Free Roaring Up the Wrong Tree by Celia Kyle Page B

ever shower? Shifters were supposed to be all heal-y and stuff and yet the kid ended up with more pimples than stars in the sky. She really felt bad for the pack. Mr. Scott was a jerk, but Heath was an asshole. Too bad the hyenas didn’t make the heirs wait until they hit twenty-five to take over the reins. Not like the bears.
    “Heath knows the law. Otherwise the men at the border would have stopped us.” In mom-speak, “stopped” meant “killed.” As if Trista didn’t know.
    Trista turned her attention to the gathering of “people” on the other side of the graveyard. The hyena shifter graveyard. She had no doubt the individuals milling about were other hyenas, and any minute now they’d catch her scent.
    In three, two, one…
    It was like they were one person. All heads turned toward her, everyone’s eyes suddenly glowing copper.
    Panic assaulted her, burrowing into her heart, and she very, very much wanted to cry. And run. The animal part of her rumbled its objection. It begged to stay and fight and demand their due. She didn’t think they were due anything other than their lives once this was over.
    “Trista.” Her mom’s firm voice pulled her away from the men and women who wouldn’t mind seeing her dead and gone.
    “Yeah?” She gulped.
    “You’ll be fine.” She shook her head and her mom spoke again. “You will. Mrs. Scott may not like you,” understatement of the century , “but she and Heath know better than to do anything. Harming you will bring down their Southeast Alpha and they don’t want that.”
    No, no one wanted one of the territory leaders hanging around. Least of all that one.
    “Now, go pay your respects and then come back. We’ve got a few hours to kill. We’ll head over to the falls.”
    The falls. She’d always loved the sound of rushing water, even if her animal thing in her head hated it.
    “’K.” She took a deep breath and fought for calm. Heading into a group of blood-thirsty shifters while scared out of her mind was not a good idea. With a jerky nod, she stepped back and pushed the door closed. She didn’t know why she was surprised that her mom wasn’t coming along. From the moment Trista was born, Mr. Scott told her Mom she wasn’t welcome at pack gatherings. Trista and Trista alone. Never a human.
    Even if she’d been banged by a furball at some point.
    Okay, ew, no thinking about Mom and sex. Ever.
    Rubbing her hands on her jeans, she made her way toward the group, ignoring the sneers, growls, hisses, and high-pitched cackling laughs that chased her. Those laughs… They scared the shit out of her while also poking her animal. Trista couldn’t shift, couldn’t even get slightly furry, but she sure could make the screeching sounds.
    She swallowed them now, pulled them deep into herself. No sense in antagonizing the “people” who could kill her without blinking.
    They hated her, but still stepped aside as she approached, making a path straight to the gravesite. Mr. Scott’s casket remained perched above the hole, waiting to be lowered into the ground. She wondered if someone would throw a rose in after he’d been put down there. Or toss a handful of dirt on top like they did in the movies.
    Tired of rubbing her sweaty palms on her jeans, she tucked them into her pockets. No sense in showing how nervous they made her.
    Eventually Mrs. Scott and Heath were revealed. Mrs. Scott sat straight-backed in a fold-out chair while Heath stood directly behind her. Both of them were focused on Trista, their eyes the orange-tinted brown of their animals. It’d freaked her out when she first met others in the pack. Honestly, it still freaked her out.
    Stopping five feet from them—Mrs. Scott’s reach tended to be about four feet—she tilted her head slightly as she’d been taught. “Mrs. Scott, Heath, I’m sorry for your loss.”
    She supposed it was her loss, too, but she didn’t care.
    Mrs. Scott glared at her while Heath smiled wide, exposing his hyena’s