26
HUNTER
Shifting back from an animal is less comfortable than becoming a bear. The retraction of bones and condensing of skin and sinew into a smaller form results in more pain. Shifting from a bear brain to a human brain is disorientating. We communicate through our minds when we’re bears. I have to remember to speak out loud when I’m newly human again. When we’re bears, I’m directly connected to my brothers. When we’re human, that connection becomes more tenuous, and I feel isolated in a way that prickles beneath my skin.
The air is cool against my naked body as I rise from a crouch. Steam rises as our temperature adjusts. I glance at Robert as he punches the code into the hidden external key safe. It’s the only secure way to get in and out of the house when we’ve shifted.
Inside, we dress, and Robert jogs up the stairs to check on Goldie. I wait at the bottom for him to knock, wanting to hear their exchange. When there’s no answer from inside the room, he throws open the door and curses. “She’s gone,” he says.
“What do you mean she’s gone?”
“Her bag and suitcase are gone,” he says.
“Fuck.”
Evan rushes into the kitchen like he expects to find her rustling up dinner, but even before he curses, I know she’s not there. We told her she was in danger, but she still chose the danger outside these walls over her perception of the danger inside them. She chose to risk her life with strangers rather than try to live with her mates. My father will be turning in his grave at how badly we’ve handled her arrival.
“Her car’s still here,” Evan points out. He jogs outside and returns with her suitcase. “She left on foot.”
“We have to shift again,” I tell my brothers. “We have to find her before the wolves do.”
Robert’s expression is murderous, and frustration and fury break through his usually stoic reserve. Evan fists his hair as the loss of our mate wrenches his heart. Images of her surrounded by snarling wolves fill my mind, and I almost drop to my knees. If anything happens to her, I’ll never forgive myself. I should have handled her arrival differently. I should have claimed her immediately, and then all of this would have been different. She would have wanted to stay. She’d be pregnant with our offspring and dedicated to our family by now. Or I could have approached her more gently, like my brothers. If she’d felt equally close to me, we might have gotten to the claiming part more gently.
The urge to punch the wall is overwhelming. My bear rears up inside me, snarling and raging at my failure to protect our mate. Stripping off again, I don’t bother to toss my clothes in the basket. Instead, they pile up around my feet. Robert quickly replaces the key in the safe. How he’s keeping his head and restraint, I’ll never know. I’m the first to shift, and the burn this time is greater than the first. There’s a limit to how many times we can do it without our forms becoming confused. Goldie’s scent is strongest around her car, and I breathe her in, the sweet cinnamon and apple fragrance tripping switches in my head.
Find her, my bear growls. Find her.
I don’t wait for my brothers to follow. The forest floor calls me, and the path Goldie took is faint but ever present. Behind me, heavy bear paws crunch fallen leaves.
“ She walked towards the road ,” Robert’s bear growls.
Maybe she managed to hitchhike into town, or maybe we distracted the wolves long enough for her to find safety.
“ If she got into a car, we’d lose the scent ,” Evan points out.
Even as my bear scowls at the idea, I pray that's the case. His frenzy at following her smell has our jaws dripping and our teeth gnashing.
It takes ten minutes for the sound of cars passing on the road to become loud. Goldie’s scent becomes stronger beneath a large tree, and I rear up, catching the potent scent of wolf in the surrounding air—wolf and man.
“ Wolf ,” my bear growls. I’m standing at my full height, furious and terrified. They have her. They have our mate. We’re too late.
Robert lets out a pained growl, and Evan follows. Our thread of connection vibrates with the misery of our situation and the desperation we all feel to get Goldie back into our den, safe and sound.
If she’s still alive.
The thought is a knife slashing my belly, causing my insides to tumble.
She’s useless to them while they’re in wolf form, but if they shift back to human…
“ Where ?” I ask.
Robert bounds forward, following the scent to the road’s edge, nuzzling into tire tracks that have torn up the soft earth at the edge of the road. “ They parked here ,” he says. “ They went that way. ”
The scent of wolf lingers around the tire tracks and trails along the road's edge. They didn’t all shift when they got her to the car, which will be to our advantage. The scent of the car is faint, and we can only follow it by exposing ourselves and risking more humans coming to track bears.
I lead us back into the treeline, and we surge forward to follow the path of the wolves. All we can hope is that they’re all gathered in the same place, and when we get there, Goldie’s unharmed. There are too many uncertainties in this situation. There are too many chances for the worst to happen.
What would happen to us if the wolves killed our mate? Dread leashes my bear tightly by the throat. The pain of the loss of Goldie would end us all. Broken-hearted animals don’t survive. They pine and weaken, forgoing food and water, forgetting their human selves, losing all hope and will to live.
“ Stop ,” Evan growls in my mind.
Are my spiraling thoughts loud enough for him to hear ?
“We’ll find her ,” Robert’s bear growls. His certainty restores my resolve. If he believes it, so can I.
I get lost in the red mist of our desperate hunt. The scent of the wolves burns my nose and makes my eyes stream. I take no care where I’m running or notice the pain of tearing my paws on twigs and stones underfoot. My goal is singular.
“ Here ?” Robert says as we emerge from the undergrowth into a familiar patch of land. It’s where we mauled the wolf who tried to get to Goldie. The rundown house on the edge of town. A dark truck is parked to the side of the building, but it’s impossible to know if it’s the same one that tore up the roadside and transported our mate away from us. The scent of wolf is acrid and sour and intensely strong.
As though the wolves sense our approach, one appears around the side of the building, snarling. Men appear in the doorway, shifting in a blur of white flesh to gray fur, a waterfall of angry rival shifters.
Robert and Evan flank me, snarling and growling as we edge forward, our eyes focused on our enemy and the open doorway that might be our route to Goldie. Fighting our enemies shouldn’t come before finding out if our mate is okay, but it has to. They have to be destroyed.
There are six of them, which is more than I expected. We’ve reduced their clan numbers over the past couple of years. Some have left, no longer wanting to participate in the constant battle, and others have been maimed or killed. The six left show signs of battle, torn ears and scars running down their flanks. One is missing a tail. I have that hanging as a trophy in the house.
A battle of wolf versus bear is one of tactics over power. We’re bigger and stronger, but they’re faster and outnumber us. Still, I don’t fear the wounds they can inflict. Our father was a fearsome teacher, and we followed him into many confrontations over the years.
I’m the first to strike, slashing my paw at a wolf who dared to get too close. He whines and retreats, dragging a leg that oozes a string of blood. Their yapping gets louder, and Robert strikes, using his fearsome jaws to clamp onto another wolf’s rear. Three wolves try to defend their friend, and Robert lashes out as Evan, and I weigh in. Soft flesh yields against my claws, and hot blood seeps between my toes as I snarl and slash, wanting to tear these wolves to ribbons. I’m bitten and clawed from behind as the wolves attempt to overpower me. Still, I shake them off, rising like a wall of brutality.
I come down hard on the back of a mangy wolf, and he cries out in pain.
How long will they fight for? How many will we kill before they retreat?
Evan manages to get his jaws around the neck of a wolf, who scrambles to get free, growling at first, then shrieking until he’s finally quiet. The other wolves seem to lose their drive to fight, staring at the flopping corpse of their friend as his life force spills over the ground in a scarlet halo. I take a chance, gouging at the face of the closest wolf, taking his eye in the process. Another wolf catches me across my back, dragging sharp claws through my fur, skin, and flesh. Evan knocks him away, and he yelps, landing painfully on his spine. That’s the final straw for them, and they back away, snarling and growling, edging further from the house and closer to the safety of the treeline. We follow, creeping forward as they sculk backward, our eyes never leaving the threat. Only when they’ve turned quickly and run into the forest do we lower our muzzles, panting and sweating, holding our ground for what feels like an eon until we’re sure they’ll not return.
“ Go ,” I growl at Evan. “ Check for Goldie. ”
He turns and bounds away as fast as his bear legs can carry him.
I sense the moment he shifts, and that third of my bear mind goes dark. I won’t know if he finds her until I see them both for myself. I can’t breathe as I wait until I’m confident the wolves are gone and won’t be coming back.