Mate Bond

“Why was he shooting at you?” Cade asked as they wandered the area, looking for more evidence. “Or was he just shooting anything that moved, for fun?”

There was nothing to tell them which.

They did at last find prints of thick-soled men’s boots leading up a trail toward a road. Not much of a road—rough dirt and only wide enough for one vehicle. Tread marks showed that a pickup had sat here for a time last night. Snow had piled into its tracks, but the truck had left deep enough ruts in the mud that they were easy to read.

“Looks like it was a pickup about the size of mine,” Cade said, a regretful note entering his big voice.

There was nothing sadder than a bear mourning the loss of his truck. “You sacrificed it for a good cause,” Bowman said. “You know I’ll make it up to you.”

“You sacrificed it,” Cade answered darkly. “But I’ll hold you to the making-it-up part.”

Jamie let out a laugh. “Are you going to build a funeral pyre to send it to the Goddess?”

“Maybe.” Cade didn’t smile. “I love that truck.”

“You’ll have as much fun fixing it up the second time.” Bowman followed the tire tracks down the road a few yards before he stopped. This road, if he remembered from studying a map of the area this morning, led to a paved one that fed into an east-west highway. But so what? The shooter could have driven here from anywhere.

“Let’s visit the strange professor in the trailer,” Bowman said, coming back to them.

“Goody,” Cade answered. “Just what I wanted to do today.”

“I’ll be the only one meeting with him,” Bowman said. “I want you two to investigate the perimeter, find out all you can. I can’t believe he wants so much isolation. No one could love that; I don’t care if his dad left him the land and he’s sentimental about it. He has to be up to something.”

“Felines and Lupines couldn’t love that, you mean,” Cade said. “Bears like solitude.” He grinned, his grief over his truck momentarily forgotten. “Although we’d prefer solitude with a hot female.”

“Then it wouldn’t be solitude,” Jamie pointed out.

“Yeah it would. The best kind of solitude.” Cade chuckled, then grew serious. “What I mean is, it’s hell for Felines and Lupines to be on their own. You love being part of the group, even when you pretend you don’t. But humans are different. Some of them, like bears, prefer being alone.”

“Then why do humans use solitary confinement as a punishment?” Bowman countered.

Cade shrugged. “I don’t know everything there is to know about humans. I’m speculating. But maybe Professor Turner is the kind of human who prefers to be on his own. You said that others laughed at him and made things hard for him before. Maybe that made him prefer his own company.”

“Mmm,” was all Bowman would say.

He’d had Pierce look Turner up on the university’s website last night. The man did exist. Wayne Turner, associate professor, department of anthropology, University of North Carolina, Asheville. His photo appeared on the site, along with his campus office and phone number, his bio, and his educational background. BA from the University of South Carolina, meaning Kenzie had been right about his accent. PhD from the University of Virginia. Turner specialized in the history and culture of Shifters and their parallels to human culture. He’d published a number of articles in journals Bowman had never heard of, and had been interviewed on local television and on local and national radio.

Bowman was automatically distrustful of humans with too much interest in Shifters. He didn’t need humans sniffing around Shiftertowns, finding out more than necessary. Shifters preferred to keep themselves mysterious. Safer that way.

Bowman also hadn’t liked the remark Turner had made to Kenzie, observing that she and Bowman had only one cub. He hadn’t missed the pain that had flared in Kenzie’s eyes when he’d said it.

Ryan had come along after three years of trying, when Kenzie had been about to give up hope for a cub. Ryan had been big and healthy, with no problems at all, and they’d celebrated. For days. Kenzie and Bowman had assumed they’d have several more cubs quickly after that—a big family.

But they’d never conceived again. Not for lack of trying. They had plenty of mating frenzy, but no more cubs came. Bowman knew Kenzie blamed herself—in the past, low fertility among females had led to declines in Shifter population. But Bowman knew it could be his fault. He’d read that stress could lower sperm count, and leading this Shiftertown caused plenty of stress.

When they spied the trailer, Bowman signaled Cade and Jamie to fan out and explore. The two trackers faded noiselessly into the trees, and Bowman strode out into the clearing.

He arrived at the trailer, stepped up on the wooden stair to knock on the door, and found Cristian Dimitru already inside with Turner.

* * *

Kenzie and Ryan polished off the cinnamon rolls, Ryan eating most of them. They’d left none for Bowman, but Afina had stashed a second batch of dough in the freezer, the rolls formed already. All Kenzie had to do was bake and frost them.

Afina was like that—hard-edged, but then . . . cinnamon rolls. She could be thoughtful, kind, and loving, exactly what Kenzie had needed as a scared and lonely cub.

As Kenzie contemplated what she’d learned from her phone conversation with Gil, someone pounded on the front door. Alarmed and wary, Kenzie went to answer it.