“Dad,” Ryan whispered, breaking the trance-like silence. “Who’s that?”
He pointed. A woman stood well back from the ring of Shifters, watching them. She was covered with a bulky jacket and wore a knit hat, but Bowman recognized her. She was the pseudo-groupie who’d been at the roadhouse two nights ago, the one Bowman had scared off by daring her to go down on him.
Bowman broke from Ryan and Kenzie and strode toward her. She saw him coming and, of course, tried to run.
No human woman, especially not one hampered by a padded jacket and thick boots, could outrun Bowman. She had a head start, but he grabbed her at the top of the hill and barreled on with her until they reached the arena. Jamie had driven away the abandoned semitruck, hiding it in a place he said was safe. The arena was empty now, and Bowman swung the woman around in the middle of it.
“Who the hell are you, and what are you doing spying on Shifters?”
“I’m not spying,” she said, her voice shrill.
“What else do you call following Shifters around and watching what they do?”
Kenzie jogged into the arena, and after her, Goddess damn him, was Cristian.
“I just like Shifters, all right?” the woman said, her fear breaking through her defiance.
“You tried that one already,” Bowman snapped. “Didn’t work the last time.”
She tried to wrench away from him. “Yeah, when you practically stripped in front of me.”
“And if you’d been a groupie, you’d have had your hands on my cock so fast it wouldn’t have been funny. You failed that test.”
“I didn’t touch you, because I knew you were mated.” The woman looked past him to Kenzie, now a few feet behind Bowman.
“Bullshit,” he said. “Groupies don’t care. They just want the sex.”
“All right. All right. So I’m not a groupie. Doesn’t matter. I have every right to be walking around these woods, and you have no right to stop me.”
Bowman leaned close to her. The woman tried to look everywhere but at his eyes, but Bowman locked her gaze to his. “I’m leader of this Shiftertown. That means I deal with whatever threat I see to any Shifters in it. You, sweetheart, are a threat.”
“What’s your name?” Kenzie asked her.
Bowman felt the woman tighten. She wanted to glance at Kenzie, but she couldn’t look away from Bowman. “Answer her,” Bowman said.
“Serena.” The woman swallowed. “I’m a reporter, like you said. I’m doing a piece—on Shifter groupies.”
“She is lying,” Cristian said. “I scent it, and so do you.”
Serena’s eyes widened. They were brown eyes, with a touch of green, her hair light brown under the cap. Her face was narrow, her nose sharp, and she wasn’t very old. Maybe early twenties, as humans figured things. Still a cub, by Shifter standards.
“No, really,” Serena said quickly. “I am doing a piece on Shifters. On all aspects of Shifter life.”
“Including following them into the woods to watch one of their religious rituals?” Bowman demanded.
“Absolutely.” Serena grew more confident. “Plus, I saw what you were fighting that night. I drove off, but I came back, and saw . . . What was it?”
“We don’t know,” Kenzie said before Cristian could volunteer any information. Not that he was about to. Cristian disliked humans even more than he disliked Bowman.
Serena sniffled, her nose red and raw from the cold and smoke. “A Shifter? I couldn’t make it out, but it was big. One of the bears?”
Her curiosity grated on Bowman’s nerves. The young woman could be a danger, or she might not be anything more than a college girl trying to write her way into her first job.
“We don’t know,” Kenzie repeated. “Bowman.” Her voice held the gentling note that meant she knew Bowman was barely controlling himself. “Let her go.”
“Only if she walks the hell out of here and doesn’t come back.” Bowman gave the woman a shake. “I don’t want to see you around Shifters anymore, sweetheart. It’s dangerous.”
“For me?” Serena backed a step as Bowman released her. “Or for you?”
Bowman growled at her. “Just go.”
Serena backed a couple more steps then, apparently deciding not to test her luck, turned and ran. She made for one of the cars in the lot, sprang inside it, started it up, and drove off, churning mud in her haste.
Down the hill, the fire burned, and flakes of pristine snow fluttered down to die with a hiss in the flames.
* * *
Kenzie waited with Ryan, catching snowflakes in their gloved hands, for Bowman to finish giving orders so she could take him and their son home.
She was aware, even as she kept Ryan occupied, that all this was rattling her mate. Bowman didn’t like it when he didn’t know what was going on. Uncertainty made him hard and angry.