CHAPTER TWO

Time ... Space ... Universes ... all are nothing more than strings waiting to be plucked to the tune of the manipulator. This thought ran through Cat's head as she eased off the throttle on the mule and peeled Declan's hands from his death grip around her arm. Her first jump had almost killed her, but like everything else, she survived. After that, she had fashioned blast shields for the mule, and that made things much easier in the long run for both the jumps as well as the fights that ensued after. Hopefully, this one would end like the others, without confrontation or contact.

Her green eyes drifted to the finger bruises on her arm, from Declan's grip. It was another product of the jumps, muscles contracting ... almost like being spit out from a giant suction cup. Only much, much worse. Pain flashed to her brain, but it would be ignored and forgotten, just as it always was.

"What the hell was that?" Declan shook his head, feeling weak and nauseous as Cat took in the area around her. She felt his eyes on the marks on her arm. "I'm..."

"It's nothing," she remarked, the blood in each bruise beginning to be reabsorbed, her skin reverting to its normal colour.

"That's pretty ..." He'd heard about it all his life, but to actually see it ... "Sorry," he said automatically.

"No big." Cat looked back at Batha, whose ears had perked. "Where?" she asked the panther.

'Past ... but not ours.' She rumbled low. 'Beat us here.'

"Fuck." Cat heard the gunfire now and let her nose take in the smells. One was oddly familiar and made her belly whine gently. Turning to Declan, she looked at him. "You stay here."

"Umm ... no?" He shook his head, still a bit out of it after whatever the hell had just happened. "Would you tell my father that?" he grumbled, holding tight to the shotgun.

"Maybe not," Cat admitted, then threw a right cross that knocked him to the ground. "But then your father would have seen that coming. You didn't and I don't have time to babysit." Her fangs emerged