Whispers of Darkness (The Deadwood Hunter Series) by Rachel M Raithby

against Lincoln as his warm heavy body pressed against her.
    Caden started to suddenly move . “Doc?” Lexia moved to his side, worry creasing her face.
    “I’ve done all I can for him . You can stay till dark and then I want you gone.” She looked over Lexia. “Let me clean your wounds.”
    Lexia paused and looked down at herself as if just reali zing she had knife wounds across her limbs. “Oh, thanks.”
    Lara left the room once she’d cleaned and covered every one of Lexia’s cuts; she never asked how she’d got them or mentioned how the cuts seemed to be healing in front of her eyes. She didn’t want to know.
    “Remember , be gone by dark,” she said as she closed the door behind her. Lincoln growled in her direction then stalked over to Lexia.
    “Wake up , Doc, please be okay.” She stroked his face over and over, smoothing his matted fur down. “This is all my fault, Lincoln,” she whispered to her panther as he rubbed up against her.
    She pulled up a chair and sat down at Caden’s head, s lowly he started to come to. “Shush, don’t move, Doc, Lara fixed you up,” she whispered, staring into his vivid green eyes.
    “Lincoln is here, he saved me again ,” she smiled, kissing Lincoln on top of his furry head. “How did you find me? You shouldn’t have been back till tomorrow.”
    Lincoln nipped at her and growled low . “Can’t you just shift back? Does it really matter if she knows who you are?” When he sulked off Lexia huffed, “For god sake Lincoln! I can sense if she comes anywhere near the door and right now she’s upstairs.”
    He shifted and Lexia smiled. “That’s better.” She kissed him. “So how did you know we needed help?”
    “ I just felt it here,” Lincoln’s hand rubbed over his chest. He thought of the days before he’d met Lexia, when he felt such raw ruthless pain in his heart and decided he would never be leaving Lexia’s side again. “I just knew, so I started running. By the time I reached Caden’s the police were swarming all over the place but I picked up your scent and found you. What happened?”
    “I fell to sleep downstairs, Caden must have put me in bed, and I woke knowing someone was in our room but he’d injected me before I could move. I felt the effects straight away but still managed to fight back but there were two of them and the drugs kicked in... It didn’t last long, though, by the time they were carrying me down the stairs my head had started to clear. I sensed Caden in the shadows and he took one out but the other shot him and I’d still been a bit groggy.”
    “You should have left straight away ,” Lincoln murmured.
    “We couldn’t . Caden had been hurt too badly and I had killed the other Hunter before he could report back. I fixed up Caden as best as I could and passed out... Next thing I know there’s Derrick outside with an army of Hunters.”
    “Derrick, the one that contacted Tate? ”
    “Yeah ... Today he saw me before anyone else and he never said a word just stared at me like he wished I wasn’t there.”
    “Hmm strange... As soon as night falls we’ll have to leave the city, go straight to the forests .”
    “But we have no supplies , Lincoln, we can’t just hide in the forests forever.”
    “You have two cats that will look after you and until Caden can shift back were stuck .”
    “But that won’t be long , will it? You heal almost as fast as me.”
    “Yes , but Caden has spent his life suppressing his leopard side, I bet this is the first time he’s been cat in years.” Cat green eyes looked across at them. “We’ll be lucky if we ever get our friend back...”
    “What! What do you mean? He’s fine, he’ll heal and he’ll be fine... Won’t you?” Lexia whispered at the now alert Leopard on the table.
    “It’s hard to explain , Lex, but when you have spent most of your life pretending to be human when you’re not, well, it has its down sides. Now Caden has shifted, let his beast out to play,