Read Online AlphaMountie by Lena loneson - Free Book Online

guess? He was the shifter; my mom just carried
the recessive gene. But I remember the hawk lady, Bree. She was wrinkled like an
apple doll’s face. And she had the most beautiful deerskin moccasins. Fawn was afraid
of them until Bree let her touch them. And then she never left her side, the entire
day. I guess that was the last time we saw her.”
    “So he started with random hikers,” Cam observed, “and then he
moved on to shifters—but vulnerable ones, the elderly, then young women who desperately
wanted to find someone who understood.”
    Noire was impressed by his insight even as she wanted to argue.
Couldn’t Fawn have talked to Noire? Didn’t she understand?
    She supposed she didn’t. She could never be just like her sister,
because she could never be a shifter. You had to be born with it. Born with the
shifter gene from both parents, and then at puberty, your animal chose you. One
animal—that was it, for life.
    Wasn’t it?
    That darkness in her mind crept forward again. This time she
let it. She embraced it.
    “Skinwalkers,” Noire breathed. The elevator doors opened.
    “They don’t exist.” Cam shook his head. He stalked through
the doors, turning left down a narrow hallway. Noire had to jump-skip to keep
up, his legs were so long. It wasn’t something she was used to.
    “What if they did?” she asked. Noire had heard of the legends
of Native men who were born shifters—and those who weren’t. Those who weren’t often
grew jealous and looked for magical ways to increase their own power. Out of myth
then came the skinwalkers. These were men who stole shifters’ pelts. Wearing the
shifter’s skin and performing the right ritual could turn an ordinary human into
a coyote, a hawk, a deer—or whatever he wanted, providing he had the right pelt.
    “These bear attacks continued for years, then the sudden switch.”
Cam had taken the phone from her now and was searching related news articles,
his head buried in the phone as he strode through the hotel hallway.
    “So he was a bear at the start, and got greedy. Wanted more skins.”
    “Maybe.”
    “He killed my sister for her pelt. She was a deer—that’s not
exactly powerful. Why kill Fawn?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve heard stories that in skinning the animal,
the skinwalker absorbs its life force. You said the original attacks went back decades.”
    “You think it’s immortality.”
    “Or close to it. Kill enough animals, take their life force,
and add it to your own. Take their pelts too, and if you get enough, you can become
anything, anywhere. It’s the perfect way to hide. Forever.”
    “Immortality.” Noire stopped and leaned back against the wall,
waiting for Cam to join her. Her shoes sunk into the plush maroon carpeting.
“Let me see.” She took the phone back. “These attacks were pretty spread out,” she
said.
    “They’ve occurred in every section of the park so far,” Cam noticed,
“except one.”
    “There are over three thousand square kilometers of forest in
Algonquin. That’s an insane amount of territory to cover. What do you think
that means?”
    “I don’t know. If he killed where he lived, it means he moved
a lot. But there’s only one section with no deaths.”
    “So either the murders were missed by the authorities or…” Noire
grew excited. She didn’t want to finish the thought in case she was wrong.
    Cam finished it for her, “Or that’s where he lives. Where he
stays in between killings. We think he’s a black bear, right? So—”
    “So that’s his den. And with all that gear he was buying today,
maybe he’s going back. We have to track him.”
    “We?”
    “Yes. You and me.” Her enthusiasm faltered. “I’m a part of this
too now.”
    His look was sympathetic but final. “You’re not even a cop, Noire.
You’ve contributed an amazing amount to this investigation so far, but it’s not
yours to finish.”
    “It’s my sister lying in that drawer in the morgue.”
    “I know. And