Page 69 of Been There Dragon That
Wrath took a rifle from Col’s porch and slung it over his shoulder. He could still use his beast's senses and its vision, but it took a lot of concentration, and he couldn’t hold it for long periods of time.
Tor fell into step right next to him. “It’s because I’m orange. I’m like a walking construction sign drawing attention to myself.”
Wrath couldn’t help a snort of laughter. “That’s not true, you blend into the scrub really well.”
“Yeah, just not when the scrub is white,” Tor said, kicking through a mound of snow.
“Haven’t shifted in a while?”
“Been a few weeks since it was my turn. There’s so many of us, and the park rangers have been patrolling really close to the edge of the park lately.”
“Probably because we keep eating their animals. They know the boys run all over the mountain, I’m sure they worry about wolf prints the size of dinner plates.” Owen said, moving to walk a few paces ahead next to Col.
“Moose are good. The women like them,” Col said, with a nonchalant shrug. “We don’t take too many.”
Wrath watched the ground. There were multiple trails of wolf prints. Huge and easy to follow. “You know I caught some of the park rangers putting up wildlife cameras. We’ll have to be sure to let Callum and the other two boys know to be very careful where they shift if they aren’t on our land.”
“We will warn them. Are the camera’s close to our property lines?”
“Yeah,” Wrath answered. “Some of them are facing our property too. We’ll need to plant more trees and scrub to obscure the view, but we don’t want to hinder our food supply migrating.”
One of the lions came loping toward Col and Owen, shifting before he got too close. It was Aarav. “Ryan is out here.”
Tension tightened Wrath’s chest. Stupid human. “Fuck,” Wrath growled under his breath. “None of our cameras picked him up?”
“We were all taking a beating last night. He’s just one person. And we don’t have people that watch the cameras 24/7.” Aarav pointed off northeast. “He’s tracking the wolves.”
“How did he know they attacked us last night?”
Wrath stared at the five men for a few seconds and then off into the forest. No one would have talked to Ryan last night. Neither he nor Aarav had been to the office. Patsy knew they had radios in the house, and she would’ve radioed or called if he came by looking for information on the investigation. That woman could hold a secret about as long as she could hold her breath.
Owen was the first to speak. “What if there were tracks at Leif’s?” We didn’t really look around because we weren’t going to track them from there. But what if he found Tai’s tracks?”
“Those are on the other side of the river on the south side of town. That’s miles from our property. He tracked him from there all the way here?” Aarav shook his head and rubbed his hands over the scruff on his face and then through his hair.
“Which means he likely saw some of them shift,” Wrath said, his voice deadpanned.
“Dalmeck.” Col’s voice was dark and deadly. “We’ve added enough insiders from the town lately. We don’t need a vendetta-carrying-military-trained liability also in the inner circle.”
“That’s saying he’ll still be alive when we catch up to him,” Owen added.
Wrath ground his teeth. Whether or not they needed another human insider, Ryan didn’t deserve to die.
Col heaved out a heavy breath and looked into the trees. “Let’s pick up the pace. Hopefully, we can stop him or save him from himself.”
Good.Col might not be happy about the situation, but he wasn’t going to give up on saving Ryan.
Wrath broke into a ground-eating jog, Tor in sync right behind him. Their footfalls were light on the snowy ground. He could hear the lions moving along to his left and right but couldn’t see them through the shadows of the trees.
The scent of wolves was stronger in the air, the further into the park they went. He could only hope the tribe didn’t catch the attention of the park rangers moving in such a large group during the day. But that wasn’t a problem for today. Focus was required. People would die today, and he needed to make sure it was none ofhispeople.
* * *
Several miles later,a scream of pain cut through the stillness of the forest.Ryan.The metallic scent of blood permeated the air along with the strong scent of unfamiliar wolves.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
More wolves.
