Grizzly shifter Brody Oberon hiked through the national park land, gripping his rifle as he climbed over the rugged trail. This part of the park was often frequented by people who hunted game illegally.

He’d become a game warden to protect the land and the animals from humans who would over hunt and throw the off the balance of nature. He took his job seriously.

Today, though, he hadn’t come across anyone up in this part of the forest. Perhaps the poachers had gone to another part of the park. No matter; he’d find them.

Sniffing the air, he smelled the scent of blood. Bear blood. Hurrying up the rocky path, he came to a stand of old-growth lodgepole pines. Their numerous, slender trunks blocked his view of whatever was giving off the scent.

He ducked through the underbrush, rifle in hand, ready to make an arrest. It was not bear season. When he broke through the bushes, he sucked in a sharp breath and growled.

A huge brown grizzly lay sprawled across the ground, broken and bloody. Brody immediately recognized the bear as his best friend Chris Whitney. They’d known each other their entire lives.

Brody dropped the rifle on the ground and knelt beside his friend.

“Chris,” he said, touching his friend’s dark matted fur. “What happened?”

The bear’s eyes fluttered opened and he looked up at Brody as the light began to fade from his eyes. Chris panted and slowly changed. His body contorted and shrunk, shifting into a broken, naked man, covered in blood and dirt.

“Pushed,” Chris whispered as his eyes fluttered closed.

“No, Chris. Stay with me buddy.” Brody put his hand on his friend’s arm, trying to shake him awake.

Brody gripped the walkie-talkie at his shoulder and called into the dispatcher.

“Janet, Brody Oberon, how long for an air lift out in the national park?”

“Let me check.” A moment later, her voice came over the walkie-talkie. “At least two hours, Brody. What’s wrong out there? You got an injured hiker?”

“Chris Whitney was pushed off a cliff. He’s fading fast. We need paramedics out here now.”

“I can get an ambulance to meet you up there, but it will still be about twenty minutes.”

“He isn’t going to make it that long, Janet.”

“Just stay with him. They’re on the way to your location now. Don’t move him Brody.”

Brody sat next to his friend holding his hand as his chest moved up and down in terrifyingly slow movements.

“Do you remember the last touchdown at the homecoming game senior year?” Brody said, smiling through his panic. “You almost popped the ball when you threw it down. I thought you’d out us all that day.”

He checked his friend’s pulse at his neck and listened to his breathing, feeling like his world was about to blink out.

“Hang on, buddy. The paramedics are on their way.”

He sat there, holding Chris’s hand wishing that shifters hadn’t decided to come out. Ever since the Shifter Council had decided to come out several months before, human hate groups had popped up all over the country and around the world.

In Montana alone, dozens of shifters had been murdered by their own neighbors and friends. Humans were in a panic after finding out that supernatural creatures walked among them.

Shifters were bigger, stronger, healed faster, and were more capable than humans in many ways. That was exactly the kind of thing that incited fear and loathing in humans. They had hatred against their own kind. Since shifters had come out, every hate group in the world had turned their attention to them.

Luckily, since so many prominent people in human society were actually shifters, the Shifter Protection Act had passed in Congress just a few weeks ago.

That hadn’t stopped the murders, but it did mean that convictions were harsh and swift. Chris had been pushed from the cliff above. Who would want to murder a hometown hero like Chris Whitney? He’d been loved by everyone since his football days in high school, even after he’d taken over his family’s ranch as an adult.

Brody heard the snap of a dried branch and looked up to see the paramedics moving quickly into the clearing.

They worked without a word, putting Chris onto a backboard to haul him out of the forest.

An oxygen mask was put over his face and a neck brace around his neck. Brody picked up his rifle and followed the paramedics down the hill, after which they put him in the ambulance and sped off.

Brody jumped in his truck and followed close behind. They made their way to small local hospital and rushed him into the emergency room.

Brody was right behind them as they rolled Chris into surgery.

As the doors swung behind the paramedics and doctors, Brody glimpsed a luscious, curvy woman in scrubs, putting her stethoscope in her ears.