Bearing Up In Wolf Rock (A BBW Bear Shifter Romance) (Wolf Rock Shifters) (5 page)

BOOK: Bearing Up In Wolf Rock (A BBW Bear Shifter Romance) (Wolf Rock Shifters)
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The female wolf
dashed upstairs to shift and clothe herself, then raced back down.

She
grabbed the keys and the two men hoisted the camouflaged stranger into the back of the SUV.

“Let’s head out
,” said Tristan when everyone was fully clothed.

Kyla drove the car
over the rough terrain as gently as she could, Tristan in the passenger seat and Dascha in the back, keeping the wounded man as still as he could during the bumpy ride through the woods.

They brought the victim
to the small hospital in Wolf Rock. Fortunately, aside from the odd twisted hiker’s ankle or broken arm, they were never terribly busy and this morning was no exception.

“We’ll have to stitch him up. Some pretty sharp claws went at him,
” said the doctor who came out to talk to the pack members. “Any idea who did this?”

“I think you mean what,” said Tristan, annoyed at the insinuation that it might have been one of their ilk.

“Sorry, that’s what I meant.” The doctor knew better than to annoy three people who could turn to wolves at the drop of a hat.

“There were tracks,” said
Dascha, “but honestly I didn’t stop to study them. I’ll go back and take a better look. Pretty sure it was a wild animal, though. I know our guys wouldn’t do this. Besides, I was the only wolf out on patrol all night.”

“Okay. Well, you know the police might
want to get involved, so if you can determine that it was an animal and not a shifter before they get wind of it you’ll be better off. Obviously, if this man regains consciousness he can tell us what happened but meanwhile you’d be best to do some damage control.”

“Understood,” said Tristan.

 

When they returned to the house,
Kyla turned to Tristan.


Dascha and I will go check out the tracks,” she said. “He’s been wanting more responsibility anyhow, and there’s no need for you to come with us.”

She knew perfect
ly well that Tristan would like to stay with Nikki, but more than that, Kyla wanted a chance to think about her strategy. If the tracks that she’d seen by the man’s wounded body were those of a bear it could put Maddox onto dangerous footing with the pack.

“Let me know what you find,” said Tristan as he sprinted up the stairs
towards his mate and their bed.

Jesus, to be an alpha.

 

The two wolves
found their way back to the sight where Dascha had found the man.

“The tracks are over here
, and it looks like there was a fight, judging by all the broken branches,” said Dascha after he shifted, seeing only now the abundant evidence Kyla had noticed hours before. He’d carried a robe with him, which he wrapped around his body.

Kyla
did the same, and crouched down to take a better look.

“They’re too big t
o be a wolf’s; even one of ours,” said Dascha. “I think it might have been a bear.”

Kyla felt her heart leap into her throat.
She was hoping he’d have another opinion. These were the last words she’d wanted to hear, and yet she realized that she’d been dreading them. But still, there must have been other bears in the area; these were the mountains and grizzlies were common.

Grizzly shifters, on the other hand, were rare, sexy and hopefully too sensible to go attacking strangers in the woods.

“Makes sense,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Bears generally don’t eat their victims and it probably just clobbered him and left him to suffer. Maybe it was a mother and the guy got too close to a cub or something.”

 

In the afternoon, after they’d spoken to Tristan and Nikki about their findings, Kyla and Dascha drove back into town to chat with the doctor, whose name was Cooper, about the unknown victim in the woods.

“An
y idea who he is?” asked Kyla.

“He hasn’t regained consciousness and he had no I.D. on him, so no. We’ll have to wait
til he comes out of the anaesthetic. We had to perform surgery because of some internal bleeding, but he should be okay. Do you know what did it?”

“The tracks were a large bear’s,” said
Dascha. “Probably a grizzly protecting its cubs. Either that or he came on one and surprised it. It happens sometimes to the most experienced woodsmen.”

“It seems odd, wouldn’t you say, that he had no identification, no gear? You said that he was deep in the woods.”

“It is odd. But who knows what he was doing out there? Maybe he’s not quite right in the head.”

“We’ll
see what he has to say when he comes to. Give me your number in case we need to learn more about the location of the attack.”

Kyla gave the doctor her cell number and
she and Dascha headed back to the cabin.

“I hope this is the end of the mystery,” said
Dascha. “The last thing this pack needs right now is more media attention.”

“I agree with you on that.
There’s no way we could keep the cabin’s location secret any longer if cops and forensic teams started roaming around the area. It would be the worst thing to have to move our location.”

“Well, honestly I’m amazed it’s been hidden this long. And this hunter
, or whatever he is, that I found was too close for comfort, really.”

Kyla could see that
Dascha was thinking about something.

“Do you su
ppose that he was looking for the cabin? For us?” she asked.

“I hope not,
Ky. I don’t know why he would be, other than curiosity. But he wasn’t dressed like your typical tourist. He meant business, this one.”

 

A nagging worry was growing inside Kyla’s mind, but she tried her best to let it go.

Four

 

 

That evening, Kyla received a phone call from Dr. Cooper.

“T
he man’s woken up,” he said. “We know a little more now. For instance, his name is John Peterson. He says he was attacked and robbed by a shifter.”

“No way,” said Kyla. “Our pack members would never do that. We have a code of conduct…”

“Yeah, I’ve seen your code of conduct on television,” said the doctor, obviously referring to the mayhem created within the pack when Tristan and Craig let their rage out, nearly tearing each other to shreds.

“We would never hurt a human. If you watched the show you’d know that.”

“It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t a member of your pack.”

“Who then?” Kyla knew the answer as the question came out of her mouth.

“A man. Another shifter, a bear, according to the victim. And a very large by the sounds of it. Mr. Peterson said that he came at him out of nowhere, shifted, and stole his pack and wallet.”

There was only one b
ear shifter that Kyla knew of in the area, and she couldn’t imagine that Maddox would do something like this, even if he’d been a little out of control in the bar.

“This all sounds a little sketchy to me,” she said. “Do you think we could come by tomorrow and have a word with him?”

“Sure. Come by after ten and find out what you can. By the way, Kyla, my own thoughts about in-fighting aside, if your pack ever needs anything, call me at home. To be quite honest I’m fascinated by your genetic structure and this man, this Peterson, he’s not exactly kind. I’d like to offer my help. I realize that you’re facing an uphill battle, trying to be accepted be society. I know you’re good folks.”

“Thanks, Doctor. The pack is grateful for that.”

 

That night as she drifted to sleep, Kyla had another vision. She wasn’t sure, until she realized that she’d shot up, awake and alert, that it wasn’t a dream.

In her mind’s eye she saw flashes: a bear. A stream. Buildings in the woods, blurred by a veil over the scene. Even a white tiger, padding down Wolf Rock’s main street.

Breathing heavily again, she did her best to get back to sleep and to forget the tricks that her head seemed to be playing on her.

 

In the morning, she
and Dascha headed for the hospital as soon as visiting hours had started up. The thought of what John Peterson might say filled Kyla with foreboding; she wanted to believe that the man she’d met in the bar, the guy who’d been so appealing in every way, wasn’t responsible for this mess. Aside from her personal attraction to him, it would do irreparable damage to the wolf pack to have it get out that shifters attacked people.

“We’d better smile and be friendly,” said
Dascha. “God knows what kind of man this is. He’s probably more than a little pissed that someone shredded his chest.”

“Agreed,” said Kyla, her inner wolf shuddering in apprehension. She didn’t like what her instincts were telling her
. This is not going to end well.

“Mr. Peterson,” she said gently as they approached the stranger’s bed. The man was lying on top of his sheets in a hospital gown. His face was scratched and there was a lump under his clothing; no doubt the bandages covering his chest. He had a sour look about him, but Kyla couldn’t blame him for it.

“Yes? Who the hell are you?”

What a charming fucking man
, Kyla thought.

“I’m Kyla
Greene, and this is my friend Dascha. We’re members of the Longtooth pack.”

At hearing that they were shifters, the man recoiled in fear, his hands pushing his back up against the head of the bed.

“I should have known,” he said, his voice trembling. “Those fucking blue eyes. But he didn’t have your eyes. He...”

Peterson clammed up, reluctant to say anything more.

“Please, don’t be frightened,” Kyla continued. “We’re not here to hurt you. We’d never hurt a human anyhow. It’s not our way. We just have some questions for you.”

“Not y
our ‘way?’ You’re fucking mutes. Animals.
That’s
your way. One of you tried to kill me two nights ago and…”

“One of
us
did nothing of the kind,” said Dascha.

Rage was building in him; this man was
clearly a bigot and probably deserved whatever he’d received and worse. The shifter found himself unable to maintain anything like a charming smile.

“What my friend means,” said
Kyla, though she herself was fighting an urge to change into her wolf form and to bite the man’s head off, “is that you claim it was a bear shifter who did this?”

“It was. But you’re all the same, your kind. Fucking lunatics. The government should just nuke this whole damn part of the country and wipe you off the map.”

“Fucker,” growled Dascha, who could barely restrain himself now. His youth was rearing its head and Kyla could see that she needed to diffuse the situation before he made things worse.


Dascha,” said Kyla quietly, “please could you get me a drink? Just some water would be fine.”

Her pack mate understood and left. He knew perfectly well
that transforming and killing a wounded patient wouldn’t do anyone any good.

“Now, Mr. Peterson, can you describe the man for me? The one who attacked you? We want to find him and make sure he’s brought to justice.”

“You probably want to give him a fucking medal. I’ll bet that’s what you want.”

“No. As I said, that
isn’t our way. Put yourself in our shoes, sir. Can you imagine for a second that, with all the media attention we’ve received, we’d want the world to think we’re killers?”

“I suppose not,” the man grumbled, the reluctance to agree palpable in his voice.

What an asshole,
thought Kyla.

“So pl
ease tell me what he looks like,” she said, her voice calm.

The she-wolf feared the answer. The idea of her pack hunting down Maddox…

“Well, he came at me kind of fast and asked me a pile of questions about what I was doing there in the woods.”

“And what were you doing?”

“I was hunting.”

“Hunting what?”

“Doesn’t matter what. The bastard stole my things. My crossbow, my gun, my pack, my wallet. Everything.”

“I think it does matter what you were hunting, Mr. Peterson. Hunting is illegal here.”

“What are you gonna do, report me, you fat bitch?”

Wow. This man might have his insides torn to pieces but
Kyla would have liked a go at the giant balls that made him think it was a good idea to insult a powerful female shifter.

“I won’t report you,” she said, using the discipline that she’d learned over the years as a pack member. “
Unless you give me no choice. But let’s just get back to the point: what did he look like?”

“He was tall. Dark hair, dark eyes.
Black tattoos.”

Damn it, why couldn’t he have been blond and blue-eyed?

BOOK: Bearing Up In Wolf Rock (A BBW Bear Shifter Romance) (Wolf Rock Shifters)
4.05Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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