Timber Valley Pack: Lynx On The Loose( A Paranormal Romance With Shifters) by Georgette St. Clair Read Free Book Online Page B

the rifle, vanishing into the woods.
                  Isadora’s mood was gloomy as they slogged back to the Hobo camp. She’d have to wait for further instructions.  She’d heard that Pyotr was squirrelly and paranoid, and it was a miracle that she’d managed to get this close to him. Others had tried and failed.
                  All that she could do was check in with her boss and await further instructions.
                  When Isadora got back, Thomas and Sally were awake, and there was a new Hobo by the fire, an older hyena shifter in his fifties. He was sitting next to Thomas and Sally and Delia, who were all eating bagels with cream cheese. He wore a denim jacket and jeans, faded but relatively clean. His long brown hair was shot through with gray.
                  “My Uncle Bo. Look what he bought us!” Thomas said enthusiastically, around a mouthful of bagel.
                  “I got more. You want one?” Uncle Bo gestured at a big cardboard box. “I made some money doing construction up north. Nice to eat human food once in a while.”
                  “Don’t mind if I do.” Isadora settled in next to them. She felt her tension loosen a little bit. Now that there was an adult in the picture, she wouldn’t have to worry about Thomas and Sally as much.
                  “Isn’t he a sweetheart?” Delia said enthusiastically.
                  Uncle Bo winked at her. Hmm, Isadora thought. This could work. A hyena and a bear? Weird combination, but she’d seen stranger. Maybe Delia could be a domesticating influence on him.
                  She grabbed a plastic knife from the bag, and began smearing cream cheese on a bagel.
                  “So, how long are you going to be in town?” she asked Bo.
                 

Chapter Six
    Dash glanced around to make sure that none of the Wardens, or the Shaman Cody, were within earshot.  They were standing by their pickup trucks; after their long drive from Timber Valley, they’d pulled off on a dirt road and scattered into the woods to relieve themselves.  Now they’d shifted back into human form, which meant their hearing, while still superior to humans, wasn’t as acute. 
    For the moment, they were just standing there jawing, and stretching out their legs.  Cody was there so that as soon as they captured Isadora, he could compel her to talk.
                  He quickly punched in the number on his cell phone.
                  When Steele answered, he felt his gut tighten. He was breaking the law by calling him. He’d been raised to believe in following the law to the letter. There was no bending it, there was no skirting it, the law was the law. It was what kept shifters safe, and concealed from humans.
                  Still, Steele was his family, and he might be in danger, and the same went for the other shifters in Lonesome Pine.  If he didn’t warn them, they could be kidnapped, or killed.  What was Dash supposed to do when the right thing to do and the legal thing to do were two different things? He’d never been faced with this dilemma before.
                  He could ask the Chief Warden, or the Sheriff, for permission to contact Steele, if he wanted to stay on the right side of the law, but if they said no, where would that leave him?
                  “Dash?” Steele answered, sounding puzzled.
                  “Hello, Steele,” he said. “Long time no speak. Yeah, I know, that’s all on me.”
    When Steele had fallen in love with the human female and run off with her, Dash had been the one to report it to the Wardens.  Dash had his reasons at the time – the human female had seen shifters, and her memory had not been properly erased. That posed a threat of exposure to all shifters – and Steele had taken her out of their territory