AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 9
Within a few days after the ransacking of Tanith Ravenna’s art gallery, all of Angel Fire stunk of cougar. Unfortunately for locals, the art gallery was only the beginning of a string of break-ins and vandalizing. Many shops were hit during hours they were closed, with owners coming back the following morning to find their wares broken and occasionally their money gone.
The fact that most places still had a lot of their cash left after the break-ins suggested those involved weren’t looking to get rich and hightail it out of town. Instead, they were there to create chaos, and no one was safe. A Cup of Beans, the cutesy coffee shop on Main Street where Blake’s student and friend Maida worked, had been hit two days ago. Most of the machines for specialty coffees had been broken, and whoever broke in defaced the chalk board menus with graphic drawings of male genitalia.
When Blake had met up with Maida shortly after he had been alerted to the incident, he noted the faint whiff of cougar beyond the police tape that blocked off the café’s doorway. It was the same in most places, according to the two bears the clan had working directly within the Angel Fire police force.
While everywhere that had been hit usually had cougar scents, nothing was strong enough to suggest it was all cougars involved, or that the cats stuck around after to watch the crime scene develop.
It was a concern to all the shifter clans in Angel Fire if the cougar shifters had come back. There was bad blood between the clans now, far worse than the steadily mending relationship between the bears and the bighorn sheep. The last altercation had ended in a lot of bloodshed—and more violence than Angel Fire had seen in the last fifty years. No one wanted it to happen again.
Blake most certainly didn’t want them posing a threat to his fated mate. Tanith had mentioned a daughter, and while it was clear that Blake hadn’t earned the right to meet her yet—they’d only been dating briefly, after all—he would go ballistic if anything happened to either of them at this point. They were his new family. They just didn’t know it quite yet.
So, when bear clan alpha Miguel Ruiz extended an invitation for him to join in on the clan meeting that Saturday afternoon, Blake RSVP’d in a heartbeat. Two days prior to the meeting, Miguel called him on his office line at the college and asked if he would be willing to say a few words on the current climate in Angel Fire regarding the break-ins and rise in cougar scentings. He would be paired with another clan newcomer, Luther, the polar bear shifter engaged to Miguel’s younger sister Espie.
Blake had very little experience with the miner, but he agreed, assuming the guy couldn’t be a complete moron if Miguel wanted them to work together. Although the alpha hadn’t said it, Blake suspected he was asked to speak because he was an intellect and the clan doctor. Bears trusted him. They would listen to what he had to say without arguing…in theory.
“The fact that there has been a cougar scented at every break-in, every vandalized store, and every broken car window, suggests that we might be dealing with a resurgence in Willard Vesper’s gang of thugs,” Miguel explained to the clan at the meeting.
Blake was seated among them. Rarely had he been invited up to their sacred cave to participate in clan-wide meetings. Scratch that. Rarely had he wanted to be involved in these kinds of things. Blake was happy with his somewhat detached association with the clan, preferring to interact on a more one-on-one basis. Maybe it was the doctor in him. But this was important. This cougar issue could impact Tanith and her daughter Hayley, as well as many of the humans in Angel Fire.
Because of all that, he had willingly come up to the sacred cave, leaving the hospital and the college behind. He could forego his ER for a couple hours for the sake of formulating a plan.
“We don’t know that for certain yet,” Luther pointed out from next to Blake, his muscular arms crossed. “These cougars might not be associated with Vesper, and just decided to come here to stir up some trouble.”
“That’s possible,” Blake agreed. “There isn’t enough evidence to come to a definitive conclusion. But the truth is, it would be rather odd that Angel Fire would suffer from random cougar vandalism not many months after they’d just put Vesper himself behind bars. It’s much more likely that Vesper is orchestrating these attacks with the help of his friends.”
He and Luther exchanged quick looks as whispers erupted across those seated. Miguel stood off to the side with a bear named Ivo, both wearing identical scowls. Blake had heard they quarreled frequently, but from an outsider’s perspective, the pair looked more like brothers than some of the actual siblings present.
“Blake is going to pass around a clipboard,” Luther explained, spurring Blake into action. “Our current aim is to collect sign ups from those interested in parlaying with allies from other shifter clans. We all have relationships with different kinds of shifters. Blake and I will be approaching the coyote clan together to address the threat. If you know of others who might be of help, please discuss the situation with them. Our primary goal for those of you not interested in patrolling is to alert others so that we can all keep an eye on the non-shifter civilians.”
“Civilians?” Blake muttered under his breath, shooting Luther a quick look over his shoulder after he handed the clipboard and pen off to the nearest shifter.
He shrugged. “What else do we call them?”
“Well, we’re not in the military…” He shook his head. “Never mind. Semantics. Let’s just focus on keeping innocents safe. People who don’t know about the shifter conflict, people who don’t know about shifters in general, are likely to get caught in the crosshairs. Our goal will be to minimize that as much as possible.”
“Without putting yourselves in harm’s way,” Miguel added, something which Blake wholeheartedly agreed with. Just because they could shift into animals didn’t make them natural warriors. Not everyone present would be capable of repelling the cougars should it come down to that.
“But those of you who do want to roll up your sleeves and really get into it,” black bear shifter Copper said, easing in front of Blake and Luther with his best pal Taymond by his side, “listen up.”
He and Luther exchanged glances. Clearly, their time in the spotlight was over. They stepped aside, allowing the two younger bears to explain their plan for nightly patrols. Whoever was interested could sign up on yet another clipboard, and Miguel would devise a schedule to ensure at least two or three bears were roving the streets each night, on the prowl for miscreant cougar shifters.
Blake contemplated signing up himself, but his priority, whether he was ready to admit it to anyone else present, was to see to Tanith and Hayley’s safety. He couldn’t do that if he was wandering the suburbs of Angel Fire, or even the downtown area. A part of him just wanted to sit in front of her house—he’d deduced its location based on snippets of conversation and some skilled Google mapping abilities—and monitor it each night to ensure nothing happened, but even to him that felt a bit extreme.
Since the gallery had been vandalized, Tanith hadn’t mentioned ever once feeling uncomfortable or unsafe when she wasn’t with him. He hoped the incident at her business was a one-time, random thing. After all, the whole ground floor was practically made up of windows. It was a thieves’ white whale to successfully rob if they’d wanted to.
He wasn’t sure why two boys were responsible for delivering the speech about patrol duty, but rumor had it the alpha was grooming them to take on key roles within the clan. As Blake watched Copper and Taymond address the clan from the sidelines, he had to admit they weren’t half bad. Charismatic without coming across as hokey. They had the clan’s full attention as they explained the patrol schedule and what was expected of those who signed up. All in all, not a horrendous presentation—and being a part-time professor, Blake was more than accustomed to messy presentations from students Copper and Taymond’s age.
From what he remembered, they were pretty good friends with Maida, a student who showed immense potential despite how much she worked to support herself and pay for her education. Blake had developed a bit of a professional soft spot for her, and maybe he ought to check these two out if they were going to keep the redheaded human barista distracted.
When the boys finished, the clan’s sorceress Ursalina stepped up unannounced to speak. She, of all of them, held the attention of those present the most. But how could she not? The woman dealt in literal magic. Of course people were going to pay attention when she spoke.
“I have been crafting a number of accoutrements for you all to use should you find yourselves facing the cougars once more,” the witch announced.
Blake crossed his arms and leaned back against the cave wall, head tilted to one side as he watched her speak. She was beautiful and ancient in her own way, riddled with purple hair and a voice that sounded like she smoked a hundred cigarettes a day. Given his profession in such a practical field, Blake had a healthy distrust for soothsayers and salesmen who dealt in snake oil, but Ursalina was the real deal. Anyone in her presence could literally feel her power, her raw essence. One day, he would love to see what she could really do.
“Should you find yourself in battle once more, you will do so under my protection,” Ursalina mused, her voice slipping from that raspy smoker’s cough to something a little more dreamy, like they were losing her. Sighing, she drifted away from the front of the group, humming to herself as she strolled deeper into the cave and out of sight.
