Alaska Alphas Book Bundle - 35% off!

Adventure to the Arctic, where the Aurora shines brightly on love, and sinfully hot alpha shifters come face-to-face with human women they can't resist.

Adrian crouched among the cottonwood leaves, claws digging into the bark as he surveyed the dead moose in the clearing below. He’d been waiting here in his mountain lion form for several hours and was eager to move on, but had to be certain the carcass had been deserted before he drew closer to investigate. He’d received numerous reports of abandoned animal kills over the last few weeks, and his supervisor at the ranger station wanted whoever—or whatever—was doing the poaching to be tracked down.

Scattered throughout the Wrangell-St. Elias Park, the previous sites had been old before Adrian reached them, the evidence around the carcasses obscured by smaller predators and decay. This site seemed fresher, the stench of rot less intense, although flies swarmed over the bull’s hide and stubby, velvet-covered antlers. If the killer was human, they weren’t out for trophies. And they definitely weren’t doing it for meat. Someone or something was killing for fun, and they were slowly moving closer to human-occupied lands. 

Adrian’s tail twitched angrily, and he let out a grunt of resignation before dropping nimbly to the ground. The scent of rotting flesh grew stronger as he approached, and flies rose in a cloud, exposing gashes writhing with fresh maggots.

He circled the moose, estimating it had been dead slightly longer than twenty-four hours. Clawed paw prints, almost twice the size of his own, scarred the earth around the kill. He lowered his muzzle and sniffed, tail lashing. The familiar musk of a grizzly filled his nose. Shifter grizzly. He released a hiss of displeasure. The last thing the shifter community wanted was a rogue member drawing attention to the national park. Randall, Adrian’s tough-as-nails wolf supervisor, would not like this. 

Fuck, Adrian didn’t like it either. Mountain lions weren’t unheard of in Alaska, but rare enough to cause a ruckus among humans if sighted. The vast wilds of the park were his refuge—his territory in the mind of his mountain lion. The local bear shifters would want to take care of a rogue grizzly themselves. 

Adrian exposed his canines and turned away, prowling through the trees toward his ranger cabin to call his supervisor.

Just out of sight of his cabin, he shifted and retrieved the uniform he kept in a hollow tree, shrugging into his clothing before emerging into the clearing. His cabin was a small log building nestled next to one of the many rock faces jutting from the mountain, roof covered in thick moss and a small porch screened in from mosquitoes. One of the more popular trailheads started nearby, and a small message board fluttered with notices campers left to each other at the end of his overgrown driveway.

Inside the two-room cabin, a few small windows shed dusky light over the sparse furnishings. Passing the small front area with a table, a propane fridge, a wood stove, and an old sofa, he moved to the bedroom where a king-sized bed took up almost every inch of space. He retrieved his cell phone from the nightstand and moved to the corner of the front room where he got the best reception. He kept an old ham radio in the shed for when the notoriously spotty cell service didn’t work, but he couldn’t talk to Randall about shifter business over the radio. Thankfully, the phone showed two bars today. He dialed the main ranger office. 

“This is HQ,” a woman’s nasal voice answered.

“Cherry, it’s Adrian. I need to talk to Randall.”

“Oh, hi, handsome!” Her voice brightened. “We haven’t heard from you in a while. How’ve you been?”

Adrian bared his teeth and reminded himself to be polite; Cherry was human. “Doing fine.”

He hated social niceties, which was why he’d become a ranger in the first place. This remote location suited him well, and he only ventured into town when he needed supplies. Most of his duties allowed him to patrol the trails alone, talking to the occasional hiker and reporting any problems. Several times a year he had to oversee search and rescue operations when a hiker got lost, but more often than not, he found the missing person before a full team even arrived.

“You doing okay on handouts?” Cherry chirped back.

He glanced toward the door where a stack of papers had gathered a layer of dust. He was supposed to pass them out to tourists, but since he avoided people, he used very few. “All good. I just need to talk to Randall.”

“You betcha.”

The phone clicked. A few heartbeats later, the supervisor’s voice came on the line. “Adrian, what’s up?”

“I’ve got a lead on the poacher. I found a spike-fork moose abandoned yesterday, and there’s fresh grizzly sign all over the place. Smells like a shifter.”

“Shit. Don’t tell me the infection’s moved to our territory.”

“What infection?”

“Rogues.” The sound of fingernails against beard stubble scratched over the phone line. “Two rogue wolves and a moose were put down in Anchorage over the winter, then a black bear outside Valdez this spring. No rhyme or reason to why. Council sent out a memo a while back. Don’t you read your emails, Adrian?”

Adrian glanced at the dust-covered laptop under the nightstand. “Not like I have wifi out here, Randall. I’ll catch up next time I go into town.”

Randall made a frustrated noise over the phone. “Well, if a shifter’s behind these abandoned kills, it’s likely a rogue. File your report then go handle it ASAP.”

“Me? Isn’t this Den business?” Although the Council oversaw shifter law, local shifter groups liked to take care of their own business.

“Not this time. A travel blogger already posted about the kills. We need to get ahead of the news before it goes viral. Take your rifle.”

“I’m a ranger, not a SWAT team, Randall.”

“This is your territory. I need you to handle it. There could be hikers in danger.”

“Fuck.” Adrian grimaced. “What if he shifts before he dies?” It was one thing for a ranger to take down a dangerous bear. Quite another if a human body showed up killed by a ranger’s bullet. And in a face-to-face fight, a mountain lion couldn’t stand up to a full-grown grizzly, especially a shifter gone rogue.

“Make your first shot count.”

“I hate this shit.” Hanging up, Adrian pocketed his phone and grabbed his rifle before heading back outside. He’d file a report when he got back. Best to get on the trail while it was still relatively warm.

He started up his ATV, its disused engine letting out a disgusting belch of smoke. The damn thing cut off his ability to hear or smell anything, which made his mountain lion bristle in discomfort. I know, me too. But he couldn’t carry his rifle while in feline form.

Stowing the weapon in the mounted case on the front of the ATV, he rolled out of the cabin’s clearing toward the trailhead parking lot.