Page 27

Bishop Foxworthy didn’t turn around. He continued working on unloading the boxes of food from the delivery truck. His partner, Carter Stout, a warthog-shifter, paused beside him and leaned against the back of the box truck.

“Yes, I heard. They are moving all of them at the end of the week to the permanent compound,” he replied.

“You gonna let the boss know?” Carter asked.

Bishop grunted as he tossed a heavy box onto the trolley. Carter should be the one unloading the damn boxes. Warthogs were short, stout, and could lift a pallet of the damn crates. As a fox-shifter, Bishop was tall, lean, and used to using his brain.

“What do you think?” he snapped.

He didn’t add ‘if you could’ to the end of his sentence. There was no sense in pissing off a warthog if you didn’t have to. They also tended to have very thin skin when it came to insults in regard to their intelligence.

“I was just asking in case you wanted me to put the call in. No reason to get bent out of shape,” Carter grumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Bishop gritted his teeth. “It’s possible that I’m upset because both of us are expected to unload the truck to maintain the illusion that we belong here.”

Carter gave him a confused look before his expression cleared and he grinned. “Oh, yeah. Right, delivery guys. I forgot.”

Bishop shook his head in irritation at Carter. “You finish unloading this stuff and take it to the kitchen.”

“Where are you going?” Carter demanded.

“We need to find out where this compound is, remember? That is one reason we were sent here,” he answered.

“Oh, yeah. Right. I forgot about that, too.”

Bishop mouthed a silent expletive about dumbass warthogs and turned away. He moved between the box truck and the wooden and canvas structure that served as a temporary kitchen for the humans. Pulling his t-shirt over his head, he stripped out of his clothing and tossed them through the open driver’s window.

He shifted and disappeared behind the kitchen. A temporary fence had been erected around this compound and bordered the woods. He kept to the shadows, using the undergrowth and canvas tents to hide his movements.

He was making a wide arc around the camp when he caught the scent of two wolf shifters. Ducking under a military truck, he peered out from behind the broad, off-road back tire. The men were talking to a human female.

He crouched and crawled to the front tire. From this angle, he had a better view of what was going on—and it surprised him! The female was holding a long, wooden pole that had been sharpened on one end under the jaw of the red-haired wolf. He recognized the man as Peterson Redfoot. Amusement pulsed through him at the sight.

She has good taste, and a lot of balls, to be sticking a wolf.

His ears twitched, listening to their conversation. A minute later, the human stepped back and walked away. A sly grin curved Bishop’s mouth when Peterson shouted after her.

So, she doesn’t want to go to the new compound.

He had taken over the mission of discovering where the humans were and what was to happen to them after Hyder pulled out. If possible, Isabella Wyland had instructed him to pluck one or two from the group. Isabella hadn’t told him what happened to Hyder, only that the hyena was lying low for a while. Bishop wondered if it had anything to do with Lucien disappearing. He hadn’t been able to contact the cougar-shifter in weeks. His job was to pass the information along to Isabella. There had been no talk of retrieving one—at least not with him. Still, if the opportunity presented itself with a minimal amount of danger, he wasn’t opposed to taking it. After all, a human female would bring a lot of money on the black market.

What Wyland doesn’t know won’t hurt.

He waited until the two wolf-shifters turned and walked away before he darted out and followed the female. Scurrying between buildings, he slipped under the one to the left. It was the one the human female had entered.

Each building was raised off the ground. The newer canvas units were attached to a raised platform that stood close to two feet off the ground. In his fox form, he had no issues moving under the structures. He paused and sniffed the flooring, trying to gauge which building it was. The faint antiseptic odor told him this was the medical unit.

He angled so he could peer through the cracks between two of the boards. He glimpsed the female. She was rummaging ‘round in the medical supply cabinet. He twisted around, tracking her movements, when she walked over the boards he was looking through.

“Can I help you?”

The deep vibration from a man’s voice caused the hair on Bishop’s neck to rise. His lip curled to reveal sharp white teeth. His fox scurried back several feet to the edge of the structure.

Lion-shifter!

Foxes held a strong animosity towards lion-shifters. The beast in the shifters was as sly as any fox-shifter, and deadly. They were also deceptive. Just when you thought you were safe, they could explode and slice through you with sharp claws as if they were batting a fly.

Bishop had seen his fair share of lion-shifters enraged. The females were worse than the males. They traveled in packs whereas the males were also solitary creatures.