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lifted.
                  Her eyes were on him a second later, and she nodded. “Please,” she said, voice soft. “I think I twisted my ankle when I fell.”
                  Karic nodded in return and was careful not to jostle her too much as he knelt and got his arms under her. He rose onto one knee and then the other, holding her close to his chest as he made his way back to the car. The woman was soaked through, and he could feel the frantic thrum of her pulse as he held her. “It's okay,” he said. “I'm not going to hurt you.”
                  “I know,” she murmured back, and her voice sounded weaker than it had before. “I don't think you've ever hurt another living thing. Not on purpose.”
                  Karic's mouth opened to ask her how she could possibly figure that, but when he looked down, he saw that she was unconscious. “Hell,” he swore under his breath. He'd been planning to have her ride in the front with him, but instead he got her settled across the back seat. His upholstery would dry, and he was almost as wet as she was at this point anyway.
                  It wasn't a long drive back to his place, and Karic couldn't help but glance in the rearview mirror at his unexpected passenger every few minutes. She was pretty for a girl who had climbed out of the river, her face sweet and cherubic and framed by dark hair that was escaping from the bun it had been pulled into. There was a bag slung over her shoulder, which definitely supported the theory that she was running from something, and Karic found himself wondering what it was or if she needed help. She looked young, definitely younger than him, and he could smell the musky scent of lion under the water and fear that otherwise clung to her. A shifter, then. He knew there was a pride nearby, on the other side of the river, which definitely went a long way towards explaining why she had wanted to know which side of the river he was from.
                  Karic didn't know anything about the pride at all, but he had seen members of it out and about in town. He didn’t do packs or groups, preferring to be alone most of the time, and if this woman was running from her pride, then it seemed like he had the right idea. He'd never had time for the dynamics that went along with packs and similar groups. Karic liked to be able to do what he wanted when he wanted to, and he generally preferred the company of humans to other shifters when at all possible. That was one of the reasons he loved this town so much. People knew about shifters and were more than tolerant of them, but humans outnumbered them five to one, and it was much more comfortable in Karic's mind by being surrounded by other shifters all the time. Shifters were unpredictable, territorial, and brash, and he got stressed out just thinking about it.
                  Luckily, he was pulling into his driveway before long, sighing at the fact that it was still pouring down rain outside. It would be warm and dry inside his house, but he had to get himself and this mystery woman out of the car and into the house before he could take advantage of that.
                  “Shouldn't be too hard,” he mumbled as he turned the car off and glanced back at the woman once again. He couldn't help but smile at how much more peaceful she looked when she was out cold and not shivering in the rain, but he shook himself and headed back out into the rain to get her out of the car.
                  Ten minutes and much muted swearing later, and Karic had them both inside. He had dripped an impressive puddle onto the floor of his entryway, and he sighed and added that to his list of things to take care of tomorrow before his shift. It was looking less and less like he was going to get to have the nice relaxing morning in bed that he wanted, but he couldn't deny that he had brought this on himself. “As per