The big cat didn’t move, only twitched its nose, catching the scent of sweat, adrenaline, and blood. Mike felt a cold chill run down his spine as he thought of the poachers who had left him tied to this old hemlock three hours ago. They’d roughed him up, smashed his radio, and taken his satellite phone, promising to come back at dawn to “finish the job.” Mike knew they weren’t bluffing. He’d be a dead man by morning—if the mountain lion didn’t get him first.
The male slowly shifted its gaze from Mike’s face to the rope binding his chest. He tilted his massive head low, his tawny fur almost brushing the fallen needles. A low sound vibrated in his chest—not a growl, but a rhythmic chuffing, a sound Mike couldn’t quite place.
The cat cautiously nudged the knot in the rope, sniffed it, and pulled back as if considering. Then he leaned in again. Mike felt the hot, damp nose slide across his wrist, making his heart skip a beat.
— “You remember?” Mike rasped. “Come on, pal. You remember.”
The cougar let out a low rumble that Mike felt in his own ribcage and went to work. Slowly, carefully, with almost surgical precision, the beast tried to help. Mike realized that if the predator slipped and caught his wrist with those four-inch canines, his rescue would turn into an execution. But the cat worked with incredible focus, as if his past experience with human hands had taught him something beyond mere instinct.
Mike watched every movement: the ripple of muscle in the cat’s shoulders, the way his ears flattened in concentration. And just as the cougar began to fray the first loop of the rope, a sound drifted from the thicket that made Mike’s blood run cold. It was a howl—long, jagged, and full of hungry malice.
The cougar froze instantly. He lifted his head, ears swiveling forward, nostrils flaring. Mike felt the shift in the air, too—the heavy, rank smell of wet fur and rot. The scent of danger was so thick you could almost taste it.
Feral dogs. Mike knew the pack; they’d been terrorizing the local deer population for two years. A dozen strays, abandoned or escaped from the nearby valley towns, had turned into something primitive. Last winter, they’d taken down a young elk just two miles from here. Mike had seen the remains; he knew this pack feared nothing. They were starving, desperate, and they were coming this way.
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