Justin leaped out in front of the guys, racing toward the cabin where they’d left Adrian.

Rory passed him. Damn fast-as-hell cat.

Justin called on more energy, powering up his legs to hang with Rory, but Cole pulled ahead, too. That wolf was quick, but he now benefited from the power of being mated.

Bears weren’t built to be speedsters.

Justin managed to keep those two in sight. Since Cole and Rory had exceptional shifter hearing, Justin didn’t have to yell when he said, “No one made any plans for a damned forest fire.  What if this place had burned to the ground before we showed up? Adrian couldn’t get past the ward.”

“The Guardian would know,” Rory answered over his shoulder, then swatted branches out of the way when he peeled off the winding path that stretched another mile. Instead, he cut through the woods, taking the straightest route to the cabin.

“How could the Guardian know?” Justin understood his powerful boss had gifts and abilities they had yet to see, but to know what happened here when the Guardian was normally in a suite high above the Baltimore coast was crazy. 

Cole answered, “When we got back from dropping Adrian off, I asked the Guardian if ...”  He jumped over two trees fallen across each other, landed in a gully and bounced up out of it.

Damn limber wolf.

Justin did a respectable job of leaping over the same downed trees, then shoved two small saplings aside to clear the way. He might not be cat or wolf fast, but he could plow through practically anything.

When Cole didn’t finish his sentence, Justin pressed, “And what, wolf?”

“I asked if there was any danger for Adrian being here alone. The boss said no, that he would sense a significant disturbance in the land.”

Always something new to learn about their boss.

Rory and Cole burst through the trees and stumbled to a stop with echoes of, “Shit.”

Stench of burned wood clouded the air. 

Justin caught up and slowed to pause next to them. His heart sank. Only a pile of charred wood remained where the cabin had been on top of a gently rising hill with a stunning view.

Rory suggested, “It could have been lightning.”

Cole shook his head.  “Nope. See that charred fuel can? This smells tainted like petroleum was involved.”

“Good thing the Guardian had the land cleared far enough away to not start a massive forest fire.” 

Justin rubbed the back of his neck where it twitched with a bad feeling.  If Adrian had actually been inside and kept a fire going, his wolf could have dragged that fuel can to the flame. “This pretty much screws next week’s meeting with the Guardian.”

Always the levelheaded one, Rory said, “Let’s not jump to conclusions. There may be an acceptable reason for this.”

And there was the about-face from Rory’s earlier doom-and-gloom attitude, because that was classic Rory.  He’d first list out all the possible negatives to a mission, then jump in to figure a way around them.

Justin walked to his right and uphill, for a better view of what was left. He couldn’t imagine any acceptable reason for this destruction and knew Adrian was not there.

First of all, he couldn’t smell burned flesh or fur.

Plus, over the past few years, Adrian had preferred sleeping outside.

All of that led to one conclusion. Justin said, “He burned it. You know he did.”

No one argued.

“Where do you think he is now?” Rory asked.

That would be the million-dollar question.  Justin had been scenting Adrian’s wolf even more heavily in the woods they’d raced through, which meant Adrian had probably been spending a lot of time in animal form.

A sick feeling tumbled through Justin.  What if Rory hadn’t just been hung up on negative possibilities and Adrian really had remained in wolf form the entire time here?

What if he couldn’t shift to human?

Of course, that would mean Adrian hadn’t burned the cabin.

The approaching sound of thundering hooves suddenly pierced the calm.

Cole jerked to his left. “What the fuck?”

Rory started yanking off his shirt.  “Whatever it is, I’m not ... ”

A herd of cow elk stampeded up the dirt road that belched out right before the hill where the cabin had stood. Justin and the guys would have entered from there if they hadn’t pulled off the trail. 

The minute the herd burst into the open space, they spread out, turning into a blob of gray-brown fur and pounding hooves. 

Justin had seconds to dive to the right and roll out of the way as the herd parted around the cabin ruins.

Cole and Rory had taken off and shifted on the run. They split up, leaping to top speed ahead of deadly hooves.

The chaos pounded away as quickly as it had appeared.

Justin dusted himself off and walked over to see where they all went, but caught a sudden strong scent of Adrian’s wolf, Red.

He turned slowly to see the wolf chasing a straggler into the clearing, which answered any question about who had started that stampede.

Red had once possessed a deep-rust-colored coat, but after the torture, his coat had changed to a lighter champagne hue, as had Adrian’s hair. In human form, he now had silver locks mixed with his natural auburn even though he was only twenty-seven. 

Cole had a beast of a wolf known as Gray Wolf, but Adrian’s was no slack at two hundred and seventy pounds, and standing four feet tall at the shoulder.

Adrian’s wolf snapped at the hind legs of a young cow that was half the size of the herd mates who had left her in their dust. 

Guess elk don’t hold to the no-man-left-behind rule. 

In a lunge, the wolf locked his jaws on the hindquarters of the cow, pulling it to a stop.

Justin remained perfectly still as Adrian’s wolf battled with a two-hundred-plus-pound female elk unwilling to give in.

Everything was going fine until Cole returned in wolf form and came trotting around the burned structure. He’d had no way to see Adrian and the elk until it was too late.

Justin couldn’t warn the other two unless he shifted to his bear. The Gallize shifters could  talk mind to mind only when in animal form.

Adrian’s wolf released the elk and snarled viciously at Gray Wolf for daring to enter his territory.

Damn.  Justin walked forward one slow step at a time and kept his voice soothing. “Easy, Red. Easy, Adrian. You know us. We’re not intruders.”

Thankfully, Cole’s animal had frozen the minute he realized the problem.

The ravaged, but still alive, cow limped off, now forgotten by Adrian’s wolf, which continued to stare at Gray Wolf with dead eyes.  Tufts of the light gold fur along Red’s shoulders continued to stand in a sure sign that this was going downhill fast.

“Adrian,” Justin kept trying in a calm voice.  “Look at me, buddy.  We’re your friends.”

When Red turned his head to Justin, eyes filled with rage met his. 

No one home.

Gray Wolf advanced slowly. Cole would be doing that with intentions of watching Justin’s back, as they all did for each other.

But that small motion yanked Adrian’s wolf back to his initial target. Growling an unholy sound, Red launched himself at Gray Wolf, who accepted the challenge and met him halfway.

“Fuck! Back off, both of you!” Justin yelled.

No one paid him any attention.

Claws and fangs ripped up muscles on both wolves.  Cole had only recently regained control of his animal and probably figured Red needed a beat down, but if no one stopped them, one would die.

Red would not pull back from a kill though, where Cole would. Sammy’s death was still too fresh for all of them, but especially Cole. 

He wouldn’t let Gray Wolf kill Red, but Red wouldn’t be as accommodating.

Ripping clothes half off, Justin called up his grizzly.

He was not losing two friends this way.

Shifted, Justin’s bear lifted on his hind legs to stand over ten feet tall. Herc unleashed a roar that would send most animals running for their lives, but these two didn’t even pause. Fuck.

He stepped forward, hoping he didn’t have to kill one to save the other.