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Luke looked around the room at the men and women assembled at the table.
“You are all shifters?”
Dillon nodded.
“I didn’t know that there were that many shifters in the area. I would have thought that almost everyone would have bailed by now.”
“To be honest, a lot of shifters have. However, everyone here feels like Ivy Springs is their home and they don’t want to leave. Some of their families have lived here for several generations.”
“Josh told me what happened to Noah. His family had been here forever,” Luke said. “It’s a damned shame.”
“Yes, it is. The good thing is that he’s happy in the shifter world, although he does miss his ranch,” Dillon said.
“I understand that you are a dragon shifter,” Jesse said.
“I am, sir.”
The older man nodded and said, “That’s good. Dragon shifters are helpful. We had one who was working with us, but he decided to go to the shifter world. He had enough of war. He felt like he was in prison here.”
“What does this group do, exactly?” Luke asked.
“We mostly watch. We keep an eye on the hunters so that we have an idea of where they are looking for shifters. Although the locals know better than to shift on the mountain here, we get a lot of tourists who don’t, especially in the summer and fall. Unfortunately, we’ve had some go missing because we can’t be everywhere at once to protect them,” Dillon said. “The good thing about having a dragon shifter on our team is that you will be able to see more.”
Luke nodded.
“Sometimes, our job is simply damage control. Occasionally, the Faisons get wind of the identity of a local shifter. We have some people who work at the resort and let us know when that happens. We try to alert the family before the Faisons or their hunters can get to them,” Ethan said.
“What happens if you happen to find some hunters when you are on patrol?” Luke asked.
“For the most part, we leave them alone. The dragon king doesn’t want any unnecessary killings because that would just make the situation worse. However, if you have to take out a hunter because of self-defense or you are defending someone else, then you do that,” Dillon replied.
Dillon looked pointedly at Daniel and Bernie as he said this. Luke got the idea that Daniel and Bernie were among the shifters who were in the camp that all hunters should be killed and their bodies hidden so they were never found.
Luke had to admit that there was something fundamentally wrong with a person who was willing to kill someone else for the sake of killing them or just because they were different. However, vigilantism was never a good idea and if the shifters took this tactic, the situation would only get a lot worse for shifters all over the world.
“I understand the frustration,” Dillon said, continuing to eyeball Daniel and Bernie. “We all feel like our hands are tied. There isn’t a whole lot that we can do to be proactive. Most of what we do is reactive, which means that we are always a step behind.”
The next morning, Luke headed out to the mountain. There was a very small cave that very few people knew about, not even local shifters. Josh and Luke had come across it when they were kids and hadn’t told a soul about it. As far as they could tell, they were the only ones who visited it. It was covered by thick brush that made the entrance practically invisible.
He carefully studied the area and figured that hadn’t been found. The brush hadn’t been messed with in a very long time and there were no footprints. He slipped behind a small opening between the brush and the cave and went inside. He stripped off his clothes and hid them. Then, stepping back into the open cold, he quickly shifted into his dragon form and took off.
Luke flew above the tree line for a couple of hours. At first, he didn’t see anything. Then, just when he was about to head back, he spotted a couple of people trekking through the woods. They seemed to be heading in the direction of one of the spots that had previously been used by shifters because it was so secluded. He flew in that direction and hid in a tree, far enough away that he wouldn’t be spotted. Sure enough, in half an hour, the snow shoers appeared. They seemed to be inspecting the ground. They checked the trees as though they were looking for clothes. Then, they moved on in the direction of another spot.
The hunters have to be some kind of idiots if they think that the local shifters haven’t figured them out yet. The shifters aren’t deer that make their rounds to the same bait areas each time.
If this was their plan for finding shifters, the only way that the hunters would come across one would be they came across one by accident. They were the laziest hunters he had ever seen.
Luke headed back to the cave, shifted, dressed, and meticulously erased any sign that he had been in the area as he walked back toward his truck.
The general store was empty when Luke arrived.
“All I saw were a couple of hunters walking from one previously popular shifting spot to another. They weren’t taking the initiative to do any kind of real searching. They are going to be very disappointed if they thought that they were actually going to find anyone.”
“That is basically what we’ve all found. Like I said before, no one local shifts on our mountain any more. They either go to Phantom Canyon or Pike’s Peak.”
“And it’s the wrong time for tourists,” Luke said. “Do you ever feel like your efforts are wasted?”
“Unfortunately, yes, but we really don’t have any other options.”
