The Snow Leopard's Pack (Glacier Leopards 5)

The mountain lion was back.

Lillian Lowell clutched her car keys tighter as she hurried from the door of the CVS to her car. The mountain lion was crouched at the very edge of the parking lot, watching her.

This was the second day in a row she’d seen it. Yesterday, she’d closed up the library and come out to find a big, dirty-yellow cat sitting calmly by the street. She’d stifled a shriek and run to her car, and called Animal Control as soon as she was safely away.

She’d gone home feeling shaky and afraid. She hadn’t mentioned the incident to her mother, though, because the potential for overreaction was...high. Even though Lillian was a divorced adult woman in her thirties, her mother tended to treat her like a child.

Anyway, Animal Control had told her they’d investigate, but they hadn’t known specifically what mountain lion she’d been talking about.

This morning, after she’d arrived at the library, she’d waited in her car for several minutes while she craned her neck in all directions, trying to make sure it wasn’t still there. But there hadn’t been any sign of it, so she’d gone into work as normal.

But now it was here at the CVS, several blocks from the library. Watching.

She fumbled with her keys, hitting the button to unlock the door while she kept her eyes fixed on the big cat. She yanked the door open and got in, breathing out a long sigh. Safe.

But then it stood up, yawned—showing her a set of enormous yellowed teeth—and stretched. Its body seemed impossibly long as it reached forward, flexing its claws. Lillian shoved the keys in the ignition, not taking her eyes off of it.

Just as she started the car, the mountain lion’s body seemed to—shiver. Shimmer. Something.

And then, as she watched with her heart in her throat, the cat transformed into a man.

A shapeshifter.

He was shortish, heavyset, with a scruffy beard, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Lillian didn’t recognized him at all. But he looked straight at her, grinned, and gave her a little salute with two fingers.

Lillian pulled out of the parking lot with a shriek of tires, gunning the gas to get out on the road as fast as possible. It was loud enough that there was no way she could actually hear the man laughing behind her, but her imagination couldn’t let go of the idea.

She started to drive home, wanting nothing more than to get to safety...and then hesitated.

The shapeshifter had shown up at her job, and then at the store she always stopped at on the way home.

If he was following her, he probably already knew where she lived. Maybe he’d show up there, too.

And Lillian lived with her parents—had lived with them for years, since her divorce. If this shapeshifter was stalking her, wanted to hurt her or scare her for whatever reason, she couldn’t put her mom and dad at risk by going right home and just...waiting for him to show up again.

Besides, that sounded like a nightmare. She’d be constantly checking the windows, ready to dial 911 at the slightest sound. She wouldn’t sleep a wink.

She pulled over. She couldn’t go home, not until she knew it was safe. But then where could she go? Was anywhere safe?

Lillian knew that the area around Glacier National Park, where she’d lived her entire life, was a place where shifters were very common. In most of the world, they were a secret. But there were some communities with so many shapeshifters that everyone knew about them, an open secret.

Still, Lillian had managed to avoid them for most of her life. Shifters were supposed to be unpredictable and dangerous. There was no telling what their animal instincts might lead them to do, and it was safer to stay away from them altogether. Her parents had forbidden her to be friends with any of them in school, and she’d kept that up in her adult life.

At least, that was what she’d always tried to do. Until several months ago, when her little sister Teri had become one.

Since then, Lillian had been torn.

Her mother, on the other hand, had declared Teri lost to the family. It wasn’t clear whether Teri’s change was her true rebellious nature coming out, or whether being turned had erased her whole personality, and put some animal in her place.

Lillian knew it was the first option. Teri had always chafed against their mother’s controlling behavior. She’d never learned how to go with the flow, to steer their mom gently toward agreement.

Teri always had to go her own way, and Lillian thought that meeting a snow leopard, shacking up with him, and getting turned into one herself was the all-out rebellion that had been stewing for a while.

Maybe it was just because she couldn’t bring herself to believe that her baby sister was now a vicious animal. But she was pretty sure she was right.

They’d barely talked since Teri had left with her shifter fiancé. Every few weeks, Lillian would call, just to ask her if she was all right. Teri would assure her that she was fine. And Lillian couldn’t quite bring herself to ask anything beyond that, because she was afraid of the answers.

What’s it like, being a shapeshifter? What about your man, is he good to you? Is his family the family you always wanted? Better than us?

Are you happier now?

A flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. Lillian jumped in her seat, heart pounding, as the mountain lion bounded past her car, settling on the grassy curb and staring at her.

Lillian stared back at it. Why was it doing this? What did it want?

Slowly, it lifted a paw, and flexed its claws.

Lillian caught her breath. Was it going to attack her? What happened if she parked somewhere else and got out, and it was lying in wait? Would she be killed?

Lillian was struck with the incontrovertible knowledge that she couldn’t handle this alone. She could try calling the police, but she didn’t know if they had any policy in place about how to deal with shifters, since shifters didn’t even have any legal existence.

And maybe some of the police were shapeshifters. If so, would they be on the mountain lion’s side?

The whole idea was terrifying. And Lillian had never dealt well with being scared. She didn’t like scary movies, was always afraid of walking alone at night, and hated any kind of fighting or conflict.

It was a cliché, really. The spinster librarian, single at 33 and living with her parents, jumping at shadows and unable to take care of herself.

But that was the reality and she had to accept it. She couldn’t fight off a mountain lion by herself. She didn’t know how any of this worked. She had no idea what had made this shifter target her, and she didn’t know how violent it could get. She didn’t know if there was some sort of...shapeshifter policing body that could stop it, or if all shifters sided with one another.

But she did know someone who could find out.

With shaking fingers, not taking her eyes off the mountain lion, she pulled out

her cell phone and called her sister.

***

Cal Westland settled into his desk chair with a sigh. It was the end of the regular working day at Glacier National Park, which meant reviewing everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, then getting everything ready for tomorrow.