Shifters' Storm

by Vonna Harper

  Catching a glimpse of something to her left, she swiveled in that direction. She was back on the deer trail she’d taken earlier. How then was this dark shadow able to keep pace with her despite being in the trees?

  Telling herself not to jump to conclusions, she reached behind her and pulled her mother’s knife from its sheath.

  “Who is it?”

  She heard no answer. Determined not to telegraph her unease any more than she already had, she continued walking. If this was her mother’s killer or the elk poacher—no damn it, she wouldn’t panic!

  Wouldn’t let her imagination get away from her.

  The substantial shape continued to match her pace. At times she lost sight of it and surmised it had stepped behind a tree or trees. Other times nothing of any significance stood between her and her shadowy stalker. The creature occasionally came within about fifty feet but no closer, even though it had opportunity. She wasn’t foolish enough to tell herself she had nothing to worry about.

  Still clutching the all but worthless knife and struggling to see despite the downpour, she did what she should have when she’d first spotted the shape.

  “What do you want?” she asked the grizzly.

  “You.”

  No, she couldn’t have possibly heard that! Her imagination had taken hold, that’s all. Between everything she’d gone through with her mother, reconnecting with Songan, and the lousy weather, having her hearing suddenly go bad shouldn’t surprise her. As soon as she got back to the house, she’d pour herself a tall glass of wine. Maybe drink the whole damn bottle.

  “I need you.”

  “Stop it!” Her knuckles turned white from gripping the knife handle. “Go away.”

  “I can’t.”

  Cursing herself for having stopped walking, she started plowing ahead again. Her boots were covered in mud and pine needles, and she risked a broken ankle or two if she tried to run. The great bear continued to match her stride, prompting her to send a silent message to Songan. If the elk shifter was still around, he’d charge the grizzly and skewer it with his antlers. Maybe. Hopefully.

  Unless the grizzly overpowered him.

  The mental image of a battle between the two powerful creatures made her heart pound. Because of their different body structure, she wasn’t sure which weighed the most. Unfortunately, elks were prey animals, while a grizzly’s teeth and claws had been designed for killing.

  “This isn’t happening,” she said, then clenched her jaw because of course it was. Still, she fought to keep the lie going. “You’re an animal. I can’t possibly hear you.”

  “Am I?”

  Nearly choking on a cry, she forced herself to stop again. The rain had turned what she could see of his coat so dark it made her think of a moonless night. He was motionless and achingly awesome in his power.

  “What are you? There aren’t any grizzlies in this part of the country.”

  “I am what I am.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” When Songan took on an elk’s shape, he was no longer capable of communicating with her. In contrast, the bear seemed capable of reasoning and responding intelligently.

  “I’m different from anything you’ve ever known.”

  No way was she going to continue this so-called conversation. If his intention had been to kill her, he would have already attacked. Just the same, the last thing she wanted to do was sit down for a chat. Trying to convince herself that the beast couldn’t break down her truck door, she started walking again. Even with her raincoat on, she was cold and getting colder. If she dared take the time, she’d stop and haul her sweatshirt out of her pack to put on under her jacket. However, as long as her blood kept pumping, she’d reach where she’d left her vehicle. There wasn’t much she could do about her chattering teeth and sluggish mind.

  That’s it. Right now she’d walk. Later she’d put the pieces together. Try to, anyway.

  Despite her chilled and numb skin, her nerve endings told her when the bear stopped following. Step by step, the distance between them increased, and his impact lessened. She wasn’t going to look around for it. No way was she going to risk a panic attack.

  During storms, rodents took shelter underground or in downed trees. Birds huddled under large branches, while deer and elk tended to gather in thick groves. As a result, right now it felt as if she had the forest to herself. Because this wasn’t the first time she’d been out in inclement weather, she simply accepted the change. Just the same, she would give a lot to see a chipmunk or jay. She’d chatter back when they scolded her, maybe pull out a granola bar and offer it to them.

  Alone.

  Except for the bear.

  Wherever it had gone.

  At nearly a thousand pounds, the grizzly knew he couldn’t fit into the hollow log he’d spotted, but even if he’d been able to squeeze in, he wouldn’t have. Granted, he had no doubt he could find the woman again, but he wanted to go on watching her. Rain had washed away some of the sex smell after the man she’d mated with had changed into an elk. He wanted to get closer, to bring her aroma into his body, only she wasn’t ready. He’d done enough for now. Made his presence known. Later he’d make her face reality—his reality.

  Rivulets ran between his eyes and down his nose. Occasionally hard-pressed to see anything, he’d stop and shake his head. The easy solution would be to move onto the deer trail, but if he did, she’d know he hadn’t left after all. And she would look. Unlike other humans he’d watched over the years, she gave no indication her surroundings made her uneasy. He’d alarmed her, but the forest itself comforted and sustained her.

  That was why he’d been drawn to her.

  His cock tightened, and his heart rate kicked up. Faced with those realities, he admitted that familiarity with the wilderness was only part of her appeal. She was young and healthy, with curving hips, full breasts, narrow waist and long, strong legs. A sexual creature.

  A few snowflakes brushed his forehead and chilled him there, but elsewhere his thick fur kept him warm. If it continued to snow, he’d feel compelled to wrap his front legs around the woman and thus shelter her.

  A near laugh put an end to his crazy thoughts. The moment he had her under his control, he’d want to fuck her. Warming her might become the last thing on his mind.

  Picking up his pace, he gave a fantasy born of years spent emotionally alone free rein. Mindless to the nameless female’s resistance, he’d rip off her clothing and throw her to the ground. Part of him hating what he was doing, he’d force his bulk between her legs and his cock into her core.

  His massive paws left indentations in the ground that would alarm anyone who came across them, but thanks to the rain and remote location, he doubted that would happen. The wildlife was preparing for a heavy, early winter, but he and the others like him had grown up where winter meant shards of ice crystals capable of cutting flesh and ground that froze solid for much of the year.

  That, in part, was why he’d come to these mountains. As a prime male, his task was to find a new place for his kind to live. Coming across the dead and savaged young elk had given him pause. Then the human female had discovered him.

  The way she handled her weapon said she was comfortable with it but didn’t want to use it. She carried herself as deer did, confident in her body’s ability to react to any and all situations. She was leery yet prepared, curious and cautious. And beautiful.

  He’d still been trying to make sense of her impact on him when the big bull elk had arrived. To his surprise, the female had eagerly approached the newcomer. Moments later, beast became human, and man and woman had had sex.

  Turning his head to the side to escape the wind, the bear planted his legs and stopped. His body trembled, and his penis extended from its furred protection. Oblivious to the cold, the organ reached full length and breadth.

  He hadn’t had sex since summer when the last clan-sow had come into heat. Like the other males of his kind, he wished it was otherwise, but once a sow became pre
gnant, she wanted nothing more to do with mating. Watching today’s humans fuck had stirred his blood. He wasn’t sure when, or if, he’d return to acceptance and resignation. That, he told himself, was why he had to stop following her. He didn’t trust himself the way he was. Later, once he was back under control.

  But soon. Soon.

  Chapter Six

  Rane needed to run into the small, family-run grocery that served the entire town. However, she decided to stop at the Sawmill Bar first. Thanks to her relentless pace, she’d reached her pickup before the sun, such as it was, had set.

  Fortunately, she’d been able to get her cell phone to connect and had called both the sheriff’s deputy and Chinook Forest Supervisor Donald Cushing to let them know about the poached elk. Both men had promised to investigate the illegal killing. However, manpower was in short supply.

  After parking in the gravel lot behind the Sawmill, she pulled her key out of the ignition. Instead of immediately grabbing her steaming rain jacket, she studied the back of the bar with its trio of garbage cans, a motorcycle with two flat tires propped against a wall, and a frayed blue tarp over a truck engine on the ground. A single yellow light bulb did a poor job of illuminating the rear door only employees were supposed to use. The bar’s exterior hadn’t been painted in years. Because it was night, she couldn’t see the roof but doubted the original metal had been replaced.

  In part, the Sawmill represented why she’d moved away. She’d been afraid she’d turn out like it if she didn’t experience the world beyond this backwater town. More to the point, she’d sensed she’d become a mountain woman like her mother.

  So much for taking off for parts unknown. She was back.

  Throwing the damp jacket over her head, she got out and jogged around to the front. Smoking in bars had been banned, and she imagined Joe and Deana Thetford, who’d owned the place forever, had done what they could to get rid of the stale stink. Unless things had picked up for them financially, that might be the only improvement.

  Despite the dim lighting, it was brighter in here than outside, which made taking her measure of the place relatively easy. All but one stool at the bar was occupied, as were four of the five tables. The two women at the bar were regulars and qualified as the town’s hookers, for lack of a better term. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea of spending her adult life putting out for the same tired, unwashed men over and over again.

  Three middle-aged women sat at one of the tables. Two worked at the grocery store, while Alice owned the gas station/repair shop with her husband. Again Rane pondered having little choice but to talk to and drink with the same women for years. Alice, who worked more hours at the gas station than her husband Dave did, had long insisted she was going to move to Hawaii when she retired, but no one believed her.

  Alice’s friends acknowledged Rane with nods and noncommittal smiles. In contrast, a sober-faced Alice continued to study her after the other women returned to their conversation. Her mother and Alice had been casual friends for years. Despite the difference in their education level—her mother had a college degree, while Alice had dropped out her senior year of high school when she got pregnant—their freedom didn’t surprise her. After all, there weren’t that many women in and around Forestville. Men either. The town was slowly dying.

  If Alice had been alone, she might have spoken to her. Instead, feeling a little uneasy because of the other woman’s scrutiny, she continued toward the bar.

  Male heads swiveled toward her, and although she recognized most of them, she didn’t say anything. Obviously she needed to spend more time in here if she was going to fit in, like that was ever going to happen. Like her mother had told her, getting hit on in here was a given. A quality pickup was another story. Besides, after what had taken place between Songan and her, all of Rane’s itches still felt scratched.

  Except when her thoughts snagged on the grizzly, if that’s what the creature was.

  “Move over, boys,” Joe said from his station behind the bar. “The lady looks wet and thirsty. What’ll it be, Rane? Your first drink’s on the house.”

  Joe was a good fifteen years older than her mother had been and from all indications happily married. Just the same, he’d flirted openly with Jacki. That was just his way. Still, Rane considered Joe and Deana people she could count on. They’d come over with a casserole right after she’d arrived, and their mentally challenged daughter had drained the water pipes in Jacki’s house before that in case temperatures fell below freezing at night. If Deana was here, she’d thank her.

  “Wine,” she said. “House red.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  Rane sat as Joe wiped water off a wineglass. Once she was settled, she glanced at the men on either side of her. Harry Schneider was on her right, what was left of his left hand around a beer bottle. Harry had lost three fingers to a table saw while doing some remodeling around his place. Word was he got some kind of disability and still did occasional long-distance trucking. He also collected firearms. Divorced with grown children, he could have gone wherever he wanted. Apparently he hadn’t wanted.

  Nodding at and then dismissing Harry was easier than doing the same to the man who’d already twice bumped her left elbow.

  “I heard you’ve been riding the deputy’s ass,” Clifford Jones said by way of hello. “What is it, you think he should bring in the FBI?”

  Forestville couldn’t afford its own police department and contracted with the county’s sheriff’s department to have a deputy assigned part-time. Gannon gave Forestville more than twenty hours a week, but that left a lot of time with no law enforcement. As far as she knew, the FBI didn’t know Forestville existed. Even though her mother had been a federal employee, she couldn’t imagine them sending anyone here, because the entire sheriff’s department had initially been involved in the investigation. What more could the FBI do?

  “I’ve talked to Gannon a number of times.” She had no intention of telling Clifford more than that, because several years ago her mother had helped arrest his and his older brother Chip’s three cousins for hunting out of season. The trio had been convicted, which had stripped them of the right to hunt for five years. Needless to say, Andy, Aaron and Albert Jones hated her mother.

  “Talk’s cheap,” Clifford said. “What about action?”

  She accepted the full wineglass from Joe. “I trust Gannon. He and the rest of his department will get the job done.”

  Heavy hands landed on her shoulders. Instead of whirling and punching whoever had touched her as she wanted to, Rane willed herself to remain still.

  “Hey Rane, good to see you.”

  For a moment, she couldn’t put a name to the voice, but the pleased look on Clifford’s face helped. Little more than a year apart in age, Clifford and his younger brother had always been best friends, more like twins than siblings.

  “Hello, Chip,” she said. She noticed that Joe’s lips had thinned a little. “You startled me.”

  “Sorry.” Chip squeezed her shoulders. “I just didn’t expect to run into you in here. Still staying at your mom’s place, are you?”

  Everyone around here knew what she was up to. There was no reason to read anything into what Chip had just said. Of course there was the memory of when Chip had tried to maul her behind the school gym when they were both in high school. She’d been shocked, but not so shocked she couldn’t ram a knee between his legs. He’d later apologized.

  After school, he’d spent a couple of years in the army and came back much more mature. To her way of thinking, Chip should have stayed away. There was no future here for either him or his brother.

  To her relief, Chip let go of her. That done, he squeezed in between her and Harry.

  “Harry, old man, how about you let me talk to my friend?” Chip didn’t wait for Harry’s response but hip-bumped the thin man off his stool. Grumbling, Harry backed away still holding on to his beer.

  “Say Rane,” Harry said. “If you’ve got no use f
or your ma’s rifle, give me a call.”

  “What? That’s the last thing on my mind right now.”

  “Of course, of course. I’m just offering to take it off your hands.”

  “You heard her,” Chip said. “Bug off.”

  “That was rude,” Rane said after Harry was out of earshot. Just what she didn’t need, being sandwiched between the Jones brothers.

  “Was it? Sorry.”

  “No you’re not.” Glaring, Joe leaned across the bar. “I thought you were going to be at the logging site all week.”

  “I wish.” Chip frowned and pointed at a refrigerator behind Joe. “The usual. Damn transmission on the loader’s shot. I’ve got to go into the city for a replacement.”

  “It’s shot?” Clifford asked from her other side. “I thought you said it could be repaired.”

  “I said I hoped it could. One damn thing after another.”

  As the brothers and Joe agreed that everything seemed to be against them when it came to the small Jones logging company fulfilling their contract with the Forest Service, Rane decided to cut Chip some slack. He and Clifford weren’t as crude and uneducated as their cousins.

  For generations men from the Jones and other local families had filled their freezers without governmental rules and regulations. In recent years, short hunting seasons and limits on how much game they could harvest had meant an end to a way of life they’d long taken for granted. In addition, Jones Logging was part of a dying industry thanks to more bureaucracy and decreased need for timber products. Chip, Clifford and their cousins knew how to fell timber and hunt. Unfortunately, that was basically the limit to their skills.

  “I feel sorry for them,” her mother had said more than once. “They represent what our pioneers were about. They should have been born decades ago. At least most are telling their children not to follow in their footsteps.”

  That, Rane had tried to tell her mother when Jacki asked why she was so dead set on building a life far from the Chinook Mountains, was why. There was an exciting world out there, new places to explore. No way was she going to spend hers stuck in Forestville the way her mother was.