One Last Prowl: BBW Were Mountain Lion Shapeshifter Mail Order Bride Romance (Shifter Grove Brides Book 6) by Anya Nowlan Page A

calls. Please let me know as soon as you find him. Shouldn’t I come with you?” she asked, frantic.
    “No, someone needs to be here when he comes back. I’ll go.” Austin kissed her on the forehead and turned around, facing the forest into which Marcus disappeared.
    He took a few languid steps and within that short time, his body started twisting and changing before Dahlia’s very eyes. Those broad shoulders and narrow hips she so loved tightened and warped, growing leaner and more streamlined. The powerful, bulging muscles contracted into themselves, packing clearly indented lines on the mountain lion’s body. Soft, tawny hairs covered him, creating a luxurious pelt. His long tail hovered above the ground, the white tip flicking slightly left and right as he perked up his ears, listening.
    When Austin leapt into the forest, nails tearing at the ground, it made no sound. He was the perfect predator, not leaving any sign that he had ever stood there at all. Dahlia watched him disappear into the oncoming darkness, holding her breath without noticing that she was doing so.
    God, let them both be all right, she prayed silently.
    Dahlia ran into the house and picked up the phone in the kitchen, starting the process of calling the phone tree. Austin’s contacts were supposed to be Argo and Cooper, the wolves who had recently moved to Shifter Grove. She got their wife Claire and quickly described the situation. All the while, her mind was racing, trying to figure out where Marcus could have gone. When an idea sparked midway through her conversation with Claire, she couldn’t wait to put it into motion.
    Chewing on her lower lip after her call with Claire, she dialed up Slate’s number. Austin had told her to stay put, true, but she was a mother with a child who had run off somewhere and she couldn’t simply wait around! She dialed another number on the phone.
    “Slate! I need your help.”
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Austin
     
    Austin huffed in the scents of the forest with big, heaving breaths as he stalked forward. His lean, powerful body carried him through the brush effortlessly, his gait never wavering, not even when crossing fallen trees or ditches. Every muscle, every sense was honed to the task and he was stalking down his prey, bit by bit.
    It was dark now, the sun having set a few hours ago. They were well into the night and it was pitch black and cold around Austin. The only times that the dark green woods were illuminated were when Austin stepped into clearings, the light of the full moon bathing him.
    His mountain lion was getting restless. By all accounts, he should have found the boy in less than an hour, the scent trail being so fresh and Marcus having almost no lead on him. But within a couple hundred yards, Marcus’s scent changed and warped. It kept throwing Austin off his track, making him double back and recheck every once in a while and pick up a new underlying current he had mistaken for something else.
    He thought he knew what it was, what it meant. But that wouldn’t help him at the moment. There was an angry, probably scared, boy lost somewhere amidst the Idaho woods and mountains and it was his job to bring him home safe. So that was all that really mattered.
    Austin reached the edge of the woods that had started from his backyard and sprawled carelessly in every direction for miles and miles. He stood on the very border where the forest tucked into itself, mouth slightly open and pink tongue showing, heaving in breaths and trying to determine what direction to go to. He had hoped Marcus would stay in the forest. It was cold outside and the woods would allow for more warmth than the open areas. What made him really worry were the deep gorges that this forest snaked around, and the mountains rising on either side.
    There were plenty of options of becoming so lost that Marcus couldn’t find his way back, or having an accident in the dark. The trail Austin had been following now led clearly out of the