Chapter 17 – The Sheriff on the Mountain
1374 Words
Gravel crunched under Amara’s boots as she rounded the last bend of the access road.
The human vehicles were impossible to miss—two white SUVs with county logos on the doors, a pickup from Fish and Wildlife, hoods still ticking with heat. Humans stood in a loose cluster near the edge of the lot, jackets zipped, radios on their shoulders, hands resting a little too comfortably near guns.
Rowan walked half a step ahead of her, human‑calm in jeans and a dark jacket. No hint of teeth. No hint of claws. Just a tired, serious man who happened to be an Alpha.
“Remember,” he said under his breath, without moving his mouth, “you’re Amara Frost. Night‑shift security. You heard a fight, you called it in. You saw ‘big dogs.’ That’s it.”
“Not my first dance with human denial,” she muttered back.
Elias and Lysander were already there, shaking hands with a tall, grey‑haired man in a brown uniform. Sheriff, by the badge. He radiated suspicion under a layer of practiced politeness.
“…we appreciate you coming up, Tom,” Lysander was saying. “With all the old mine shafts and tourists, we’d rather overreact than under.”
“Usually it’s just kids with fireworks,” the sheriff said. His gaze flicked past them, taking in the house, the treeline, the way everyone stood just a bit too straight. “But this time we got a video.”
Rowan’s shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly.
Amara swallowed.
“Video?” Lysander repeated, feigning surprise. He was good at it. “Of what?”
The sheriff pulled his phone from his pocket, thumbed the screen, turned it so they could see.
The clip was grainy, taken at night, the angle just off the front porch. For a second, the image was just dark shapes, porch light glaring into the lens.
Then the attack hit.
Wolves—full, four‑legged wolves—exploded into frame, slamming into each other in a whirl of fur and teeth. Snarls cracked through the tiny speaker. A pup’s thin scream cut across it, then dropped out.
The camera shook. Whoever had held it had flinched.
“Neighbors’ dogcam,” the sheriff said. “Up by the ridge. Motion sensor. Emailed it to them automatically. They forwarded it.”
“Big animals,” Elias said mildly. “Hard to make out.”
Amara’s stomach twisted.
She knew that angle. That porch. That night.
She watched herself hit the rogue from the side—a dark blur, half‑shifted, teeth bared. The lens flared when they rolled; for a heartbeat she was full in frame, eyes bright, jaw clamped on the rogue’s throat.
Then the camera jolted away, catching only trees and sky.
“Looks like coyotes or feral dogs,” Lysander said. “We’ve had issues before.”
“Those aren’t coyotes,” the sheriff said flatly. “We counted at least six. Too big. Too organized. Your ‘dogs’ took one hell of a hit and didn’t stop moving.”
He looked up, eyes narrowing slightly. “You keeping something up here I should be worried about?”
Lysander spread his hands, easy. “We’ve got a fenced yard, some livestock, trained guard dogs. Nothing exotic. You know how rumors are.”
“This ain’t rumor,” the sheriff said, tapping the phone. “This is a liability.”
Rowan stepped in then, sliding into the space like he’d always meant to be there.
“We’re updating our fencing and training after last night,” he said, his voice carrying the kind of calm that made humans listen. “I run a security outfit down the valley; my people were here when it hit. We’ve got damage reports if you need them.”
The sheriff’s gaze raked him up and down. “You’re the Hale boy, right? From Blackridge?”
“Rowan Hale,” he said, offering a hand. “We’ve talked about poaching issues before.”
The sheriff shook it, grudging respect in the line of his shoulders. “You know I don’t like surprises.”
“Neither do we,” Rowan said. “Last thing any of us wants is a tourist getting between a pack of wild dogs and a deer carcass. We’ll reinforce the perimeter, put out proper warning signs. You’ll get copies of every incident report.”
“And in the meantime?” the sheriff asked. “People hike up here. They walk their golden retrievers. I get a parent calling because something big was snarling ten feet off a trail, that’s on my desk, not yours.”
“We’ll close the upper trails from our side,” Lysander said smoothly. “Temporary. Storm damage excuse. Give us a week to lock this down.”
The sheriff considered that. His gaze slid past them again and snagged on Amara.
“You,” he said. “You live up here?”
Eyes on me, she thought. Of course.
“Yes, sir,” she said, stepping forward a little. “Amara Frost. I’m on night security.”
“You see those…” he gestured vaguely at the phone, “dogs last night?”
“Not clearly,” she lied. “I heard a fight, grabbed a light, saw shapes. Too big for coyotes. Called it in, helped get people inside.”
“She’s the one who pulled the neighbor’s kid out of the yard,” Elias added. “He wandered up when he heard the noise. Almost got between two of them.”
The sheriff’s jaw worked. “His mom didn’t mention that part.”
“She panicked,” Amara said. “I don’t blame her.”
He studied her for a long moment. The hair on her arms prickled. She made herself meet his gaze like any human would—tired, rattled, but not hiding anything… unnatural.
“You didn’t see anything… stand up?” he asked finally. “On two legs?”
Her heart tried to claw its way out of her throat.
“No, sir,” she said. “Just dogs. Big, ugly ones.”
Rowan didn’t move, but she felt his attention like heat between her shoulder blades.
“Fine,” the sheriff said at last. He holstered the suspicion with his phone. “I’ll tell folks we’ve got ferals in the area. You make damn sure your fences hold. I don’t want this video turning into some internet circus before we can say ‘camera glitch.’”
“We’ll take care of it,” Rowan said.
The sheriff nodded once, then jerked his chin at his deputies. Engines turned over; the humans climbed back into their vehicles.
As the last SUV rolled away, gravel spitting, Amara let out a breath she didn’t remember holding.
“You lied smoothly,” Rowan said quietly.
“You ripped smoother,” she shot back.
He winced. “Fair.”
Lysander watched the dust settle on the road, shoulders bowed in a way she’d never seen before. “That was too close,” he said. “One frame clearer and we’d be answering to more than a county sheriff.”
“Someone wanted it that way,” Rowan said. “They didn’t just film us. They delivered it.”
Elias rubbed a hand over his face. “Message received: they can touch both our worlds.”
Amara’s wolf growled low.
“Then we touch back,” she said. “Before they pick what clip to send next.”
Rowan looked at her, something sharp and almost hungry in his eyes—not for her, she told herself, but for the part of her that refused to lie down.
He opened his mouth, then his phone buzzed, harsh in the cold air.
He glanced at the screen. His expression went flat.
“Gideon,” he said. “Blackridge just got an email too.”
He turned the display so they could see.
Subject line: SUBJECT ZERO – FIELD TEST SUCCESSFUL.
Below it: a still frame, pulled from somewhere in last night’s chaos.
Amara. Half‑shifted, eyes glowing, teeth buried in a rogue’s throat.
The caption under it made her skin ice.
Proof of concept.
- Writer
