“But you’re okay?”
“I am now,” I said.
He nodded over my shoulder at Sakhmet. “Was she kidnapped, too?”
“No, she—” I was about to say she was one of the kidnappers. But that didn’t make sense anymore. She’d been simultaneously captor and victim, and she had the scars to show for it. Already, the last few days were turning into a blur in my memory.
Sakhmet kept her head bowed, hiding her face as she bent protectively over Mohan’s body. I couldn’t bring myself to call her name and interrupt her grief.
“Kitty—what the hell happened here?” Ben said, his tone baffled rather than demanding. I couldn’t imagine what this all looked like through his eyes.
I met his gaze, ran a hand across his hair, comforting myself. “It’s not going to make any sense at all. Really. Oh, Tom—” I said, in a panic. “Did you find Tom, is he okay?”
“He’s okay. Got knocked out by a tranquilizer dart, and when he woke up, you were gone. He felt terrible. Took us a couple of days to calm him down.” Tom would have thought protecting me was his job, and that he’d failed. He was prone to turning wolf and running off when he got upset. I could picture the scene, Ben and the rest of the pack talking him off that ledge.
“It wasn’t his fault,” I said. I relaxed further, relieved with confirmation that he was all right.
“He’ll be happy to hear you say it. I had to keep him from spending the last few days out looking for you nonstop.”
“He wouldn’t have found me.”
“I know,” he said. His sigh was revealing. “Because I was out here looking for you.”
“You? Or your wolf?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I kind of lost it. Kept losing it. Cormac tried talking me down the best he could. But … I didn’t really come back until you sent your message.”
Ben in a panic, furious and worried, had let loose his wolf to search for me. He couldn’t not. I’d have done the same, in his place. Was it weird that I thought it was romantic?
“I’m glad the message worked.”
“Me, too.”
“Ben?” Cormac said, a warning in his tone.
Voices sounded from the woods downslope, along with the growling motor of an ATV. A powerful flashlight panned across the trees. The search party. Ben and Cormac had brought the cavalry.
Ben pulled away. I almost grabbed at him in a panic, not ready to let him go. But the world intruded.
“You’ll be okay?” he said, smoothing back my hair, searching my eyes. I nodded, and he kissed my lips firmly, decisively, as if to convince himself that I was really here and really safe, as much as to comfort me.
He stood and joined Cormac, who handed the rifle to him. Ben took it, tucking it under his arm. When the cops arrived, they wouldn’t catch the ex-con with the loaded weapon. Like they’d discussed it beforehand or something.
Sakhmet looked up, scrubbed tears from her cheeks, smearing the ashes streaked there. Her eyes were wide, golden, and she looked wild. Quickly, she got into a crouch, gently settling Mohan’s body, arranging his hands at his sides, stroking his hair one more time and kissing his forehead, a lingering farewell.
Then she moved to me. “I don’t have a passport or visa. I can’t let them find me.”
I blinked at her. “But … wait a minute. Ben’s a lawyer, we can get help—”
She took my face in her hands and made me look into her eyes. She had decided, and I wasn’t going to talk her out of it. “I’ll always know how to find you, Kitty. I’ll call.”
She kissed my cheek, hugged me quickly; unconsciously I reached for her, to try to hug her back, but she was already slipping away from my arms.
“Sakhmet, wait a—”
“Samira,” she said, then turned and ran. Barefoot, skirt trailing, hair slipping from its braid in flying strands, she was around the hill and gone in moments. Gone, leaving me with her dead lover, my only solid evidence that any of this had happened. I had so many questions, and nothing to say.
Other figures appeared, a pair of men in dark green forest service coats, a man in a blue state patrol uniform. Wow, they’d really been looking for me. My phone, the message, I’d left it outside so Ben would find it—they must have been able to track the signal. Or the sound and fury of the collapsing mine had led them here. Both, working together, probably. I’d ask Ben about it later.