Gray Back Ghost Bear(34)

The idiots had disconnected the battery and chucked it behind the shed, but other than that, it was unharmed. She knew the inner workings of her ATV like the back of her hand and had it checked over and running again in under sixty seconds. As soon as she had it backed out of the shed, she jammed the gas and blasted toward the fresh tire tracks that bisected the sparse patches of thin snow.

The white flakes were falling harder now, obscuring the tracks layer by layer. Georgia’s stomach dipped to her tailbone as she engaged another gear and slammed the accelerator down. The fat tires skidded on the snow around the turns, but she had to find them. And an instinct on where they were made her angrier by the moment. If they’d been watching her and knew she was tracking them, then their campsite patterns had been deliberate. Bait for her to check on one side of the mountain, but this was the big one. They were here for a reason. She hadn’t pieced everything together yet, but she would.

A roar rattled the trees up ahead, and Georgia stuttered on the gas. She could see movement in the spaces between the trees, but the grove was so thick here and the snow falling harder by the minute, she couldn’t be sure what it was.

Another roar shook the earth beneath her four-wheeler as the monster bruin grizzly stepped into a clearing. He surged forward, mouth open and long, white canines bared. His ears were flat against his head. When a Kodiak bear had gotten that look, whatever he was after was about to die.

A shot rang out. It didn’t have that echoing sound of a miss. The bear stumbled forward and staggered just as another shot rang out.

“No!” she screamed as she skidded to a stop.

Brown bears didn’t live here. The only reason for a grizzly to be here was that it wasn’t a grizzly at all, but a bear shifter.

Horror filled her as everything threaded together into a bigger picture in her mind.

The poachers weren’t here to take illegal game.

They were here to hunt shifters. They were here to hunt people.

Georgia lurched off the ATV, drawing her weapon as she did. Lifting the gun, she popped off a round at the man aiming a rifle at the downed bear, then ducked down behind her quad. Who was it? One of the Boarlanders? One of the Ashe Crew? Fuck, it didn’t matter. They were hers to protect—all of them.

She fired off another round and jogged forward around her ATV and headed for a thick grove of pines, knees bent so she could keep her aim steady.

An echoing curse cracked against the mountain as she winged the man through the trees. The rifle swung around to her, and two shots ricocheted simultaneously off a tree right beside her. At least two shooters then.

“Get up!” she screamed at the bear. “You need to move!”

The bear was staining the snow crimson as it swung its block head toward her. Agony swam in his brown eyes.

“I’m bleeding out, man!” one of the poachers yelled.

Good. He deserved it.

The rifle trained on the bear again. She couldn’t just watch them kill him. He was a man who had Changed into this bear to protect his territory, his people.

“Run!” she yelled as she lifted her gun and unloaded on the poacher, one bullet after the other. The man’s body was hidden behind a tree, only his weapon visible around the trunk. Jamming another clip in her gun, she ducked another bark-splintering ricochet and pulled her weapon.

The quiet woods exploded with gunfire the second she eased around the tree.

It wasn’t two shooters as she’d thought. This was a massive hunt. People hunting people, and they weren’t poachers at all. They were serial killers, gathered with one purpose. To hunt down the bear shifters that had made their home here.

The smattering of bullets exploding against the bark right above her head said her fate was sealed. She was surrounded.

Fear slashed through her chest, but it was too late now. Too late to call for backup that wouldn’t arrive until long after she was gone. Too late to call Damon and explain what was happening here. Too late to call Jason and tell him she was sorry.

Aim.

One shot.

Man down.

Aim, and all the while, the trees were being battered by the spray of gunfire around her.

Searing pain blasted through her left arm, rocketing her backward with the force of the bullet. She cried out and lifted the gun again.

One shot.

Miss.

One shot.

Miss.

They were all around her, hunting as a pack, and no tree could shield her now.

A man stepped out from behind the trees with a cruel twist for a mouth. His weapon was trained on her, scope glinting in the muted light.

Her arm was on fire, clutched tight to her stomach in an attempt ease the pain.

“Did you not get our warning in your little treehouse, bitch?” he asked.

The gun shook in her hand. One more shot left if she’d counted correctly.