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and that was quite a lot. The good thing was, though, that she’d headed off in the completely wrong direction. Instead of walking towards civilization, she’d actually walked straight in to the deepest, densest part of the surrounding forest. Unless she basically retraced her steps and did a total one-eighty, she was just going to move farther and farther away from help.
    Warren locked the door behind him, lifted his collar against the biting wind. Pinned his eyes to the boot prints in the ground and followed. He was on the hunt for Shay Alcott, and the woman was going to be in trouble when he caught up with her.
    Big trouble.
    **
    Warren stared down at the dead mountain lion. He was frozen in horror, and not just at the presence of the animal. No, he was also horrified at the blood surrounding it. Fuck, it was a lot of blood, and no way it all belonged to the lion.
    He squatted down, saw the blood around the creature’s mouth, saw some flesh trapped in its teeth. Suddenly, all his red-hot anger at Shay changed to frantic worry.
    He felt guilt, too. After all, if he hadn’t been holding her prisoner then she’d never have been out here in the first place, never have taken flight in to the unknown wilderness. If anything had happened to this woman, it was on his head. All of it.
    He stood up and in the glare of the flashlight, he saw stumbling footprints that went a few feet away, saw the place that a body had fallen. There were no more footprints after this point – there were just drag marks and a blood trail.
    Yeah, she was hurt. She was hurt bad .
    The pain in his head totally forgotten, his chest tight with fear, Warren followed the marks, followed the trail. They went up the mountain, and he could only imagine how hard she must have fought to keep going. She was an ass-kicking, lion-killing warrior and right this minute, he was rooting hard for her to have not lost one ounce of that spirit.
    It was pitch-black now, and he shone his flashlight ahead a few feet, trying to get a sense of where Shay might have headed next. That was when he saw the entrance to a cave. The drag marks and blood went in to it, and he damn near cheered at the fact that she was sheltered, at least.
    He approached quietly, since he hadn’t forgotten for one second that the woman was armed. With his luck, she’d be a sniper-for-hire in her down-time, or something. He got to the cave, pressed himself against the rock, listening. Nothing.
    Chancing it, he quickly stuck his head around the entrance, shot a quick glance in. There was a faint light a little ways away, and he heaved a relieved breath that she wasn’t in the dark. He went in slowly, cautiously, hating how loud the loose rocks sounded crunching under his feet. If she heard him, though, she didn’t say a word. Maybe she was just sitting there with her finger on the trigger, quietly getting him in her sights.
    When he got closer to the light, he saw that it was coming from a small tunnel off the main cave. He went in, still hoping to God that he didn’t get shot, but kind of feeling like he deserved to get shot, at the same time. Then he saw her, and the fear that he’d managed to keep mostly at bay roared to life, and went straight in to overdrive.
    She was slumped against the cave wall, her legs straight out in front of her. Her right leg had a bandage wrapped around the calf, and the white gauze was soaked with blood. Her beautiful green eyes were closed and she was deathly pale.
    “Oh, God,” he said, his feet feeling like they were welded to the ground. “Shay.”
    She didn’t respond; didn’t even move. That was when he thought that she might actually be dead, and he moved towards her swiftly. He fell to his knees next to her, ripping off his gloves. He cupped her soft cheek in his large palm, and exhaled hard when he felt that she was warm, saw her chest rising and falling.
    “Shay? Can you hear me, honey?”
    Still nothing, and he turned his attention to her leg. His