Feral Kincaid was ten seconds from losing his shit. His niece was missing and nobody knew where she was. He’d gone looking for her himself. For two hours, nobody had noticed she’d been missing, long enough for anything to happen to the seven-year-old. The tiger in him roared and made his body tense with fury. If something happened to Ramsey, his sister would kill him.

He’d chosen to take Ramsey on an overnight trip where several of his people camped to teach her hunting skills and how to spend more time in her tiger. The girl was always around humans and with the fights for land between his pride, the Terai, and the Behar Pride, there was too much tension to do it near home.

Though he owned most of the mountain, the Behar still had a small portion and they were always trying to swindle more. As if the land maps didn’t exist to prove Feral owned most of the Terai mountain.

“Anything?” he asked Slate, one of his guards.

Slate shook his head, a grim look on his face. “I’m sorry, Feral. Nothing yet. With the wind shifting, it makes it really difficult. We haven’t found a trace of her scent yet.”

Fuck! He growled and slammed a fist on the metal table he’d used to make Ramsey breakfast. “I have to find her.”

“I understand. We’ve gone really far with nothing. We’ve found hikers and families in the area close to the falls, but nothing else,” Slate said.

Another of his guards rushed to the campsite from the trees. “Feral, we have a problem.”

“What’s wrong, Gunner?”

“Two of the men from the Behar Pride were spotted a few miles from here.”

Feral’s gut clenched. “What? They don’t usually come this way. When did that change?” he asked Slate.

Slate looked as shocked as he did. “I don’t know. My intel says they don’t come here, ever.”

“But today, they’re here?” Feral growled. “We’re going to scour wherever they were seen and search for anything we can. Ramsey is around here somewhere.”

Slate and Gunner glanced back and forth at each other. “What if they did take her?”

“I need to be sure, before we start a war between us. Duke Behar has been a selfish prick, but I never took him for a kidnapper.”

Gunner cleared his throat. “That might be, but you’re the one with the rights to the land he’s arguing belongs to him. You’re the one with the larger pride, and you’re the one he’s most afraid of.”

Feral snarled. He hated politics. He was fine in his desolate cabin in the mountains. His views alone were worth living away from people. The waterfalls weren’t as grand as the ones in the national park, but they were still beautiful. His home was farthest from town, which gave him space and quiet.

Feral didn’t bother refuting what Gunner said. Duke was afraid of him. Most of the people were. He lived a solitary life. He had enough scars to make any of the pretty boys in the pride wince. Pride members were afraid of his wrath. Except Ramsey. His little niece spoke her mind and didn’t care about Feral’s fury.

His animal pushed at the skin, wanting out. He had to go search again, find his niece. The thought of something happening to his little girl pulled an angry roar out of him. The sound was loud and it made his guards step away from him.

“We’ll find her,” Slate said. Gunner nodded and both rushed off, removing their clothes as they readied to shift. He watched his men go, about to leave himself when his radio went off.

“Yeah?”

“Feral?” his sister Reysha called. “Your phone must have zero service. I’ve been calling everyone and can’t get through. Is Ramsey around? I want to say hi.”

He gulped, unsure what to tell her. He didn’t want to lie, but he didn’t want to worry her, and they’d find Ramsey soon. With Reysha pregnant, she didn’t need to stress unnecessarily. He had to be sure Ramsey wasn’t around before he told her.

“No, she went for a run.” That was all true. From what the others said, she’d looked bored and had gone for a run, only she had yet to come back.

“Oh, damn. I was hoping to chat with her. I miss my girl,” Reysha said. “Anyway, how are you?”

“Good.”

“Wow. Man of so many words,” she laughed. “Listen, Hawk is over sending smoke signals my way so I can give him the radio. Give my baby a kiss. Can’t wait to see you guys tomorrow night!”

Fuck! He had to find his niece. Nothing could happen to Ramsey.

“Feral,” Hawk, his brother-in-law, got on the radio. “I’ve caught two of Behar’s men on your land. You’ve got to do something.”

Feral slipped tense fingers through his long hair and gripped it at the base of his skull. “I’ll deal with that when I get home.”

“Is everything okay?” Hawk asked. “You sound angry.”

“When am I not angry, Hawk?”

“True. Okay, then. I’ll see you when you get back. Take care of my baby.”

Feral slipped into his fur and ran the vicinity of the camp in a giant circle. Then worked his way out, still in a circle to see if he got any trace of Ramsey’s scent. The farther he got, the more concerned he became.

Could she have gotten this far without anyone noticing? He watched humans leaving the area. He went as close to where they parked as possible. His hearing picked up a conversation that caught his attention. It was a man talking to park security.

“You have to look for her. I think a tiger attacked her.”

The security guard gave him a bored look. “I told you we only have mountain cats here, sir. No big tigers.”

The guy, in ridiculously short shorts and a cropped tank top, took a bandana off his forehead and wiped his face. “And I’m telling you that my friend probably killed the tiger. Just go look. She was carrying a big knife. She might’ve killed it before it ate her.”

The security guard nodded. “Why didn’t you help your friend?”

The man blanched. “I couldn’t. It was too close. I was not in the position to help.”

“You mean you were scared of a mountain cat.”

“Tiger! How many times do I have to tell you it was a tiger?” He growled and turned from the security man, stomping to a car parked not far away.

Feral roared in anger. Nobody better have touched his niece. He prowled toward the man who knew where his niece was and readied to scare him into telling the exact location he’d seen Ramsey. The parking lot cleared and the man had his trunk open, wiping down the sweat of his walk. He turned, suddenly meeting his tiger’s eyes and screamed in fear.

“Officer! Officer!” the man screamed. “I told you!”

The security guard shook his head as he watched Feral shift to human. “Man, Feral. I told you to keep the drama to a minimum.”

The man gasped, his eyes wide. “You knew? This man...animal was here?”

Feral snarled and grabbed him by the collar, lifting him off the ground. “I have some questions and you’re going to answer them.”

“Feral,” Gabe, the security guard started, “don’t hurt him. I don’t need more cops here.”

“I won’t,” Feral looked deep at the human’s eyes. “Not if he tells the truth.”

The man gulped. “W-w-what do you want to know?”

“What’s your name, human?”

“Corbin.”

Feral showed him his elongating canines and his unstable shifting features. “You saw a tiger earlier.”

“Yes,” he croaked. “Not as big as yours.”

“Where?” he asked and shook Corbin hard.

Corbin winced. “Twenty minutes south of the I-23.”

“The woman you were with, you left her with the tiger and she had a knife?”

Corbin gave a half nod. “Sage. If she got away from the tiger, she’d be back at her hotel by now if she kept going up the way we were.”

She could be working for the Behar Pride and this moron not even know it. He had to get his niece before she was hurt. Knowing Ramsey, she’d have shifted and befriended the human. Only to be kidnapped or taken hostage.

“Tell me what hotel she’s staying at.”

Corbin spilled the hotel name, address, and even the website. Feral dropped him and marched away, shifting into his tiger to head to camp. He had to gather his men and move.