After two hours without Sylvia returning home, Leland became extremely anxious. He dialed her cell phone and didn't get a response. He waited two minutes and called her again to the same ends.

Turning frantic, he called her a dozen more times before hurrying out to his truck and driving into town. When he got to the grocery store, he found her car in the parking lot and her keys discarded on the pavement below her tire.

He smelled the faint scent of hyenas in the air, and gritted his teeth. The scent wasn't the same as the Updike brothers who had threatened him earlier, but it had the distinct sharp scent of hyena. He could smell Sylvia's fear, hot in the air, even after two hours. He grabbed her keys and shoved them in his pocket, dialing his brother to let him know what had happened. Buck answered on the second ring.

"Did you find her?" Buck asked immediately.

"Her car is in the parking lot and her keys were on the pavement. I smell hyenas."

"Is it those bastard Updikes?"

"I don't believe it is. But it's definitely hyenas.”

"They're everywhere nowadays. Me and Jessie will be right there to help you find her.”

Leland got off the phone with Buck and then went into the grocery store to ask the checkout girl if she had seen Sylvia.

“I just got on shift a few minutes ago," she said. "I haven't seen anyone by that description.”

Leland left the grocery store and continued out into the parking lot just as Buck and Jessie arrived.

“Let’s show these Updikes what happens when you mess with a Kincaid brother’s mate,” Buck growled.

Buck grabbed his shotgun from the rack of his pickup truck and sat in the passenger seat of Leland's crew cab. Jessie got in the backseat with a pistol he had strapped under his arm. Buck looked at Leland and glanced down at his shotgun. As Leland pulled out onto the highway, he opened his glove compartment, revealing the pistol he kept inside. Buck nodded and they continued up the mountain toward the Updike estate.

The Updikes had lived on Fate Mountain for as long as the Kincaids had. Unlike the Kincaid family who had worked their land, the Updikes seemed to work everyone else on Fate Mountain. After Fate Mountain Lodge had fallen into disrepair, and they'd sold it to Levi Blackthorn, the family seemed to go into decline.

But that had all changed recently after the Updikes’ father had gone to jail for a murder he’d committed years before. When Leland pulled into the front driveway of the Updike’s mansion, he was amazed at how many other trucks, SUVs, and motorcycles were parked outside. He looked at his brothers questioningly.

"It looks like the Updikes have company," Jessie said.

"Do we confront them now?" Leland asked. "Packing heat?"

"How many hyenas do you think you can take in grizzly form?" Leland asked his brothers.

"Eight," Jessie said.

"Ten," Buck said.

"Then I can take ten too," Jessie said.

"I'm bigger than you," Buck objected, looking over his shoulder into the backseat at his younger brother.

"But I'm faster than you," Jessie countered.

"Let's split the difference at nine,” Leland said. “I'll say I can take nine as well. That makes twenty-seven hyenas altogether. Do you think there are more than twenty-seven hyenas in that mansion right now?" Leland asked.

"Possibly," Jessie said from the backseat.

"Let's just do this. No more talking," Buck said, pulling open his door handle.

He slid out of the truck before Leland could object. He followed his brother, realizing in that moment that Buck was a strong second-in-command for the family. They walked together up to the front doors of the mansion, and Buck lifted his fist to pound on the front door.

They were greeted by a female servant, dressed in a traditional French maid's uniform. For a moment, Leland thought that she was the entertainment until she behaved like a servant and showed them inside.

"The Updikes will be right with you, gentlemen," she said in a hollow voice before moving away from the Kincaid brothers.

Leland could tell the woman was a shifter. Something in the small canine family. Maybe a fox. She didn't smell like a hyena, but he had a feeling that the pack was keeping her against her will. That made Leland furious. He gritted his teeth as his grizzly growled. He refused to lose control of himself even in this chaos.

The Updike brothers hurried down the stairs, dressed in trendy athletic wear with gold chains and baseball caps tilted to the side. Leland could barely stand what he was looking at, and wanted to shoot them right then and there.

"This isn't the Jersey shore," Jessie said with a growl, crossing his tattooed arms over his taut muscled chest as he caressed the pistol under his arm.

"The same for you. Hick boy," said Chuck.

"What the fuck do you want?" Brandon spit out, staring directly at Leland.

"Where is she?" Leland said, cocking his chin and caressing his pistol with his thumb, meaningfully.

"You didn't have to bring your guns if you wanted women, gentlemen," Chuck said with a cruel laugh.

Leland scoffed.

"Sylvia Becker, my mate. Where is she?" Leland said, staring Chuck in the eyes.

"You found yourself a mate? Now all the fun is over for you," Brandon laughed bitterly.

"My mate is everything to me. And I know you have something to do with her disappearance.”

"If your woman went missing, maybe it’s because you aren't a very good lover," Chuck said.

Leland growled and started to charge toward the hyena, his teeth bared and his grizzly clawing to come out. Buck lifted his fist and stopped Leland as his arm connected with his chest. The blow from his brother brought him back to his senses. Getting into a physical altercation wouldn’t help anything. He couldn't smell her scent. Even if they did know something, she obviously wasn't here.

"You're right, Updike," Leland said. “We should get the police involved with this."

"Go ahead. But the police no longer have any power on Fate Mountain," Brandon said.

"You think the Bear Patrol no longer has power on Fate Mountain?” Buck said with a sharp laugh.

"Not like it used to. But I'll let you idiots believe it does."

"Well, thanks for your help,” Leland said, backing towards the door. “Why don't we get lunch sometime, and catch up on old times?" He twisted the doorknob as his brothers followed him.

The Updike brothers grinned as their hyenas shined through their eyes.

"Sure, if you pay," Brandon said.

The Kincaids covered each other as they walked out and made their way back to the truck. Once they were in the safety of the cab, Leland hurried down the drive and back onto the highway. He hadn't smelled Sylvia’s scent anywhere on the property. Going there was a dead end.

“They would have known we’d go there first. I bet someone else took her,” Leland said.

“I’m calling Rollo,” Buck said, dialing his cell phone.

Leland could hear Rollo's angry voice over the speakerphone and his fist slamming into his desk.

"If only it were just the humans we had to worry about anymore," Rollo growled.

"Are the shifters so much worse?" Buck asked.

"These hyena shifters are running us ragged. We can't keep up with the petty theft, the crime, the muggings. Fate Mountain is not the safe place it used to be."

"Have you brought in more support?" Buck asked.

"We have. But the law isn't as popular as it used to be with shifters. A lot of men are wounded from the war. They’re turning to crime instead of order.”

"In some ways, you can't really blame them," Jessie pondered.

"Oh, I can blame them, all right," Rollo said. "We'll do everything we can to find your mate, Leland. You can count on that."

"Thank you, Commander Morris," Leland said before Buck hung up the phone.

"I guess being out on the range sheltered me from things I should have known about,” Leland concluded.

"The hyena problem is not isolated to Fate Mountain," Buck said. "But it is affecting Fate Mountain more than most other places."

"It's probably because there's so many shifters here already.”

"You may be right," Leland said. “But none of that makes any difference. We have to get Sylvia back.”

"We should go home and gear up to go back out tomorrow at daylight," Buck said. "Try to get some sleep."

Leland nodded in agreement. His younger brother was right again. He was getting too emotional because his mate was in danger. He needed his brothers to help get her back to safety.

He made his way home, his anger building by the moment. He doubted he could sleep a wink with her gone like this. He wanted to call down the entire shifter army to search the entire area all night long, but he knew that it wasn't possible. Buck was right, they had to wait till daylight.

When they made it home, everyone went off to their own rooms to prepare for the next day and to try to get some rest. Leland tossed and turned most of the night, unable to settle the enraged grizzly inside him.

Finally, he got out of bed and ripped off all his clothes as he made his way out into the cool night air. Under a waning moon, he roared up into the sky, his thick breath puffing out in front of him. He shifted with a strangled roar and fell on his four massive paws. The grizzly was angry and in need of blood. He sniffed the air, picking up the scent of the cattle grazing in the north pasture.

Breaking into the pasture and hunting the cattle would be like shooting fish in a barrel for his grizzly. The animal started to move up the driveway toward the sleeping cattle. Leland's human mind screamed inside him, trying to regain control of his inner beast.

He charged toward a barbed wire fence, but yanked himself away at the last moment. He picked up the scent and shot off into the woods. He charged and roared, crashing through the woods, bashing at small creatures and scratching at tree trunks. He didn't know how many small woodland creatures he crushed in the night.

In the morning, he found himself naked and smeared with blood. There was a small bird dead beside him in the dewy grass. He pressed his eyes closed with guilt. The grizzly inside him scratched at his eyeballs, reminding him that his mate was in danger.

Standing in the chill forest morning, Leland stretched and tried to clear his mind. It was still quite early, and the sun was barely eking out over the eastern mountains.

As he padded down the slope to the road, walking on bare feet along the gravel driveway toward the house, he heard a motor screeching behind him. Leland snapped his head around and immediately shifted into his bear.