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authorities. No reason you gotta see what’s down there.”
    “I want to go with you.” Her tone was as firm as her grip. “I can handle it.”

CHAPTER 2
    Against his better judgment, they went down together. He paused to dress first, then remained in his human form – it’d be better if there wasn’t a gap between them during this. He’d be able to touch her … hold her. Being a wolf had its advantages, but common sense told him there were times when being human was best.
    They walked a short distance and picked their way down one side, where it wasn’t too steep. He was ever-ready to steady her, but she didn’t need it. By the time they reached the bottom, he could smell the wrongness in the air, even without his lupine senses.
    “You sure?” he asked, eyeing the area he’d identified from above.
    She nodded, her handkerchief bobbing dark against her hair in the moonlight as she turned on her flashlight and swept the beam across the forest floor.
    Khaki cargo pants splashed with the dark crimson of dried blood, a flannel shirt that hung open over a white t-shirt – the body was dressed as the missing hiker had been described, right down to the thick-soled boots. A backpack lay a few feet away, torn open like a piñata, its contents scattered across the dark dirt at the foot of the ledge the man had obviously fallen over.
    Whatever had torn into the backpack hadn’t left the hiker untouched. Lacerations showed dark against his lifeless skin, marks visible on his arms, just below the pushed-up sleeves of his shirt. “Looks like some kind of animal got here before we did,” Michael said, his spine prickling. “Something canine.” He recognized the tears in the flesh, the bloody punctures and lacerations that marred dirt-smeared skin.
    “Coyotes,” Kimberly said, her voice hard. “Must’ve been coyotes.”
    An elongated semi-circle of red dots stood out in high contrast against one of the man’s shoulders, staining his t-shirt and marking where something had gripped him and dragged him – only a few feet, by the looks of the shallow trenches the heels of his boots had carved in the dirt.
    “Big coyotes,” Michael said, his spine still prickling. “Strong coyotes. Hold on – I’m gonna shift and look more closely.”
    He stripped quickly, drawing a deep breath as he assumed his wolf form. The forest came alive around him, brimming with scents and sounds he’d been oblivious to as a man. The odor of death was pervading, but other smells were detectable too, and the faint moonlight was enough for him to see sharply by.
    A canine smell hung in the air, and though it had faded over the course of several hours, he thought he detected three unique animals. It didn’t take him long to spot tracks, four-toed indentations in the dirt that belonged to something larger than the average coyote.
    Not wolves. There were no wild wolves in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains, only the shifters who made up the Half Moon Pack.
    Overall, he located two sets of large canine tracks – one larger than the other – and evidence of a third, much smaller animal. A male, a bitch and a pup, maybe?
    It was hard to tell.
    “We should get outta here,” Michael said, dressing quickly after shifting. “Notify authorities.”
    Kimberly lingered by the body. “It doesn’t seem right to just leave him here, especially if wild animals have been bothering him.”
    Michael shrugged. “Nothing else we can do. They’ll want to see the scene just as it is so they can be sure of what happened to him. Won’t appreciate us messing with things.”
    “It looks like he fell over the overhang.”
    Michael nodded. “Might’ve stepped right over the edge without seeing it, especially if it was dark at the time.”
    Even in the dark, he could see Kimberly’s frown. And was that the glimmer of a tear at the corner of one eye, or was he imagining it? Damn his human senses. He was tempted to shift again, but didn’t. They’d make the