“I don’t suppose you recognize any of those tracks?” Robyn asked, squinting at them through the windshield

“No. I’m better at recognizing paw prints than tire tracks, and I doubt I’m as good at that as most natural-born toms.” Who were practically born tracking prey in the woods.

After a bumpy mile and a half of watching our progress on the GPS map, Robyn told me to stop. “We’re half a mile away. If we go much farther in the truck, the light and engine noise might spook him.”

She was right. And I was impressed, especially considering that her somewhat illicit tracking skills were self-taught. However… “If he’s out here in cat form, he’ll already have heard us,” I said. “Looks like we’re walking from here.”

Robyn nodded. “You want to shift, or should I?”

I glanced at her again in surprise, and she rolled her eyes. “I’ve spent the past two months surrounded by enforcers. I know that two-man patrols work with one person on foot and one on four paws, so the team has access to advantages in both forms—a cat’s eyes, ears, and nose, and a human’s thumbs and cell phone. But…” She sighed. “I haven’t exactly totally mastered my instincts in cat form. And by instincts, I mean bloodlust.” The face she made suggested that the admission actually tasted bad on her tongue.

I shrugged. “Okay, I’ll shift. But if you’re going on two legs, you have to carry this.” I leaned across her to open the glove box, and she shook her head before I even got it open.

“I don’t know how to shoot a—”

“It’s a stun-gun.” I pulled out the blocky plastic pistol with a clunky square barrel and dropped it into her lap. “Just in case. You point and shoot.”

“Okaaay.” Robyn slid the gun into the right pocket of her borrowed coat.

“Did you really think I’d let you shoot my brother?” I asked as I got out of the car.

“No.” She laughed. “Though that would hint at an interesting family dynamic.” Her teeth began to chatter the moment she opened her car door—even in Mississippi, February was a cold month—so I rounded the front of the vehicle and folded the collar of my coat up over her neck and chin.

I didn’t realize what I was doing, or how intimate a gesture that was, until she looked up at me from inches away. Evidently surprised that I’d voluntarily touched her.

When I inhaled, her scent mixed with mine from the borrowed coat, and the combination made my heart beat harder. That moment felt…right. As if it could have been removed from our current mission—plopped down in any time or place—and I could be bundling her up in my coat on a snowy day on vacation in Europe. Or for a brisk afternoon walk on our own property.

And suddenly I wanted both of those things. Moments with Robyn that weren’t overshadowed by danger and stress. By the possibility that I had permanently lost my Pride and that my brother might soon lose his life.

Startled by that realization, I cleared my throat and stepped back.

“So, what’s the plan?” Robyn asked while I rounded the car again and took off my coat. “We’re going to walk around and hope we run into your brother?”

I folded my coat and set it on the driver’s seat. “We’re going to walk in the direction of the cabin and, yes, hope we find my brother. Or at least some trace of his scent, to confirm that he’s been out here recently.” I pulled my shirt over my head, and I was unsurprised, but definitely pleased, when she studied my chest with no hint of shame or timidity.

I’d been pursued by women before—most were more attracted to the me they read about in Forbes “30 Under 30” list than to the actual me—but Robyn was uninhibited and confident in a way few of the other women had been. She wasn’t arrogant, or presumptuous, or coy. She was just…open. Honest about what she wanted, not just with everyone else, but with herself.

“What if we don’t find Justus?” she asked, casually watching me over the hood of my car while I unzipped my pants. “Or any trace of him?”

“Then we go back to the apartment and get some sleep, and tomorrow we stake out all of his classes and try to get ahold of Ivy Lowe.” I stood fully naked and goose-pimpled in the moonlight and was suddenly glad that the front of the car shielded me from sight from the hips down—no first impression of an intimate nature should ever be made in sub-freezing temperatures.

I opened the rear driver’s side door and took a backpack from the floorboard. “I need you to carry this,” I said as I stuffed my keys and clothes into the bag, then tossed it to her over the hood of the car.

While I shifted, Robyn turned off the car lights and locked the doors, then she leaned against the hood and studied the GPS map until I finally stood on four paws.

“Wow, that was fast.” She settled the straps of my backpack higher on her shoulders. “Will I get faster with experience?”

I bobbed my muzzle at her. Then I tossed my head toward the east, in the general direction of the cabin. Corey Morris had told us he was attacked within fifty yards of the cabin. I was far from convinced that we’d find Justus out in the forest, but he wasn’t at home, and he had to be somewhere.

“Yup. Let’s go.” She headed into the woods, to the east, and I padded alongside her.

Her human footsteps were clumsy and obvious, at least to my cat’s ear, but she was clearly trying to be stealthy.

“Sorry,” she whispered the third time her boot snapped through a twig.

I gave her an amused snort. It didn’t matter how loud her steps were. If Justus was out there in cat form, he would hear her coming even if she could manage not to stomp on every crisp fallen leaf. Unless, like Robyn, he hadn’t yet mastered the art of listening without conscious effort.

A light blinked deeper in the woods and I froze, my frame tense. I inhaled deeply, but caught no out-of-place scents.

“What? Do you smell him?” Robyn took an exaggerated whiff of the air, but I could tell from her frown that she smelled only the same woodland inhabitants I had: skunks, beavers, raccoons, and somewhere nearby, a very nervous deer.

I shook my head and stared straight ahead, trying to direct her gaze in the right direction, absent the ability to speak. When she only squinted into the woods, I realize we weren’t close enough yet for her human eyes to register the light. So I kept walking, and she followed as quietly as she could.