Fated Attraction_Shifter Nation_Werebears Of The Everglades

by Meg Ripley

  She looked at me hard. “This isn’t just someone stuck in a hole, I’m caught in a trap. We have to get this off. It punctured deeply, maybe even to the bone, and it smells like…” She gulped hard and closed her eyes, sending a tear down her cheek.

  I leaned in closer and took a hard sniff. There was something there that didn’t belong. Besides the odor of the metal and her blood, fear and sweat, along with the scent of the killer—now more vile to me than anything I’d ever smelled before—there was a musty, earthy scent that I didn’t recognize.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know for sure, but I’ve smelled it before. My gramma had some once. Some kind of poison.”

  “What?” I breathed.

  “If it’s the one I think, it’s not meant to kill. Just slowly incapacitate.”

  I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. How was this possible? How was this happening?

  I squeezed her hand hard and shifted back to check in on the guys. Where are you guys?

  Almost at the park entrance, Mason said.

  We have a problem. There’s some kind of poison on the trap. Britt says she thinks she’s encountered it before, though she can’t recall what it is. She thinks it’s only meant to sedate, but we can’t be sure.

  Can you at least try to get the trap off? Mason asked.

  Send me an image of it if you can, Conner added.

  I looked down at it, but with my clumsy bear paws, I couldn’t do a thing. I sent what I could see, but it wasn’t a good view since the trap was in the hole and blocked by Britt’s body. I’m going to shift back for a sec to see what I can do.

  In human form, I could get my head closer and get a better look.

  “Okay,” I said to Britt. “You trap all the time. You sure you can’t tell me how I can get this off?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t use traps like these.” She blinked and another tear ran down her cheek. “They’re too inhumane. Too painful to the animal.”

  I didn’t have my phone, and even if I did, I’d never get reception this far out. So trying to Google it or watch a YouTube video on how to open it was out of the question.

  My heart raced so fast, it was clouding my thinking. I got my hands down in the hole with her foot, and I tried to pull open the jaws of the trap, but they didn’t even budge. They were locked tight, lined with sharp teeth that sank into her skin. I rubbed my finger around the teeth and took a sniff of the poison to get a stronger scent.

  “What are you doing!” she cried. “Get that off your skin!” She shook her head and muttered, “Dumbass.”

  At least she was still herself.

  I wiped my fingers in the grass and mud. “I need to shift back to tell them.” I pressed my lips to hers hard and fast, then shifted.

  This is the poison, I told them, and sent the impression of the smell. It wouldn’t be as strong as smelling it firsthand, but it was something. Recognize it?

  No, they both answered.

  Even the other members of my clan paid attention, and I felt them trying to place the scent.

  Then I heard Hailey react. It’s hemlock, she said sadly.

  I wasn’t familiar enough with it to know what it did. What does it do?

  She could die. Hailey’s words were somewhat choked. Do you have any idea how much she was exposed to?

  It’s on the trap, I said. I don’t know, but it obviously broke the skin.

  Is she having any symptoms? she asked.

  I don’t know what the symptoms would be.

  Conner spoke up then. Look for drowsiness and swelling, increased saliva, severe muscle pain. Later stages are loss of speech and consciousness before…

  Before what? I asked.

  You have to get her to the hospital right away, Hailey said, and I could hear the panic in her thoughts.

  We’re trying to find you, Conner said, frantic. Where the hell are you guys?

  I stuck my nose in the air and sniffed and listened. There was no sign of them, so I sent the mental image again.

  Not helping. I could hear the physical strain in Mason’s thoughts. They were running hard to get to us. I don’t know where that is!

  I don’t either, I said, and my own throat grew thick. I looked at Britt, and she had her head down, resting. Was this the drowsiness Conner had mentioned?

  I shifted back and took Britt’s hand. “They can’t find us. Can you tell me where we are?”

  She looked up at me, forlorn. “Run south and go find them.”

  “I am not leaving you.”

  “You have to. Unless you want me to die here.”

  I clenched my jaw and took a deep breath before I kissed her, then shifted back to bear form. I’d never shifted back and forth so much in a short time. It was making me tired, sick to my stomach, and achy. I’m going to come find you. She told me to run south.

  15

  Britt

  I closed my eyes when Ezra was out of sight. I hadn’t wanted to cry in front of him, and it was bad enough he saw me shed a few tears. Now that he was gone and no one else was around yet, I let the tears flow.

  The pain was intense. Not just from my foot, which had to be broken, but from whatever the poison was. I could feel it seeping into my body with each second that passed. I felt heavy all over, my muscles burning. If they didn’t get there soon, I’d die. Even when they did get there, I didn’t know what good it would do. I couldn’t run in my condition. Even if there hadn’t been poison involved, the trap had done too much physical damage. I’d say, depending on how crushed the bones were, I might even be permanently injured. I tried not to think about what that meant. If it would affect my shifting, if it would stop me from running or hunting. That wasn’t the time for ‘what ifs.’

  I just hoped he was fast. My body was in an awkward position and I was naked. I couldn’t decide if it was better to stay human or be a panther, but Ezra had said human. My mind was foggy and I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t like being trapped there, naked and defenseless. All it would take was one slimy man to come upon me.

  I decided to change back; I needed my panther senses anyhow. I set my head down; it was becoming too heavy. It was easier to shift to panther than it’d been to shift to human. Deep inside, my core was more animalistic when under duress, so the animal side usually won.

  When I shifted back, though, I realized I’d made one mistake: my human calf was thinner than my panther leg. When I’d become human, the trap had closed a tiny bit more. Shifting back, I’d forced the muscles of my leg further into the teeth of the trap. It was even tighter, sending waves of hot pain through me that were so intense, I passed out. I’d never experienced pain like that in my life. The trap was bad enough, but the poison felt as if someone had injected acid into my muscles.

  I had to keep spitting, too. I was starting to think I was wrong. I couldn’t recall what the plant had been that Gramma made her poisons from, but the symptoms weren’t matching up. Could I have rabies? That would mean certain death. But no, that wasn’t right. Rabies wasn’t that fast-acting. I knew better, but my brain wasn’t pulling its weight.

  I tried to keep my attention focused on the world around me, listening and sniffing like always, on alert for any hint of a predator or, in that case, help. But the pain blocked me. My mind was sludge. I put my head down again and closed my eyes, but I didn’t want to drift off. Without knowing what the poison was, that could make everything worse. But I just couldn’t keep my head up or my attention focused.

  I must’ve dozed off anyway, because I felt the sudden jolt into consciousness. A noise had woken me. I sniffed first, mostly because I didn’t want to pick my head up to hear better. It wasn’t Ezra or any of his clan members. My heart raced and I forced myself to pick up my head to look in the direction of the sound.

  Footsteps. Two men are coming toward me.

  I was so very grateful that I’d shifted back to panther and wasn’t lying there naked as these men approached. Their sent was vag
uely familiar. As I drew in a few long breaths, I realized that their scents were on the trap, too. It wasn’t just the killer who’d set it up; those men must have been working with him.

  One of them began to laugh, then they stepped into view. They looked like the local scum that ran around being assholes and starting trouble. Thick boots, dirty overalls, greasy hair, too long and scraggly, with beards that hadn’t been trimmed in months.

  I was in a terrible position to fight back. With one leg down the hole, I couldn’t stand. I could use my front paws and maybe my one free back paw. I had my teeth, but could only use them if they got close enough.

  I kept my eyes on their every move and tweaked my ear every so often in the direction Ezra had gone, listening for his return. I wanted to let out a loud howl to alert him if he was close enough to hear. I didn’t think I had the strength, though. My mouth was full of saliva. I couldn’t spit with my panther mouth, so the excess ran over, my drool puddling under me on the ground.

  I’d seen these men before around Shady’s and around town in general. Those fuckers were always up to no good. They were humans, and most likely, not the type who’d know about shifters. The only humans allowed in on our secret were mates of shifters and family members who could be trusted with our secret.

  But not these two. I had to stay panther at all costs. It would be easier to stay in my condition, but I didn’t like being forced into it.

  “Well, looky here, Chuck. Got us a real nice panther indeed.”

  Chuck, I assumed, nudged his elbow into the other man. “That makes three! At this rate, we’ll have the Glades pantherless by the end of the month.” He then curled his lips back and muttered, “Damn vermin.”

  I let out a low growl. I wanted them to know I knew. I wanted them to be afraid. I wasn’t used to humans walking up to me while in my animal form and being so calm.

  I searched through the fog in my mind for the bit of information that kept trying to break free, and when it did, I sucked in a breath. Now I remembered. These men had been seen with some of the croc shifters in town, so maybe they were keen on our secret after all. The crocs themselves were a sketchy bunch. Always causing trouble. Always scheming.

  “Aww, nice kitty,” Chuck said.

  The other one came over and petted me like I was his house cat. I snarled and snipped at his hand. He pulled it back before I sank my teeth into it.

  “Mean kitty,” Not Chuck said.

  “Well, that’s alright.” Chuck set his shotgun on his shoulder and aimed. “Dead kitty, soon.”

  I pleaded with my eyes for them not to kill me. I begged the heavens for Ezra to show up; for anything, anyone, to stop this.

  Then my prayers were answered. Almost.

  A third man walked up. “I told you fools to wait.”

  He smacked Chuck on the back of the head, and Chuck lowered the gun. “Ain’t no one around, Jimmy Bob.”

  “How would you know? Do you even know what she is? No, you don’t.” He shook his head.

  The new guy, Jimmy Bob, looked a lot like the others, as far as his levels of cleanliness and tidiness went. He was younger, though, with blonde hair. But something didn’t make sense. When his scent reached me, the resulting growl was automatic. He was indeed the killer, but something was off. The killer hadn’t been a shifter like that croc was; I knew that. Even right then, he didn’t smell like a shifter.

  Jimmy Bob walked over to me and crouched down, smiling right at me. He put a hand to the side of my face, then slapped me.

  “No boys, this here is not just any old panther. This girl’s a real, live panther shifter.”

  Their eyes widened. Not Chuck got a creepy grin as he continued to chew a wad of tobacco. “Huh. She a female?”

  The croc nodded. Not Chuck rubbed his hands together, and my stomach turned.

  When he was that close, his croc odor became an overwhelming stench. As I sorted through the details of it, I figured it out. The croc smell was there; I was also able to smell the shifter in him with no problem in that moment. But I picked up on something else that wasn’t his natural scent: some kind of neutralizer or scent cover that blocked it.

  It was nothing I recognized, like deer piss, but he had something on, and it had worked. It’d thrown us all off so we’d thought the killer was human. I wondered if they had been chasing after the wrong guy the whole time. Good chance of it. Well, now I’d found him—or, more accurately, he’d found me.

  “I’m gonna check the area, like I told you two assholes to do before we kill her. Can’t take a chance of someone coming around, especially if she’s called her clan.”

  With that, he stood and pulled off his shirt before dropping his pants, and Chuck twisted his face in disgust. “Aw man, ya coulda given us a little warnin’. I ain’t into seein’ yer naked ass.” Not Chuck shook his head and raised his eyes to the canopy of the forest.

  Jimmy Bob shifted to croc form and scampered off in his stupid lowdown run. Crocs looked like such idiots when they ran, like they just weren’t made to move like that. No wonder they got taken down so easily on land. I could pounce on one in a heartbeat and crush the bastard good.

  I still didn’t see or hear Ezra. Where the hell was he? I wanted to scream and cry. The one time I’d let myself need someone, and he was letting me down.

  A minute later, the croc came scurrying back, but didn’t stop when he got to me. He charged toward me, and I sat up the best I could to swat at him with my sharp claws.

  He had the advantage on me, obviously. Having me trapped and poisoned was the only way he could. When he swiped back, his black claws slashed my skin and I howled; there was no reason to hold back by that point, and I couldn’t have controlled it if I wanted to.

  I swatted and swatted, wildly waving my paw as I tried to slash him hard. I gave him a good gash across his neck. Blood poured from the fresh wound and he backed up, panting.

  “Enough of that!” Chuck yelled out and picked up his gun again.

  Fuck! This is it, I told myself. I couldn’t stop a bullet, and I couldn’t leap forward and bite him.

  He pointed the end of the barrel at me and cocked the gun.

  16

  Ezra

  We all heard it at the same time: the howl, followed by the sound of animals fighting. We didn’t have to say it; we all knew what was going on. Britt must have shifted back, and if she was stuck in a trap, half drugged, she’d have no chance.

  We’d been running fast, but now we sprinted, spending every last bit of energy we had to push harder and faster. I pulled ahead. It had to be the adrenaline because I’d never outrun Mason or Conner before.

  I wished, for the hundredth time, that I could communicate with her mentally like I could with my clan. It was so hard being in animal form and not having the human level of communication we were used to.

  More help was on its way behind us, but it would take them a while. Still, I felt some comfort in knowing that in a short time, the place would be swarming with police and rangers, all there to help Britt. But the comfort was minute compared to the extreme panic I felt. What if we were too late?

  It seemed to take ages to get back to the place where I’d left her. I saw the tail of a croc first and a snarl ran up my chest. The croc turned and I pounced on him, noticing in my peripheral vision that two human men were there with him. This was an uneven fight. Two humans and one shifter against a helpless panther was too easy. But three bears on two humans and one croc? Even if they did have a gun, they’d get theirs real fast.

  As my paws landed on the croc, my weight pressing him down, and I picked up on the killer’s scent. This bastard is the one, I realized. I bit into his neck and he thrashed around, but my sheer size and weight were more than he could fight against. I punched his spine. The bony, scaled ridge of his back hurt my paw, but it was worth it when I felt his bones crack and he went still. I opened his soft throat with my claws to speed things along, and when I was sure he was dead, I turned back to the othe
rs.

  The humans were pinned down, looking properly terrified—and very immobile. What the hell were we going to do with them? Well, they weren’t my primary concern in that moment.

  I ran to Britt. I wasn’t sure what made her change back to her panther, but I guessed it had been a good thing. She was dirtier than she was when I left her, bleeding from a fresh gash across her muzzle.

  I began licking her. The blood and her animal sweat all tasted alive to me, and I felt relieved. But we weren’t clear yet. She was barely conscious, hardly able to move. I didn’t know if it was because of the poison or the attack.

  Before I shifted, I asked, How long until someone gets here? There was hesitation. What? I demanded.

  There’s no way a crew can get in here, Conner said. Or maybe they can, but it would take too much time. We have to carry her out.

  How? There’s still the trap.

  Mason looked at the human he was holding down. He slammed his paw into him hard, knocking him out. Then he shifted and came over to the trap.

  Conner shifted back and pulled off the pack he’d been carrying in bear form. He pulled out zip ties, flipped the man over, and secured his feet and hands behind his back. He put his face close to the man and growled, “I don’t know why that croc decided to tell you and your buddy over there about us shifters, but you need to forget everything you’ve seen. If you breathe so much as a fucking word about our existence, mark my words, you will be destroyed. Do you understand?”

  The man gulped and nodded. “I ain’t seen nuthin’, man.”

  When the guy Mason knocked out regained consciousness, Conner secured him after making a similar threat and joined us.

  I’d shifted back and sat at Britt’s head, cradling her and talking to her. “I know it’s hard, but you have to shift back.”

  Her eyes closed and her head went still.

  “Britt! Don’t close your eyes!” After all that, I wasn’t about to lose her.

  Her body moved as Mason and Conner worked to get the trap free.