My Panther Mate & Our Little Cub novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Ledge

"Don't look down," Darek said, as if I might.

He crouched at the edge, with his nose lifted, and I realized that he was scenting.

"There," he said. "Cub's musk. He went over."

"Over?"

"Not fell. He shifted. Look."

A tuft of black fur clung to a thorn on the lip, and below it the face of the cliff showed a thin ledge, six feet down.

I leaned out until Hesper grabbed my belt.

On the ledge, a black cub the size of a house cat was curled around a rock, trembling, his tail wrapped over his nose.

"Tuck!" I shouted.

His ears flattened.

"Why did he run?" I said, and my voice cracked. "I fed him. I thought he was happy."

"He is," said Hesper. "That's why. Cubs sleep light. He heard his father say the cub goes if the mother fails, and he got it into his head that you'd leave. Cubs run to see who comes after them."

My throat closed.

"He was testing me," I said.

"Aye."

I looked at the cliff, and the ledge, and the long drop.

"I'll go," Darek said.

"You're too heavy," said Hesper. "That ledge will shear off the minute you land. It'll take a cub or a woman, not a cat of six feet."

"Then I'll shift."

"You'd spook him. He's frightened of his own father's shadow." She gave him a flat look. "He isn't wrong to be, Darek."

Darek flinched.

I was already unbuckling my belt.

"Rope," I said. "Anything. I'm going down."

"You don't know how," Darek said.

"I spent six summers running a camp on a river gorge. I know how to tie a bowline." I turned to Hesper. "Is there rope in the den?"

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