her biogate seethed with the force of life around her. Ruka blinded her;
Wren's voice echoed. The Land-ing Pact& The past& The law. But she had called the cub for help
here now and that in itself was a crime. She stared up at the black and waving arms of the Rushing
Forest. The trees that had taught her sister how to dance over twenty years ago now reached for the sky
like abandoned dreams. Like lives left behind. Like hands. She choked on her guilt and stiffly fol-lowed
Wren to the cave.
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