CHAPTER FIVE
BOONE
I haven’t beenthis frustrated in decades.
Which is saying something, considering I run the US Monster Network and deal with the daily emotional hurricanes of creatures who are literally made of chaos. And still—still—nothing grinds my patience down to splinters like watching one human nearly get himself killed three different ways.
He’s alive.
Barely.
Thanks to me.
Which I absolutely didnothave to do.
It’s been fifty-four years since I last shifted into human form.
Fifty-four.
And that time was not my fault.
The Yeti had invited me to a “cultural exchange summit” in the Himalayas. I thought we were going to discuss migration patterns, ward networks, maybe have tea. Instead, he signed me up—without consent—for a meditation retreat run by three extremely enthusiastic monks who insisted I couldn’t attend as “a furry distraction.”
They gave me a robe. A robe that barely covered anything.
If you’ve never seen a six-foot-five sasquatch in human form forced to sit cross-legged in cotton that doesn’t stretch, consider yourself fortunate.
I lasted six hours before abandoning my dignity behind a snowdrift.
I swore I’d never do it again—shift, I mean. Or meditate.
But last night?
Last night, a very concussed, very fragile human toppled like a dying sapling in the middle of bear country. I didn’t think.My body moved, shifting mid-stride, fur retracting, bones twisting, limbs compressing into a form I haven’t worn in half a century.
The ground was unforgiving—stone hidden under soft moss. I couldn’t have left him there, unconscious and unable to protect himself.
I suppress a shiver.
And carrying him in my cryptid form? Absolutely not. It would have killed him. My stride is too long, my grip too strong, especially when in a panic. Humans and sasquatch do not mix well when one is unconscious.
So yes. I shifted.
I carried him to camp, tucked him in, and sat outside like some kind of oversized forest guardian who didn’t know how to walk away from a problem that isn’t his.
And now?
Now I’m sitting in a cedar tree twenty feet behind his tent, watching the sky lighten from gray to pale gold while Elias moans softly in his sleep—each sound like a brand to the center of my chest.
He hurts.
He’s fragile.
And I hate everything about it.
Dawn leaks over the ridgeline, and inside the tent I hear stirring—fabric shifting, a groan, the thump of a hand hitting the ground cloth.
Then a zipper rasp.
