Bear Meets Bride (R) - Amy Star Page 0,13
was cloudy out, the perfect weather for running. The Pacific weather was very fickle though, one moment it could be raining, the next it could be sunny and blistering hot, and the next, snowing. The coast seemed to inhabit this temperament throughout. Even the sparse wildlife, which consisted mainly of rabbits, the occasional doe and her fawns, and a multitude of birds, shifted back and forth between capricious braveness and sheer timidity.
Absently, she wondered if it had anything to do with them as shifters. Maybe they can sense the alternating current of human and bear, she thought to herself, looking up through the canopy and starting at a slow jog. Soon, the wind was whistling in her ears and she felt endorphins pumping through her veins, filling her with a general sense of well-being. The main trail she liked to use wound its way like a sporadic tributary over the main rise of the island, and then circled the bluffs and ended up down on the beach Dylan had taken her that first night.
She blushed again, hating herself for it. It was a terrible habit, and every time she felt blood rushing to her cheeks and her eyes watering it was another small reminder of all the ways she wasn’t in control. She increased her speed, cursing under breath. Running was a good way to distract herself but today it wasn’t working.
As she worked her way around the bluffs, following familiar roots and rocks in the path, and re-learning the different smells that represented sections of the trial – old man’s beard here, the spicy tang of wild ginger underfoot there – her frustration only increased. What am I doing on this island, she wanted to scream. Down a steep incline that made several switchbacks down to the ocean she almost didn’t notice another sound that was echoing in sync with her heart-rate.
Consciously, she slowed down. Through a veil of ferns and cedar boughs, she could see a shape out on the waves in the bay. It was small, just big enough for the four figures that were sitting or standing in its white painted hull. A small outboard hummed against the crash of waves. Sarah ducked down further and pulled the green headband further over her forehead to conceal the white flesh, which might give her away.
Very slowly, she crept down through the bushes of salal and ferns, trying to get a better look. She was enraptured by the thrill of sneaking up on a quarry, even if it was something as innocuous as a boat. At one point, she went down on all fours and slithered on her belly over the moss – how ladylike I must look now, she mused, wishing her parents could see her now.
Through another gap in the salal she propped herself on her elbows and looked down. It was definitely a small boat with a pulsing outboard. Too small to have made it all the way here on its own, though; part of another vessel? She frowned. Chris had been quite adamant that this island was, in his own words, a ‘protected enclave’, whatever that meant. She figured money had passed hands at some point among the clans and turned the island into a park.
“It’s off limits,” Chris’ voice echoed in her head, “the public isn’t allowed on it.”
The four men in the small white boat seemed to fit the description of public. All four were tall, middle-aged, except for the one manning the outboard who looked to be in his early twenties, around Sarah’s age, but all of them were wearing camo outfits, head to toe. They looked like a motley regiment of amateur soldiers. She suppressed a grin.
The grin disappeared quickly when she saw one of the men turn and noticed the giant rifle slung over his back. Its heavy wooden stock was burnished dark like burnt umber, and the pitch black muzzle was the color of graphite. Now, as they drew closer, she saw they all had guns, different makes and sizes, but all high powered rifles. She gulped. Hunters.
There was a natural predisposition for shifters to fear hunters. While in bear form, they were virtually inseparable in appearance from their wild cousins. In their long history, it had not been uncommon for one or another shifter to have met their end at the long sight of a firearm, she knew the old stories well. The elders toyed with the term occupational hazard, which she hated. It was more than