Page 7 of A Bear's Secret

Sloane looked up at him, her face still pale, her hands still locked into fists in her lap.

“Oh,” she said.

Barb took a nail-biting right, then a left, and then they were in the hospital parking lot. When the truck turned off, Sloane closed her eyes and took a deep breath, forcing her hands to unclench. Barb was already out of the truck, striding toward the hospital, and Austin got out and offered Sloane a hand, despite knowing full well that she didn’t need it.

She took it anyway.

“Thanks,” she said.

“No problem,” Austin said, shoving the hand back in his pocket, hoping that would make it stop tingling. “Barb’s driving can take a little getting used to.”

“No kidding,” she muttered under her breath. “I hiked three miles on an icy cliff face once and it was less scary.”

“I believe it,” Austin said, and they walked fast to catch up to Barb, the hospital doors opening automatically.

It wasn’t a big hospital. It had an emergency room and a couple of floors, but serious cases got taken by ambulance to the bigger hospital in Canyon City, and the really serious cases got airlifted to the university hospital in Redding, the capitol of Cascadia.

As soon as they turned the corner into the main waiting room, Barb snorted, her nostrils flaring.

“They’re here,” she said. She inclined her head at two wolf shifters standing and talking quietly on the far end of the room, both wearing the standard ranch outfit of a button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up, the bottom tucked into a pair of well-fitting jeans with a flashy belt buckle.

Sloane’s eyebrows went up. Austin’s heart felt like it skipped a beat.

“At least it’s Trevor and not his father,” Austin said, keeping his voice low. “Trevor’s reasonable.”

“None of them are reasonable,” said Barb. “Trevor just parrots whatever his father says.”

Austin bit back a response, and Barb stomped over to the other wolves.

As she did, the one on the right — Trevor — looked over at Austin for half a second.

Austin looked away.

“Who are they?” asked Sloane, her voice a whisper.

“They’re from the Red Sky ranch next door, though next door is a stretch,” Austin said. “The next ranch over. That guy was on their land when you found him.”

“Ah,” said Sloane. “And they’re... not cool?”

“Barb and Bill don’t get along too well with the owner, Buck,” Austin went on. “Though no one’s seen him in a little while.”

“Why don’t they get along?” Sloane said, her voice still a whisper. Her eyes were on Barb, now standing and facing the wolves, her hands on her hips.

“It’s the usual territorial wolf bullshit more than anything,” murmured Austin. “But they’ve just never liked each other, and then last year Buck kept a bear shifter prisoner for a little while, and it came out that he might have gotten some of his own people killed in the process. Rumor has it he’s been stockpiling weapons, to boot.”

Trevor’s gray eyes flicked to his again, and Austin swallowed. A shudder made its way through his bones.

“They’re just bad neighbors overall,” he finished.

“They kept someone prisoner?” Sloane hissed, her eyes going wide. “How are they not in prison?”

“It’s a long story, but she was feral,” Austin said. “No one could ever prove that they knew Olivia was a shifter.”

“You know her?”

“She’s my cousin.”

Sloane looked at Austin in surprise, a frown forming on her forehead.

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