A Lion's Chance: A Crimson Hollow Novella by Marissa Dobson Page A

over the locked screen, she made quick work of unlocking it and pulling up her contacts. Garret’s name was displayed on the screen and all she had to do was hit the call button. I’ll just tell him something came up and I have to leave. Make arrangements to see him another time. He’ll understand. Even as she tried to convince herself, she knew she couldn’t do it. Her brother had helped her more times than she cared to remember and now he’d asked for her assistance, she couldn’t turn her back on him. She wouldn’t run out on him, even if she’d just fallen into the lion’s den.
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    S tanding next to the porch steps, puzzled over what had caused the sudden change in Ginger, Liam scratched his head. Though she pulled his lion close to the surface and he wanted to stake his claim on her as his mate, she had seemed unaffected by the mating urge as they made small talk. If she hadn’t been Garret’s sister and he couldn’t smell her wolf, he’d have questioned if she was human because of the lack of reaction.
    His inner lion urged him to climb the steps and demand to know what had changed. Why did she look afraid of him as she stumbled away from him and back into the cabin? She’d come to Crimson Hollow; what did she expect to find? Except for Garret, wolves didn’t belong to their tribe. Most of their members were cats or bears, and recently a few foxes had taken refuge within their tribe.
    “Liam.” Jase, the Chief of the tribe, stepped off his deck and strolled toward him. “Have you seen Ari lately?”
    “Yeah, he was just heading back to his cabin. Why, something up?” As Jase’s personal guard, he needed to be kept abreast of any threats to the compound or Chief.
    “No.” Jase scanned the grounds for anyone close enough to overhear them. “I just wanted to get an update on the perimeter fence. The missing child case from our neighboring tribe is concerning. They’ve been searching for him for hours, but his scent disappears where he got into the car. If he was kidnapped, that makes it all the more important for us to ensure the safety of the tribe. If he took off with his friends, there is going to be hell to pay.”
    “We should double the guards on duty for tonight.” Liam quickly ran through names of who he could add to the schedule and he came up short. “We need more—”
    “Guards, I know.” Jase shook his head, sending brown strands dancing in the wind. “Granddad refused to allow me to have guards training while he was in command, and now that he’s gone, I’m behind the eight ball. I have members that I need to keep safe, but I don’t have enough able-bodied guards. We have five new recruits in training but they’re not ready to be in the guard rotation yet.”
    Liam went silent for a moment to consider what he’d witnessed with the new recruits training. “There’s nothing better than in the field hands-on training. Let’s team them up with some of the more experienced guards. It will double our numbers on patrol.”
    “They’ll get themselves or someone else killed.” Jase scanned the grounds again, his gaze lingering on the guards making their rounds. “If one of our trained guards is injured because of the recruits’ inexperience, then we’re in a worse situation than we are now.”
    “The guards know their job and they’ll do it. The threat level is higher than normal but the recruits have two weeks of training under their belt. They’re not going in blind.”
    “I don’t like it.”
    Liam’s partner, Noah, stood near the gatehouse, talking with the guard on duty, and their morning chat carried to him. “With Garret away, Noah oversaw the recruits’ training session today. He’ll know who can handle themselves and who would be cannon fodder. We’ll handpick ones that are ready and team them with the more experienced guards. It’s the best we can do with what we have. Unless you want Noah and me to take shifts on ground duty.”
    “Your duty is to