Chapter 2 - Knox
Some of those new assholes are chasing after a park visitor!
The words ring out in my brain almost like a shout, and I recognize the mental “voice” of one of the members of my clan, Cassidy Powers. I put her on trail duty for the night, and when I reach out to her mind, I can place her close to one of the easier hiking paths.
I’ve been waiting for those bastards to do something I can call them out on for the last three weeks. Since Acadia is neutral territory for shifters, I can’t kick them out--even as an Alpha--unless I have good reason to, and catching them committing a crime should be reason enough. I start heading in the direction I can feel Cassidy’s signal coming from, and I keep my ears open for any hint of what the pricks might be doing.
I slow down a bit once I get onto the right trail, taking a few moments to catch my breath. Just ahead of me, I catch the tail end of one of them running along the trail. My heart beats faster in my chest for reasons that have nothing to do with running and I growl to myself, thinking of how I’d like to call those fucking pissants out formally and take them down.
Instead, I have to deal with the situation at hand. I vaguely catch the scent of a human female overlaid by the mark of the four bears chasing her. If these guys are going after a human park visitor, that’s a big problem, and one I’m going to have to take care of as neatly as possible. They didn’t even bother shifting into their bear forms; at least if they had, I could publicly dismiss it as a random wildlife incursion.
As I pursue the group and their prey, I start thinking of how I’m going to handle brushing this incident aside. There was some chick from a magazine calling the park a week or so before, and based on her questioning, I have a feeling she was priming the pump to uncover some things that are better left alone. And if word gets out that there’s been an attack on someone visiting the park, there’s no way she’ll keep it out of whatever bullshit article she’s working on.
I catch up to the group just before the entrance to the trails, and I hear the woman, who’s now shouting.
“Don’t think you’re going to get anything from me--not without a goddamn fight!”
I can’t help but be a bit impressed by her feisty spirit, and as I try to sneak up on them, I catch little glimpses of her as they follow her deeper into the woods. I assume they’re probably planning to steal whatever valuables she’s got on her--or maybe, do worse.
The woman must have taken some kind of self-defense classes; she stopped running and is now kicking and throwing punches, turning her head to bite as viciously as any cornered animal would, making it tough for her would-be attackers to get what they want from her.
“Let’s take her to the campsite. Knock her out, Kevin.”
“What the fuck? This was supposed to be a quick grab, Shawn. Let’s just get her purse and get out of here, man. Right, Harris? Jamie?”
Shawn leers at the woman, “Yeah, but she’s a hot little piece…”
I let them hear me approach, crunching hard on some underbrush and sticks to announce myself.
“You have two seconds to get the hell out of here,” I say, letting the Alpha growl reverberate through my voice. There’s one benefit to these interlopers not being part of my clan: they couldn’t hear me coming, since they aren’t tuned into the same telepathic channel.
“Oh, shit,” I hear one of them mutter.
“Uh, we were just helping this young lady find her way back to her car,” Jamie stammers, but he knows I’m not buying any of his bullshit.
“Did I stutter?” I get in his face and roar, “Get the fuck out of here. Now!”
Shawn, their Alpha, tries to posture a bit, but after a moment, with a low growl, they slink away into the woods. In the distance, I recognize the faint sounds of them shifting into their bear forms as they proceed to lumber off and sulk.
My focus shifts to the next priority: taking care of the woman, who is now sitting on a nearby boulder.
“You okay? I tried to get here before they could do anything,” I say.
“Just got a good scare,” she says. I move closer to her and see that she’s managed to hold onto her purse; points for that, I guess. During the chase, I’d been too obsessed with getting to her before the outsiders could do anything, but now that we’re close--and the adrenaline is starting to ebb out of my system--I can actually appreciate the scent of her; it reminds me of lavender honey, fresh out of a hive deep in the woods, and I recognize it as the scent of the visitor I’d just given the office phone number to an hour or so ago. I inhale once again; my mouth begins to water, but as I start to pick up on the sharper smell of her fear and anger, I have to remind myself she was almost the victim of an attack; one that could jeopardize the secrecy of Acadia.
“Here, let me help you up,” I offer, reaching out to give her a hand. Even with my keen eyesight, in the dark, it’s hard to make out too many particulars, but I can tell she’s got an incredible body beneath her clothes: full breasts and round hips with a little padding along her thighs that triggers vivid images of what it’d be like to have those sexy legs wrapped around me. She doesn’t accept my hand, but instead, rises from her seat on the huge chunk of granite and dusts herself off.
“Thanks for coming to my rescue,” she says blandly.
“Just doing my job,” I tell her, giving her a smile that I’m pretty sure her human eyes can’t see in the darkness of the forest. “Please, let me walk you to your car to make sure you get out of here alright.”
“I guess you could do that,” the woman says, shifting her purse on her shoulder.
“What are you up to, wandering the woods at night, anyway?” We take off in the direction of the trail out to the parking lot, and I’m doing my best to get answers, while seeming to make small talk along the way.
“I know--I was actually heading back to my car when they started chasing me,” the woman says. “I guess I just wanted to do a quick trip through a bit of the park before I settle further into my research.”
“Research? Are you a scientist?” I haven’t received any petitions for studies, but sometimes students do trips on their own, without grants or funding, for papers. The woman I’m walking with doesn’t look like she’s much older than the average grad student, so that could be the case.
“I’m a journalist, actually,” she tells me. “I’m investigating the history of the National Park Service for an article, and I wanted to get a feel for one of its parks before starting to delve deeper, so I planned a little trip up here to Acadia.”
I nearly stop dead in my tracks.
“A journalist?” Great. Of course those assholes chose literally the worst person to attack. This is going to make things even more complicated.
“Yeah—I’m working with New World magazine,” she says. “The name’s Hannah Grant.” She holds out her hand for me to shake it, and I oblige, in spite of the multiple distractions raging for control of my mind.
“Knox Bernard,” I tell her. “We’ve spoken before.” I see her eyes widen as we pass into the lighted area surrounding the parking lot.
“You’re the administrator for this park,” she says, looking at me sharply. “We talked on the phone.”
“We did,” I agree. God could this situation get worse?
“You’re...much more attractive than you sounded on the phone,” the woman says, smiling a little awkwardly.
“I don’t know if I should be offended or flattered,” I tell her. She laughs, and it’s like someone’s run a finger down my spine in the best way possible.
“No, I didn’t mean it as an insult at all,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m just surprised that you’re the one who came to my rescue, I guess.” She shakes her head again and rummages through her purse. “I should probably head back to my Airbnb before I embarrass myself even more.”
“Let me just check you over before you leave,” I suggest, partly because I want to make sure she’s actually okay, but also because I want an excuse to linger. The scent rolling off her is enough to drive me mad; aside from that, I have to set some ground rules about this article she’s working on. I can’t be having a scandalous investigation into the park underway.
“I guess,” Hannah says, looking at me warily. I hold up my flashlight and wave the light over her hands, up her arms and down her legs, checking her over. I don’t really need it--there’s enough light from the moon and the safety lamps set out in the parking lot for me to see clearly--but it gives me an excuse to take my time, and besides: she doesn’t need to know that I can already see her as plain as day.
“I hope that little incident didn’t give you a bad first impression of the park,” I say, playing the light over her back. Her denim jacket must have gotten snagged on something; but thankfully, it’s not torn through.
“Well, it certainly gave me a good first impression of the park rangers,” Hannah says playfully. “Rushing to help this stupid damsel in distress.”
“It could’ve happened to anyone,” I tell her. “I’ve been trying to run those campers out of here for a couple of weeks, but they’re paid up and I haven’t had anything I can use as leverage ‘til now. Hopefully this changes things.”
“You know who they were?”
“I know this park inside and out,” I point out with a little smile. “Well, you look like you’re all in one piece, but you should check yourself over for ticks once you get back home.”
“I will,” Hannah says. And then we’re just standing there in the parking lot, awkwardly, with maybe a foot and a half of space between us. “Are you on duty tomorrow? I was hoping I could get a tour...in the daylight, of course.”
“I’m off duty, technically,” I reply, thinking fast. “But if you want to get a tour of the park, I’d be more than happy to show you around.”
“That would be great,” Hannah says.
“Think you can get here at about two? It should be warm enough, and we can make good time along the shoreline and through the wooded areas.”
“You realize I’m going to be interviewing you,” Hannah says, making it not quite a question.
“I expected as much,” I say, grinning at her. “Two?”
“That works,” she tells me, smiling back. “Thanks again. For...you know.”
“Just doing my job,” I insist. I turn away from her, stepping back to watch the gentle swaying of her hips as she walks the rest of the way to her car. I’m not sure whether I’m looking forward to tomorrow because it’ll give me a chance to run interference, or to be around that lingering, sweet scent of hers, but I can only hope I can get enough sleep to be functional before I have to meet up with her.
I watch as her car pulls away and then head back onto the trail, towards the part of the woods where the interlopers disappeared to. I’m going to have to discuss the incident with the members of my clan, and if I expect to be able to expel these bastards from the neutral, sacred lands of the park, I’ll need some solid evidence to present to the conclave of shifters.