Confused feelings clashed inside Brody’s body. Hot fury burned in his gut at the thought of his friend’s death, but the overpowering adrenaline rush he felt when he looked at his mate throbbed in his chest.

He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, and walked down the hallway of the lodge.

The best thing he could do for anyone was his job. He had to find the person who’d killed Chris to protect the community. Having a killer on the loose wasn’t safe for anyone, including his mate.

The hangover still blurring his mind, he knew that he couldn’t bring Millie into his world with how broken he was right now. She might be his fated mate, but she didn’t deserve a man who was overcome by darkness.

That only made him feel more despair, but there was no way around it. He had to protect her. That also meant protecting her from himself.

He got in his truck and drove down to the sheriff’s department. Inside, the news of Chris’s death buzzed between desks. He checked Sheriff Charles’s office door and found Natalie inside, weeping in her father’s arms. Natalie had been Chris’s fiancée. She loved him even when she found out that he was a shifter, and was ready to make the ultimate commitment. Now she’d lost her fated mate. Brody couldn’t even imagine her devastation.

He made a quick knock at the door and the sheriff waved for him to come inside. Natalie sniffed and wiped her eyes.

“Natalie, I’m so sorry. Are you all right?” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. She sank into his arms for a hug, sobbing again.

“I miss him so much already,” she said.

“I miss him too,” Brody said through his anger. Poor Natalie.

“Excuse me,” Natalie said, pulling away. She wiped her face again and charged out of the room.

“She’s been a mess,” Sheriff Charles said, shaking his head. “How you holding up? I knew you two have been friends a long time.”

“I’m hanging in there,” Brody lied. “I spoke with the doctor who examined Chris’s body this morning. She suspects something heavy slammed into him before his fall.”

“Like what?”

“She doesn’t have any ideas about what, but he was in bear form when he fell. I suspect maybe a truck. Something like that.”

“Who owns the land above where he fell?” Sheriff Charles asked.

“Steve Mathews from what I remember. He has a big spread on that part of the ridge.”

“Steve Mathews? Isn’t he the wealthy business man from the coast?”

“Yes. That land is some kind of private resort or a hobby ranch. I’ll look into it today.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” the sheriff said, sitting back at his desk.

“Tell Natalie I’ll talk to her later,” Brody said, walking out of the room.

He went back to his office to find more information about the Mathews’s ranch and to wait for the formal search warrant to come in. He wanted everything to be done to the letter because whoever pushed Chris had done it from Mathews’s ranch.

As soon as he received the search warrant, a fax started to run through his machine. It was the medical report from Millie.

The thought of her made his heart jump to attention. In a perfect world, claiming his mate would be all that mattered. But this wasn’t a perfect world. This was a world where humans hated shifters just for living. There were people all over the country and all over the world committing horrible crimes against their neighbors, and Brody was on the forefront of putting a stop to the madness.

He stood from his desk and took the report to Sheriff Charles’s office. “This is the report, sir,” Brody said, setting it on his desk. Sheriff Charles was on the phone and just gave Brody a slight nod before Brody left to go outside.

He climbed into his warden’s truck with the Montana game wardens’ logo emblazoned on the side: a sheriff’s star with a grizzly bear at the center. Montana game wardens had been dominated by grizzly shifters for generations.

In Montana, it was the equivalent of Irish cops in old New York. But it wasn’t like the grizzlies kept other shifters or humans out. It had just been a tradition for a long time.

Brody loved his job. But today, he wouldn’t be protecting the forest like he’d signed up for. He would be investigating the death of his best friend.

He drove up the ridge to the Mathews’s ranch, stopping at the big gate made of roughhewn logs with the ranch’s logo arching over the top.

It read Ridgeline Ranch and had a drawing of a jagged ridge below the words, burned into the wood.

Brody pulled up to the gate and looked at the high-tech latch keeping it closed. That wasn’t a traditional wooden gate. On the fence to his left, there was a communication box, blinking yellow.

He rolled down his window and squinted at the box. Then he looked up again and noticed a camera focusing on him.

“Welcome to Ridgeline Ranch. How can I help you today?” the voice asked.

“I’m Brody Oberon from the sheriff’s department. A man fell from the cliff at the edge of this property. I’ve got a search warrant to go check it out.”

“Come on up to the house. Someone will take you out there.”

The double gates slid open and Brody drove his raised pickup truck down the well-maintained gravel road into the Ridgeline Ranch. Anger swirled in his brain. He was looking for someone to blame and he knew it was clouding his judgment.

He pulled up to the front of the house and got out as a woman in her fifties with dark black hair and wearing a red flannel shirt and jeans emerged from the house.

“You’re the sheriff?” she asked as she approached him.

“I’m with the sheriff’s department. Warden Brody Oberon,” he said, reaching out to shake her hand.

“Emma Slone. I’m the housekeeper and general manager for the Ridgeline Ranch. I’m shocked at the news that a man fell from the ridge.”

“Is the owner, Steve Mathews, here?”

“Mr. Mathews arrived two days ago for the party.”

“I’d like to ask him a few questions if I could,” Brody said, putting his hands on his hips.

“I’m afraid Mr. Mathews is on a conference call at the moment. But I’m sure something could be arranged.”

“Great. Let’s go take a look at the cliff then,” Body said.

Emma hopped into the passenger seat of his truck and she directed him through the property to where it led out toward the cliff. The place was a maze of homes and outbuildings. A large barn and paddock dominated the center of the ranch. Beyond the construction were acres of open fields where cattle grazed. It was all fenced in with a high voltage electric fence line.

They bumped down a rough road and parked where it dead-ended into the forest. “We’ll have to walk from here,” Emma said, getting out.

Brody followed her through the trees, looking around for signs of clues. The trees opened onto a rocky ledge that ran the span of the property. Below, in the shadow of darkness, was the spot where Chris had fallen to his death. Brody cringed just thinking of it.

He pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and began to snap pictures. “Is there any way a vehicle could get out here?”

“No. Definitely not. It’s all blocked off by dense forest and most of the ledge is far too narrow to drive a car.”

Brody stopped at the exact spot where Chris had fallen. He knew it because he could see the rocks piled at the bottom where he’d found Chris. Looking down, he found a faint tire track print in the dusty ground. Squatting, he snapped pictures of the imprint.

“This is a tire track,” he said, pointing.

“What? That’s impossible.”

“Look,” he said. Emma stared down at the tire track and then back at Brody.

“The only thing that could get out here would be a four-wheeler.”

“Those things don’t have enough power to push a bear off a cliff.”

“Well. I don’t know. I’d think not though.”

Brody kept snapping pictures. They continued along the ridge until it opened onto an open pasture with short grass. Brody could see the outline of tire tracks in the grass, leading up to where the forest opened up to the ridgeline.

He took several more pictures, following the impressions in the grass until they disappeared in the gravel driveway leading off to more guest cabins.

“I need to get back to main house, but I’ll have Mr. Mathews give you a call to set up an appointment to ask some questions. You’re welcome to search the rest of the property before you leave.”

“Is anyone in those cabins?”

“No. A few people stayed after the party the night the man fell. He wasn’t on the guest list at all. We didn’t even know he was here. He must have come with one of the other guests.”

“I’m going to need your guest list.”

“Yes. I’ll send it over. Most of the guests have already left. Most were from out of state.”

“I’ll still need to see the list.”

“Of course. I’ll email it to you. In the meantime, I need to get back to the house. Can you find your own way out?”

“Yeah. No problem. Thanks for your time.”

She hurried up the gravel road to the main house. It was a huge, three-story log mansion with massive windows that looked out on the glorious view of the mountains. Steve Mathews must be loaded to afford a place like that.

Someone at that party pushed Chris. But why had Chris been up here? Was Mathews involved? How did he know Chris? There was one thing that made men like Mathews tick. Money.