“Intense. Right.”
The way Tiger turned around and stared back at them told Ellison he’d heard every word.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him.” Ellison growled again, ruffled Connor’s hair, and walked rapidly after Tiger and Broderick.
***
One of the foster kids at Ronan’s—Cherie—told them that Maria had come for Olaf early and the two had gone off together. Cherie was a cub going on twenty-one, with brown and lighter brown hair that marked her as a grizzly. She was yawning, the only one at Ronan’s house, and barely awake. Ronan had asked Maria to look after Olaf today, Cherie explained, while everyone else was out. Maria had seemed happy to.
Cherie looked annoyed to be roused out of her sleep-in, but bears were like that. They loved their sleep.
“Where did she take him?” Ellison asked.
“Walking.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maria’s trustworthy, and Olaf likes her. They’ll be fine.” Cherie looked over the three male Shifters as though they didn’t impress her, named a park outside Shiftertown where Olaf liked to go, and retreated with a decisive bang of the door.
The park wasn’t far, a good brisk walk out the other side of Shiftertown and down a few streets. The roads were quiet here, with little traffic. No drivers to stare at Ellison, Broderick, and the giant Tiger with his orange and black hair bringing up the rear.
The park lay vast, green, and open, the eastern edge of it running up to a little ridge full of dense trees. A few joggers shuffled around the paths, but kids had already gone to school, and most adults to work. One or two moms pushed kids in strollers, but the park was largely empty.
No sign of Maria’s dark hair and lovely body, no woman tugging a ten-year-old boy with white hair with her along the paths.
Ellison made for the ridge on the other side. Something pulled him that way, a sense of wrongness. He walked faster and faster, running by the time he took a path that led over a stream, up some stone steps, into the woods that led up the side of the hill.
Tiger heard her first. He grabbed Ellison by the shoulder and silently pointed a broad finger into deeper shadows, where the hill climbed high.
Ellison let Tiger, with his better hearing and sight, lead. Tiger moved noiselessly, fading into the woods like smoke. If Ellison hadn’t kept a sharp eye on him, he’d have quickly lost him.
“Olaf!” Maria’s voice came to them before they’d walked another twenty yards. “Olaf!”
The word had an echoing quality, as though she’d gone into a cavern or tunnel. Ellison jogged to catch up with Tiger, who quietly led him down another little hill into a tiny valley.
The valley ran between the ridge and another hill on the other side. On top of the second hill was a road shielded by a concrete barrier. Cars raced along it, the drivers paying no attention to what was below them.
A wide culvert opened under the road. Maria stood a few feet inside it, hands around her mouth, calling desperately for Olaf.
Chapter Five
Maria peered into the darkness, straining to see Olaf. She’d taken two steps into the chilly culvert into which he’d disappeared before she’d frozen, unable to move.
The press of the concrete walls, the cold dampness, the dank smell, very like that in the basement of the warehouse in which she’d been kept, triggered memories too powerful to stop. Her heart constricted, her throat working while she fought down the screams.
Only Olaf’s little growls—telling her he’d shifted into his polar bear cub—kept her from running out, back into the sunshine, back to Shiftertown.
“Olaf, please come back.” Her voice was shaking, but she knew her pleas would have little impact. Olaf would have decided by now that Maria wouldn’t come in there after him.
She heard footsteps behind her, heavy ones, made by the firm strides of Shifters.
In her state, Maria’s mind told her they were Miguel’s Shifters, come to find her. She clamped her mouth closed over her cries of panic and fled into the tunnel.
“Maria!”
The sound of the warm voice made Maria stop, her breath hurting her. Even with his worry, he kept the Texas drawl.
Ellison. An anchor, shelter from the cold. Maria turned back, something heating in her when she saw his tall silhouette at the tunnel’s opening, his big cowboy hat a comforting sight.
She took a few running steps toward Ellison, then stopped again as two other Shifters appeared behind him. One was Broderick—what was he doing here? The other was the Tiger man who lived in Liam’s house. Maria wasn’t afraid of him exactly—Tiger had never paid her much attention—but his bulk was frightening in the darkness of the culvert.