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Avoiding cameras while in his beast shape was one of the first lessons he’d learned as a young shifter.
And if he’d been so focused on his self-appointed mission that he’d missed a camera placed right next to the fucking trail, well, it was exactly the kind of fuck-up guaranteed to make trouble for Becca and the rest of her new pride.
He paused and debated with himself. Should he continue his search for a hiker in trouble, or shift back to human, disable this camera, and search for other cameras in the area?
Fuck. I should’ve left here after Thanksgiving, he thought. Hell, I should have left right after Becca’s wedding.
But he liked and respected his boss, Chef Daniel, and he enjoyed the camaraderie of the kitchen crew at Calidus, the Michelin-starred restaurant at the Bearpaw Springs Resort. They were a mixed group of shifters and Ordinaries who worked together like a well-oiled machine in the fast-paced, occasionally grueling lunch and dinner services at the popular restaurant.
Ice liked almost everyone in the Cougar Lake Pride, actually. This sabertooth organization felt like an extended family rather than the toxic, ultra-competitive hierarchy like Ice and Becca’s former pride, the Familia La Brea in Los Angeles.
It had shocked him to discover that the Cougar Lake Pride openly included Ordinary humans and a few bear and wolf shifters, and that the other shifter lineages in the area liked and accepted the pride’s members as part of the Bearpaw Ridge community. It was a refreshing change from the sabertooth shifters’ usual position of shifter world outcasts.
So, he’d stayed through the summer and fall, telling himself that he’d hang around until the holiday rush at the restaurant ended, then leave after New Year.
The wind shifted, and the spicy fragrance of firs wafted to his nose… along with something else. The scent of a woman, overlaid with the tang that denoted stress or an injury.
Found her! Ice forgot about the trail cam and plunged into the grove, following his nose.
The woman’s scent grew steadily stronger as he wove his way swiftly through the trees, his footfalls soundless on the thick carpet of fallen needles. He passed the perfect nine-foot Douglas fir he’d marked earlier and vowed to return for it.
A couple of minutes later, he emerged from the trees and found himself back in the large meadow he’d crossed earlier in the day.
A gasp from somewhere on his left alerted him he’d been seen.
Fuck. What is it with me today?
He’d spent his first twenty-eight years avoiding detection. And now, he’d fucked up twice in one day.
Ice swung around and spotted a figure huddled beneath a skeletal bush. His first impression of the injured woman was a tanned, lightly freckled face framed by the hood of a hiking jacket, the nose and cheeks reddened with cold. Wisps of purple hair stuck to her cheeks and forehead. She stared at him with wide, gray eyes.
A weird jolt of recognition ran through him, though he was one hundred percent certain he’d never seen her before.
“Smilodon fatalis. Awesome,” she slurred. “The most exciting scientific discovery of the century, and with my luck, I’m going to be the first human being in 10,000 years to fall victim to a sabertooth cat.”
Alarm shot through him. Just fucking great. She knows what I am, he thought with disgust. So much for convincing her she saw a lynx or cougar.
Now he really needed to get those trail cams and destroy any incriminating footage.
Then the woman’s eyes rolled back in her head. She slumped, then toppled sideways into the tall grass.
That was when Ice spotted the rusty metal jaws clamped tightly around her calf.
Shit. A bear trap on national park land could mean only one thing: poachers.
How long had she been out here, trapped like this and all alone?
Wet mud plastered her jeans from hip to knee, and thin purple nitrile gloves with shredded fingertips encased her hands.
Then he noticed the shield-shaped Idaho Fish and Game logo sewn to the sleeve of her dark green hiking jacket.
This day just keeps getting better and better, he thought. Not only did I get caught on camera, I got caught on an official government camera, not just some random poacher or wildlife enthusiast’s trail cam.
He growled softly and shook his head in despair before retreating to the shelter of the grove.
There, he shifted back to human shape. Shifters from modern lineages could change shape quickly and almost painlessly. But sabertooth shifters were an ancient lineage, and for him, the process took long, agonizing minutes.
When he was finally human again, he opened his pack and hurriedly pulled on the clothes and boots he’d brought along.
