Fated Shifter Mates Page 4

  “So, you take trespassers seriously.”

  “Of course, especially when we have such a gorgeous guest to protect.”

  “Drew Clark,” I said in a teasing voice. “I do believe you are flirting with me.”

  “Guilty. What’s my sentence?”

  “A kick in the ass,” said Marcus. He walked quickly toward us, pulling a wood beach chair behind him. “Here. You shouldn’t sit on the sand. Sand fleas.”

  Drew scoffed. “We don’t have sand fleas.”

  “Water. Sand. Sand fleas. Especially after we have sand dumped on the beach. You never know.”

  “Are they as evil as they sound?”

  “Sounds like someone hasn’t spent much time by the water,” said Marcus.

  “True.”

  “They are crustaceans but find human blood tasty. They like to come out when it is damp like this, so it’s better not to sit on the sand. Their bite is itchy, and the females like to lay eggs in their victims.”

  “Yuck.” The thought of little crabby things sucking my blood ticks my ick meter. “Thanks for the warning and the chair,” I said. The chair was welcome, and hopefully it would be comfortable. I rose and positioned it toward the water. Hopefully these guys would leave soon, and I could get to work.

  Then Cole arrived.

  “I bring gifts. Coffee,” he said holding up a travel mug. “And a bacon and egg sandwich.”

  “I didn’t know meals were part of the room.”

  “They aren’t,” grunted Drew. “Dude, stop giving away the profits.”

  “You’re just jealous you didn’t think of it first,” said Cole.

  “Jealous of what, you pompous ass?”

  “Hey,” said Marcus. His eyebrows knit together in concern. “Settle down.”

  “Who do you think you are, ranger boy?” snapped Drew. “Stay of out of this.”

  “Yeah,” said Cole. “Mind your own business.”

  “It is my business when you make assess of yourselves. What would Zain say?”

  “Zain can kiss my ass,” said Cole.

  “Kick your ass, you mean,” said Drew.

  “Cuz, make tracks. Don’t you have a cobbler to bake?”

  “You should be so lucky,” snapped Cole. “You’ll be fortunate to get bread and water today.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll find my own food.”

  “Sure, that’s a better joke then the ones you spit out every day.”

  “Hey, guys,” protested Marcus

  “Do you know what’s a joke?” spit Drew. “That you think you do anything that’s important around here.”

  “Hey!” protested Cole.

  “Any one of us can run this lodge, and you know it.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “That’s right. We bring in the money.”

  “Hey, the lodge earns too.”

  “It always did earn. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Guys,” said Marcus in a warning voice. “Cool it.”

  “Shut up,” both Drew and Cole said.

  Marcus stepped in between the two of them.

  “No, really. Cool it. Zain would hand both your asses to you acting like this, especially in front of a guest.”

  “Make me,” said Drew.

  “Don’t test me,” said Marcus.

  “I think I will.”

  With a great roundhouse swing, he connected with Marcus’ jaw, but the bear of a man just stood there shocked and rubbed his jaw. He glared at Drew.

  “Is that all you got?” he said.

  “Naw, I’ve got a little more.” With that he jumped Marcus, and both of them rolled in the sand trying to get shots off on each other. But Drew realized he was in trouble because he clung to Marcus even as the bigger man tried to pull away. They both bashed into the chair, skidding the heavy thing in the sand, and I got the idea that these guys were out for blood. My heart pounded watching them scuffle, stunned I was the cause of this fight between cousins.

  Ping. Ping. Ping.

  “What’s that?”

  “The gang is shooting at us,” said the man in the black jacket. “Bastard. Doesn’t he realize his daughter is in here.”

  “Oh, he realizes, officer. Why do I think I called you? He told me he’d kill both of us if I tried to leave.”

  My daddy would kill me because mommy took me away? Daddy wouldn’t do that, would he?

  More gunshots hit the moving van, and then I knew. Daddy would.

  The van swerved on the road tossing me from one side of the car seat to the other.

  “Gun it,” said the man in the black jacket.

  The wheels squealed while the man in the jacket yanked the handset of the CB microphone.

  “Agents under fire. Transporting witness and one child. Need back up immediately.”

  Rivulets of tears flowed down my cheek as this childhood memory impinged on the present. I can’t help this, the PTSD I have from that night and years of running, and now there are three men in combat near me. I can’t take this.

  I stand, looking over the field of battle for a way off the narrow beach. But these guys were everywhere. Drew and Marcus are still rolling in the sand, and Cole tries to pull one off, and he’s flung backward to land in the sand.

  Never mind sand fleas. These guys were more dangerous.

  “Stop!” I cried out. “Stop! This is stupid.”

  But my cries went unheeded as Marcus and Drew duel. Cole stood and moved toward the line between the grass and sand. There are two men trying to kill each other on the beach, and with one at the head, and the water at my back, there is no escape. I clutched my laptop to my chest knowing I had to make a break for it, but I didn’t see how.

  Then Zain rushes onto the beach, and he looked as pissed at hell. He practically roars as he stands there.

  “What the hell is going on!”

  I shrieked and ran as fast as I could to my cabin.

  Zain

  I cannot sleep. After roaming the property half the night looking for the trespasser, I still had a feeling a stranger watched us. My bear sense is rarely wrong, so I listen to it.

  It is not just the need to keep trespassers off our land. We must keep our secret. The gossip about our family in Clarkstown silenced since the family meeting hall burned, and our parents died twenty years ago. We would have been dead too had we not played hooky. The minister who took us so the state wouldn’t separate us quelled further whispers about us. He knew the truth but wasn’t afraid of what we were.

  We are all that’s left of the Clark clan. I cannot let any calamities happen. I’m the Alpha, and it’s my job to protect us.

  Dawn poked sunlight through my window, and I threw off my quilt and paced my room before I realized I could wake my cousins. We all had separate rooms on the top floor of the lodge, but we all had very good ears, and when one of us moved, we were all aware.

  With a resigned sigh. I went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door and spotted the cobbler sitting on the shelf in the glass casserole under plastic wrap. My bear has a ferocious sweet tooth, and I couldn’t resist. We give Cole a lot of grief for being “the domestic one,” but he is a good cook. Plus, he drizzled the one thing that bears cannot say “no” to, honey, on the top, and it was calling to me. Being the youngest, he spent the most time with Reverend Tracy, and that man, being an incorrigible bachelor, was very self-sufficient. Cole sopped up those life skills.

  But a satisfied belly did not calm the feeling that all was not well on our land. While scraping the last of the cobbler off the plate with my fork, I peered out the back window toward the ridge of mountain that bounded our eastern flank. And that’s when I saw gray smoke rising through the trees.

  I know every inch of our land, where all the guest cabins sat, including the hunting shacks with the barest of amenities, and that’s where I saw the smoke. That particular shack sat off an old logging road that we kept graded to get access to that part of the mountain. At t
his time of year after the running snow melt, that road would be a mass of ruts and gravel, barely fit for any vehicle. Who the hell could get up there? I decided to find out.

  Tossing off my terrycloth robe, grabbing my phone and tossing it into a backpack with an “emergency” set of sweats, I walked out on the back porch and shifted. Bears can run twenty-five miles an hour and normal humans about a third of that, eight. The hunting cabin was about five miles away, so I’d arrive in five minutes as opposed to forty-five.

  And time was of the essence.

  There was a reason why we had “no trespassing” signs and marked-up tree trunks with Maine’s universal sign for that—purple paint all over the place. Fires spread quickly, and the last thing we need is any portion of our land ablaze with a carelessly set fire. Any person lawless enough to trespass wouldn’t care about fire safety.

  My paws sopped up the dew as I tore across the sodden green meadow that stretched to the foothills of the mountain soaring on the eastern edge of our property. Our property extended to that ridge and two more beyond that. The valleys between the ridges were untamed forest, and we do not advise guests to go there.

  Any other day I would enjoy this run, the sunlight shimmering off wet grass while the scent and sight of small animals roused my hunting instincts. But not today-- I had something else to hunt.

  Rising ground and the early morning dark of the tree line signaled the change of terrain. I dove into the thick underbrush and crashed my way up the slope.

  Past my first steps, the treetops obscure the slanted rays of the sun, and my dinner plate-sized paws crush the brittle leaves of last fall underfoot. It was easier traveling this stretch and even the fallen trunks of trees that did not survive the winter were no match for my ursine form.

  The forest floor was damp still from recent rains. The push up the mountain included a couple slides backwards in the muddy humus, but I used claw and grit to face gravity and the steep terrain.

  The scent of smoke grows stronger the closer I get to the hunting shack. It has the faint aroma of a controlled blaze which reassured me but brought home that an invader dared to step foot on my land.

  Cigarette smoke twisted with the smoke and crackle of an open blaze, and my anger burned. Marcus was fond of saying that cigarettes were the number one cause of forest fires. We’d seen our share especially last December during a long drought and all of us Clarks went to help put out the brush fires that sprang up.

  Though our arcadian forests filled with hard woods were wetter than the combustible forests of the western United States, fire was still a danger. 1947 still blazed in the memory of many older Mainers as the year that Maine burned. In the last two weeks of October, two hundred fires burned a quarter million acres of forest and wiped out nine towns.

  Do I know this person will start a fire? No. But I know he’s trespassing. And if I find that he’s broken into the hunting shack, which is secured with a combination lock, then I’ll arrest him for aggravated trespass.

  I’m the sheriff. I can do that.

  At the edge of the clearing, I spot him standing by the fire ring outside the cabin. His back is to me, and all I see is a tall, skinny frame and a hunk of long gray hair tied back in a pony tail. He’s wearing thick boots, blue jeans and a leather jacket with a patch.

  A biker.

  With a three-rocker patch.

  Most bikers are good citizens. Social clubs are fine. They just like to hang out and ride. Those with a single patch, or sometimes a patch and a bottom rocker, are social clubs. But the ones with two rockers and patch just announce their criminal status.

  Now I’m on high alert, because these guys don’t travel alone. But I sniff the air and don’t scent another human. I shift, slip off the backpack, and slip on the sneakers, sweats and hoodie. It’s not as official as my uniform but I’m bigger than this guy, so I’m not worried. I stepped out of the woods.

  “Heya,” I said in my most friendly Mainer voice.

  The guy froze but kept his face away from me.

  “I suggest,” I said, “that you move along. These are private lands.”

  “I’ll do that,” the man said. “When I’m ready.”

  He turned and faced me. In a second of surreal silence our eyes met, and the face connected with what I read on the internet yesterday.

  Xavier Lane. From the FBI’s most wanted list.

  “Police officer,” I called. “Hit the ground and put your hands behind your head!”

  Lane dropped his cigarette and ran to the other side of the cabin where I could only assume he left his bike. I charged forward but stopped at the cabin’s edge and flattened my back against its outside in case he had a weapon. The click and rough rumble of a motor bike engine turning over greeted my ears, and I rushed forward, determined to yank him off that damned thing.

  But I fell face forward hard enough into the leaves to steal my breath. The bastard had stuck a log out perpendicular to the cabin wall. Pebbles flew from his back wheel as he gunned the engine to flee to the logging road, and I had to cover my face with my arms to avoid the stinging projectiles from hitting my face.

  But the odor of his bike’s motor oil did not mask more smoke coming from the front of the cabin. Cursing I went back to the fire and found his discarded cigarette had lit a small blaze. I kicked out the embryonic forest fire and then the campfire too. I’m thoroughly pissed because by the time I can return to the lodge and get a call out over the radio, the bastard would be long gone.

  At least he didn’t break the lock. We built the doorframes sturdy with oak, and combo locks are a bitch to break open. I unlocked it to inspect the cabin. He had pried open one of the small windows and slid his skinny ass inside. On the floor sat a sleeping bag and backpack.

  Thoroughly pissed, I walked back to my backpack, and got my phone to take a bunch of pictures inside and out for evidence. Not that a criminal trespass charge would phase this guy, but I could put out a local arrest warrant for him which would alert other Maine Law Enforcement the guy was in the area. Then I grabbed his stuff and hoofed it back to the lodge, thoroughly displeased with this turn of events.

  But the events of the morning didn’t tick me off more than seeing Marcus, Drew and Cole in a fight on the beach thoroughly frightening Ellie. She was backing away toward the water, clutching her laptop, while appealing for them to stop. But the idiots weren’t listening.

  So, I charge.

  Marcus

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  Zain skidded to a stop and glowered at all of us. “Don’t you have other things to do than bother our guest?”

  Ellie shrieked and ran right by us, and I tried to run after her. but Zain grabbed my arm and jerked me backwards.

  “Where the hell are you going?” he growled. Our eyes met and his jaw tightened, and he was ready to beat my ass.

  But I’m feeling the same way about him. I did not lower my eyes, and I would not.

  “Who the fuck are you,” I said. “to talk to us like that?”

  Zain held his iron grip on my arm as his disproval deepened.

  “Pardon me?” he said with deadly calm.

  “No, pardon me, Alpha,” I said in my most sarcastic voice.

  It would be within his rights to cuff me and send me sprawling into the sand. We’d seen similar behavior from Zain’s father toward upstart male clan members and learned that this casual violence was the way of things among our kind. But Zain, raised by the compassionate hand of Reverend Clancey, took a smarter route.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you—all of you?” Zain swung his head to meet Cole and Drew’s eyes. “Ellie is a guest, a paying customer, and all of you are harassing her like teenage boys who just found out what sex is. Now get about your business and stop bothering her.”

  Cole grumbled under his breath about just bringing her a sandwich, but Zain rumbled a thoroughly dangerous bear growl, and Cole held up his hands in submission.

  “I’ll go make brea
kfast,” he said.

  “That’s the best idea you’ve had this morning,” groused Zain.

  Drew brushed the sand off his uniform and inspected it as if trying to decide if it would pass muster. “I’ll go open the office.”

  “You will but hold up. I’ve got something to discuss with both of you.”

  Zain’s professional law enforcement demeanor snapped into place and in step with my Alpha, mine did too.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “I found Xavier Lane, one of the FBI’s most wanted up in cabin eight.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Don’t know. He drove off before I could arrest him.”

  I spotted broken bits of dried leaves on his clothes telling more of the tale than Zain spilled. My cousin had a scuffle of his own which he obviously lost. But he wouldn’t admit that and right now I won’t make him.

  “His description on his wanted posted listing is accurate--5-10, 180 pounds, long gray hair which he pulls back in pony tail, wearing biker leathers, a jacket with a Devil’s Son patch.”

  Zain rattled off his professional description, centering all of us on our jobs. Knowing this guy is around, I’ll make extra patrols of the parks. A one percenter on the run will try to keep a low profile on public lands, and even though we are close enough to Canada’s border to make a good run for it, the Federal government’s ICE efforts and increased efforts by Canada RCMP have made that a more iffy proposition than the past. He’s probably hanging around waiting for some contact to smuggle him over the border or perhaps spearheading a new smuggling operation, a growing lucrative trade for criminal enterprises looking for a quick and fat buck.

  “We’ll set up rolling patrols for nighttime, each of us taking an eight-hour shift. This guy can be hanging around for any number of reasons, but we want to head this guy to jail.”

  “Got it,” said Drew. Sand still clung to his hair, but he put on his best cop face for Zain’s benefit.

  “I’ll fill Cole in on what’s happening and make the FBI report.”

  “Sure thing,” I said, and Drew nodded.

  “And don’t bother Ellie.”