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“Make it a two, threatening to become a three. This is why we must meet tonight.”
“Leave it to me. We’ll convene after dusk.”
“Thanks. See you and the members there.”
It was all Hudson could do to even be that polite. The plane crash which killed his best friend was all-consuming. He didn’t know if it was his shifter intuition at work or merely the question of why a crash happened at all. He had to get answers, and quickly, in case there was more to the story than a dead engine or an electrical failure.
It was only a half hour until dusk, but to Hudson, the time on his wall clock ticked by like the minute hand was stuck in the mud. His sight went from the picture window, which faced west, to the clock. The pen he still held beat on his desktop stapler to the second-hand tick-tock drum.
Hudson never liked to wait for anything or anyone. It wasn’t uncommon for a polar bear, or really any kind of shifter, but he always wondered where he got his impatience from. His father? His mother? They died when he was so young he couldn’t possibly know.
As the last of the winter’s dim daylight faded below the undulating hills, Hudson breathed a sigh of relief. It was finally time. He rocketed out of his chair and hurried outside to the woodshed. There, in the privacy of the small space, he undressed completely, folded up his clothes for later, and bolted outside once more. The stinging cold hit his sensitive human skin.
Hudson drew breath in and exhaled, stretched, and in one fluid motion, the man turned into a gigantic bear. A polar bear, to be precise. His form now had mammoth muscle structure, a prominent black nose, and eyes as big as a billiard eight ball. He shook his body to even out the pristine white fur.
Hudson sniffed the air. Cold, crisp. He caught the lair scent instantly. There. Onward.
With one easy bound, Hudson raced through the pines. Tree bows bent, and shrubs shivered under his massive weight. The world of the forest,hisforest, genuflected to his power.
It took no time to reach the expansive ranch-style log cabin lair. A sliver of white smoke floated from the fieldstone chimney, and a pale amber glow from lit lanterns filled the bottle glass window panes. By the looks of all the paw tracks, the elders were assembled within.Good. Time is of the essence here.
Hudson shook his coat to rid it of the fallen snow, wiped his gigantic paws on the bristle mat, and used his nose to flip the wooden latch open. As a builder of custom log cabins, he was proud of his bear-shifter design. All had been adapted to polar bear needs.
All eyes turned when Hudson darkened the door and shifted to his two-legged form.
“Ah, Alpha, there you are. We are ready to begin.”
Logan slid the chair at the head of the massive pine table for their alpha, and Hudson nodded and deftly took it. Again, with no preamble, the leader got down to business.
“I need an elder-wide investigation into the plane crash which took our former member, Frank, his wife, and nearly killed his daughter, Hannah. I need to know if this catastrophic failure was due to machine malfunction, pilot error, or some nefarious plot to take out certain members of our clan. He may have been a former member, but I’m concerned we may be blind to a threat to us if we don’t examine it further.”
Murmurs and head nods erupted down both sides of the elongated table.
“I have a list of investigative duties with me for each of you. Each is assigned according to your background and skills. Some are purely mechanical, others forensic. You will receive them at the end of the meeting.
“My primary goal is to uncover whether this was an accidental crash or the plane was downed by sabotage. Whether Frank or someone else on the craft was a target, and if so, why? Please get your results back to Logan as soon as possible. That is all. Meeting adjourned.”
Hudson pounded the table once with his hand. The members rose from their chairs and talked freely among themselves as Logan handed out the assignments. Logan soon returned to the fireplace mantle where Hudson stood.
“Well, Alpha, do you think this investigation will bring anything more to light?”
“It had better. I don’t want another deadly accident to occur to our people. And until I have all the facts, I can’t rest.”
“Are you concerned for Hannah?”
“Honestly, yes. Hannah may be in serious jeopardy if the plane or its passengers were targeted. And the poor girl still uses a wheelchair from her injuries and is therefore at severe risk.”
The shifters departed the lair one by one, and Hudson slowly padded back to his luxurious home. He maintained his shifter form all along the wooden trail, as he had far more warmth in his polar fur. And somehow, when he was alone, he felt more comfortable in the beastly skin.
Hudson reached the front of his home and saw a light on in Hannah’s room. His guilt at not spending more time with the little girl gave him an idea. He glanced at Nora’s room, seeing her shades drawn with a glow behind the curtain that assured him Nora was relaxing in her own room and would not witness what came next.
With his giant nose, he sniffed out a pebble under the snow and flipped it up with his paw at the girl’s window.
The curtains fluttered, and soon Hannah’s face appeared through the glass. She saw Hudson in his polar bear form, and a gleeful expression lit up her face. She opened the pane and called out.
“Hudson, that’s you, isn’t it? Daddy told me you could be a polar bear like he was.”
He slowly padded up to her and licked her face, sending her into giggles. He gathered snow into ball shapes with his paws and placed several on the window ledge.
