Mate Marked: Shifters of Silver Peak

by Georgette St. Clair

  Why indeed? Chelsea thought. Roman’s gang was the least likely group to be stealing sheep, since they weren’t as broke as the townspeople, but not all humans would necessarily know that. Some humans thought that shifters turned savage and killed at the drop of a hat, but that wasn’t true at all. Shifters hunted their food out of necessity, and they didn’t kill for pleasure.

  Edna was looking bored now. She headed back to the house too.

  “And now I have to go give the lamb back to Mr. Rodgers,” Joyce said, making a distasteful face.

  “What’s he like?” Chelsea asked. Joyce clearly had a different impression of him than Mayor Winkleman.

  “He’s…” Joyce hesitated. “He’s a very wealthy and powerful man and he’s one of the town’s major employers, so he’s got a lot of influence. He paid for the Juniper Police Department to get all new patrol cars this year. Also our land is right next to his.” The message was clear. She didn’t like him, but she didn’t dare speak badly of him.

  So, maybe the meeting with Police Chief Tomlinson wasn’t going to go that well after all.

  “Got it. I can take the lamb back to Mitch Rodgers if you like,” Chelsea said.

  “That would be wonderful,” Joyce said gratefully. “I have to go deal with my rotten younger brothers.”

  Edna was standing on the steps, watching them.

  “Goodbye, dear! Don’t be a stranger!” Edna called out as Chelsea, holding the bleating lamb, headed for her car. “Well, of course you’re not a stranger, you’re Joyce’s twin sister. Funny how I can’t remember your name. Don’t be late for dinner!” she yelled.

  The lamb sat on Chelsea’s front seat and bleated loudly as Chelsea drove over to Mitch Rodger’s property.

  After that, she planned on going to the human town of Juniper to talk to the police chief about the sheep thefts. Hopefully he’d have a more neutral view on it than Mitch Rodgers would. Granted, he was human, but with luck he’d cooperate with her as a fellow law enforcement officer.

  His home was an enormous luxury log and timber structure with saddle-notched corners, steep rooflines and tall picture windows. It was set in a small clearing, but most of the property was thickly forested.

  A red Porsche gleamed in the driveway next to a mud-spattered monster truck. It was oddly out of place there; everything else had an “I’m a wealthy rancher” feel to it, and this looked like a little city-slicker car that wouldn’t last a day on pothole-riddled back roads. Chelsea made mental note of the license plate number; it was a California plate. Odd.

  Chelsea carried the lamb up to the front porch and set it down. She rang the doorbell and waited, but nobody answered.

  With a sigh, she picked the lamb up and walked down the front steps. With her sensitive shifter hearing, she could hear men’s voices through the woods to the east of the property. She began pushing her way through dense underbrush, calling out, “Hello? Anyone home?”

  The voices fell silent.

  “Stop right there,” an angry voice barked, and a man stepped out from behind a tree—with a shotgun pointed right at her head.

  Chapter Ten

  “Who the hell are you, and what are you doing spying on me?” the man demanded, his voice furious. “And what did you do to my sheep?”

  “I’m Sheriff Chelsea Wintergreen of the Silver Peak pack, and I didn’t do anything to your sheep,” Chelsea said indignantly. He looked suspiciously at the star on her shirt as she set the lamb down.

  “Then where did you get that lamb? And why does it have blood on it?” The gun was pointed right at her head, and he fixed her with a steady glare. “Did you bite it?”

  “Did I bite a lamb and then bring it back to you?” Had he really just asked her that? “I’m not even going to dignify such a stupid question with an answer. And I don’t talk to people who are pointing guns at my head.”

  “And I don’t cotton to people who trespass on my land and kill my sheep.” He stood there for a long moment, glaring at her, then a man’s voice called out from the woods behind him.

  “Hey, Mitch, what’s going on? Is everything all right?”

  “Fine! I’ll deal with it!” he yelled, and Chelsea found herself wondering what he’d have done if there hadn’t been witnesses nearby.

  “Tell you what,” she said coldly. “I’m going to get in my car and leave now. If you plan on shooting me, you’re going to have to come up with a really good explanation as to why you shot a law enforcement officer in the back.”

  She turned and walked to her car, tingling with anticipation the whole way.

  “Don’t come back!” She heard the rancher’s shouted words as she slammed her door shut.

  Right. Like she was likely to drop by for tea and crumpets tomorrow. Or to bite some more lambs.

  She was fuming as she drove off, but only made it a couple of miles before a police car with flashing lights pulled up behind her. She pulled over quickly and climbed out as several officers scrambled out of their car, guns leveled

  “Hands where I can see them!” one of them yelled.

  Now she was really, really starting to get pissed off.

  “I am the Sheriff of Silver Peak! How about if you put your hands where I can see them?” she yelled back angrily. Would they actually shoot her? This was insane.

  One of them men stepped forward. Shorter, heavyset, built like a barrel. He had an army-style brush cut.

  “I’m Chief Tomlinson,” he said. He looked her up and down. “Are you actually trying to tell me that you’re the sheriff? Driving that car?” He glanced over at her pink car with an expression of deep skepticism.

  “We drive our personal vehicles,” she said indignantly. “I am the sheriff. I called you from city hall earlier to arrange a two o’clock meeting with you.”

  “Oh. Yep.” He was still staring at the car as his men slowly lowered their SIG Sauer 229s and returned them to their holsters.

  She scowled at him. There was no need for him to be insulting. “We don’t have a rich rancher to buy us a new fleet of cars—or to use us as his own personal police force.”

  He flushed at the implication. “We’re not in his pocket, if that’s what you’re saying.”

  “Five minutes after I leave his property, three of you pull me over with your guns drawn? Is that normally how you approach a fellow law enforcement officer?”

  Chief Tomlinson looked a little discomfited at that. “He said you came onto his land and threatened him, and you injured one of his sheep,” he said defensively. “He also didn’t mention that you were the sheriff.” He stared at the star on her shirt as if he still didn’t quite believe it. She was really getting steamed.

  “The Dudleys found a lamb on their property. The boys said they had found ten dead sheep with their throats torn out, and this lamb was hiding in the bushes nearby, right next to the Rodgers property. I was returning the lamb to Mr. Rodgers as a favor to Joyce, because she was busy.”

  Now his expression turned to concern. “I’ll go check it out right now,” he said. “Sorry about the misunderstanding. Did they tell you anything else?”

  “No, they did not.” Joyce climbed in her car, turned around, and drove off.

  * * * * *

  The next night…

  “You’re jumpier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs,” Rafe said to Roman as they leaned back on the bar at the honky-tonk.

  Rafe and his Southern-isms. His accent was pure Alabama, although Roman had no idea where exactly he was from or why he’d chosen not to stay with his home pack. Or any other pack in his state. And that was exactly the way Roman liked it.

  Roman shrugged. He didn’t think he was jumpy. He just wasn’t feeling it tonight. Every time a woman brushed up against him, giggling and simpering, he kept seeing Chelsea, fiery and furious at him. He remembered her challenging him and his pack’s lifestyle as he gave her a ride back to town, and he found that it was making him feel unsettled and strange.

  And
now he was way too sober. Damn fast shifter metabolism.

  “Beer me, sweetheart” he said to the bartender. She winked at him and set down an enormous mug, and he slapped a ten dollar bill down on the bar. The Hootenanny loved having shifters as customers, because shifters had to drink an enormous amount to get drunk, and they ran up huge tabs. He and his hard-drinking gang probably spent a third of their salary at whatever tavern they were camping out near.

  “There is some fine, fine womanflesh in here tonight,” Avery observed, looking around the room. “Who are you going for?”

  Roman shook his head. “Nobody. Taking the night off.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Avery sounded mortally wounded, as if Roman had just personally insulted him.

  “Hey, tomorrow’s a work day.”

  “Like that ever stopped you.”

  Roman shrugged. “I’m just not feeling it. What can I say?”

  “Me neither.” Zeke, who’d been nursing just the one beer all night, set his mug down on the bar. “I’m heading out early.”

  “Hold on a second,” Avery said with mock concern. “I need to take your pulse. Who the hell are you, and what have you done with my packmates?”

  “Going to meet your new lady friend?” Roman asked Zeke, ignoring Avery.

  A blonde in tight jeans sidled over and draped herself over Avery, who threw his arm around her waist and led her away.

  “Yep.” Zeke nodded. He wasn’t bragging about whoever he was banging, which was unlike him.

  “Be careful when you’re screwing around with humans,” Roman warned him. Human men tended to get jealous. And hanging out with humans was just tiptoeing through a minefield in general.

  “She’s not human,” Zeke said, and turned and walked away.

  Roman was puzzled. Shifter? Had Zeke started getting serious with one of the shifter girls from town? They pretty much knew all the single girls who liked to party by now. Most of them were at the bar that evening.

  Was Zeke getting serious enough that he’d actually want to settle down and stay? Well, if that was the case, Roman would miss him. But not too much. He never missed anything too much; he didn’t let himself. He just concentrated on the here and now. How could he keep his pack fed, happy and safe? And how could he keep them from ripping one another’s throats out? That was enough to keep him busy.

  He should have felt at least a little down thinking about the possibility of Zeke leaving, but he felt an odd lightness in his mood at the moment. He couldn’t put his finger on why, exactly.

  “Hey, your lady friend is here.” Benjamin had walked up to them, his expression serious. He wasn’t flirting, but then he usually didn’t. Benjamin came to keep an eye on everyone and make sure they didn’t get into too much trouble.

  “I don’t have a lady friend,” Roman growled, with more anger in his voice than he’d expected. Benjamin raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t look too shocked. They were all a temperamental bunch of bastards.

  “I meant the lady sheriff.” Benjamin inclined his head to the other end of the bar, and Roman saw her and felt his gut tighten as he saw that a human ranch-hand was flirting with her.

  The shifter named Erika was leaning on the bar next to her, with a glum look on her face.

  “Who’s that?” Leland’s voice made him start. “Who’s that girl with the sheriff?”

  “Her name’s Erika.”

  “I’ve never seen her in here before,” Leland said.

  “She doesn’t come here a lot. She’s not really the party girl type.” Roman shrugged. “I think she wants an actual life mate.”

  “A life mate. Huh.” Leland looked at her with interest.

  Roman found himself watching the sheriff closely, in case she made another laughable attempt to arrest him. Also, why was she still talking to that loser ranch hand? Roman had never met the guy before, but for some reason he could tell that he hated him.

  Should he go warn her to stay away from humans?

  Oh, who was he kidding, she was a shifter. She already knew that.

  He saw her throw back her head and laugh, and then turn away and resume conversation with Joyce and Erika, and he felt himself relax a little bit.

  Oh, come on, Roman, do you actually have a crush on the lady sheriff? He mocked himself, and took an enormous swig of his beer.

  He’d been wondering why she hadn’t made another attempt to arrest him yet. Well, here was her chance.

  And yet, she ignored him all night.

  He moved closer, casually, and concentrated on filtering out all the other conversation in the bar so he could eavesdrop on her as she chatted with Joyce.

  “I swear I don’t know what’s gotten into my family,” Joyce was saying to Chelsea. “Must be something in the water. They are all acting completely bonkers.”

  “Like how?”

  “My grandmother is obsessed with bathing in the mineral springs on our land, and she’s constantly sneaking out in the middle of the night for a dip. Makes me freaking crazy. She could drown! My brothers are sneaking around too, and I know they’re hiding something. I found them out in the cellar hiding some scraps of cloth and they wouldn’t tell me where it came from or why they were hiding it.”

  “They’re probably just bored,” Chelsea said. “If you ever need help baby-sitting, let me know.”

  Great. So she was a nice person, sexy as hell, he felt great every time he came near her, and of course, she had to be the local sheriff.

  He went back to the other end of the bar, trying hard to ignore her. “Beer me some more,” he said, shoving a twenty at the bartender.

  He hung out for another hour, waiting for her to make her move, and she completely ignored him. He thought about flirting with some of the women at the bar, just to see if that got a rise out of Chelsea, but he just wasn’t feeling up to it tonight.

  Various men came over to talk to her, and she was always polite, but not particularly encouraging. Erika was ignoring all the men, and Joyce was trying to look as if she wasn’t checking out his pack-mate Paul, who tipped Joyce very generously, Roman noticed.

  Roman finally got up and left, walking right past where Joyce was serving more beer to Erika and Chelsea, and Chelsea didn’t even bother to look up as he walked past. He deliberately brushed against her as he slid by, and he felt that pleasant rush of heat wash over him, the same one that he’d felt whenever she was near.

  She didn’t react at all. It was like he wasn’t even there. Now he was starting to feel annoyance prickling at him as he walked out the front steps into the cool, dark night. He wasn’t used to women ignoring him.

  Hell. He really needed to have a roll in the hay with her to get it out of his system, he thought, as he let the door bang shut behind him.

  That is, if she ever came near him again. Apparently she’d lost interest in arresting him. He was surprisingly disappointed at the thought.

  Chapter Eleven

  Chelsea stood in the woods, carefully watching the passed-out pack members who lay sprawled on the ground, and listening for any sound at all.

  They were completely still, their spilled coffee cups lying next to them.

  Her stomach was twisting itself into knots, and her heart was pounding, but her plan seemed to have worked.

  She’d really done her homework this time.

  She’d asked around town and found out the name of a female shifter who had moved to town a year ago and forgotten to mention an outstanding arrest warrant. This female shifter was a frequent party guest at Roman’s camp. Chelsea had tracked her down at the Hootenanny the night before and offered her a choice: drug the coffee of Roman’s pack with a concoction provided by the mayor, or be arrested immediately.

  She’d gone with drugging the coffee.

  The pack members were knocked out, snoring loudly. Were they all there? She did a quick head-count and nodded. She was pretty sure they were all there.

  Satisfied that nobody was awake to give her any grief, she turne
d and trudged back towards the road, where she had a pickup truck parked…with an ATV hitched to it.

  Her lips curled in a smile as she walked. That had been a good suggestion from that big, surly shifter, bringing an ATV. This time she’d brought Erika with her, and now she was sure all the shifters were knocked out, she grabbed her cell phone and punched in Erika’s number. She was confident that she and Erika, together, could haul Roman’s unconscious body off the ground and onto the ATV. She’d handcuff that bastard with copper, secure his wrists with zip ties, and also use rope. She wasn’t taking any chances this time.

  “Thanks, Marcus,” she said out loud with a grin just as Erika answered the phone.

  “What are you thanking me for?” Marcus called from the brush.

  Chelsea let out a small shriek and jumped. Damn her lack of a sense of smell! Damn it to hell! Any other shifter would have been able to scent that bastard before he snuck up on her. But not her.

  “Abort the mission!” she yelled into the phone, and hung up quickly.

  “Why weren’t you eating breakfast with everyone else?” she demanded as Marcus quickly moved forward and grabbed her by the arm.

  “I work with them all day long. Why would I want to eat with them?” he growled as he hustled her towards the camp.

  “Some people actually like eating with their friends.”

  “I don’t have friends. And I’m not some people.”

  He stared at the sprawled-out bodies of the pack members and his fingers tightened painfully on her arm.

  “What did you do to them?” he demanded angrily.

  “Ouch! It’s a quick-acting drug—they’ll wake up in an hour!”

  His grip loosened a little. He dragged her over to a couple of chairs, shoved her into one and sat down next to her.

  “Then we’ll sit here and wait.”

  It was a very tense, unpleasant hour. Marcus apparently wasn’t much of a conversationalist. While he sat there glowering, Chelsea kept busy by cleaning up. She picked up all the spilled coffee cups and washed them out using the old-fashioned pump that was connected to a well. Then she started picking up beer cans and beer bottles that were lying scattered on the ground.