Falke’s Captive by Madison Layle & Anna Leigh Keaton

added. “Groggy and ticked that he missed all of this, but fine.”
    Axel looked at Heidi who nodded, and then he let the woman go. She immediately bent to pick up something else she’d dropped in the struggle and flipped a switch on it before dropping it into the purse strapped across her chest.
    “What’s that?” Reidar asked, wanting his assumption confirmed.
    “A tracking device.” She looked at the cougar, down at Kelan, and then met Reidar’s gaze once more. “I’m so sorry. He jumped the wrong way.”
    Only she would think Kelan did that. Reidar knew different. They were a close bunch despite their differences. Kelan saw the threat and leaped to save his brother’s life without hesitation or consideration of the consequences.
    “I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I never would’ve shot—I was trying to protect him and all of you. I tracked that cougar here. It escaped.” She stared at the cat before reaching into her back pocket. “I thought it was about to—”
    “Careful,” Axel warned, watching her hand.
    She slowed her movement, but continued until she’d produced the missing collar. “It was running around loose in the forest yesterday when I tranquilized it. I…we…There’s a team of us from WSU out here this summer conducting a research project, funded by a government grant.”
    “What kind of research?”
    “We’re tagging pumas to study their habits, track them, and learn more about how their population grows while other large cats around the world are near extinction. I didn’t realize it had this collar on until I got closer.”
    “You shot…Falke. Yesterday?” Axel’s suspicious, angry tone put Reidar on edge. He eyed his other siblings; none were smiling now.
    Beth nodded. “When I realized it must be someone’s pet, I couldn’t just leave it out there. We thought it must’ve broken free of its enclosure or something, and a semi-domesticated wild cat is a hazard not only to humans but itself too. So we brought it back to our mobile lab. I was searching for its owner, hoping this collar would help, but there’s no ID on it, and the cat escaped last night. Are you the owner?”
    “Falke is part of our family,” his brother responded. “No one owns him.”
    She frowned at Axel and held up the collar, shaking it at him. “Do you have any idea the kind of danger you’re putting the civilian population of this town in by trying to domesticate a wild animal? Letting it roam the woods alone—”
    “Look, lady—”
    “It could run out into the road and get hit by a car, attack a small child—”
    Reidar cut off her diatribe. “He wasn’t alone.” Again, all eyes turned toward him.
    Kelan would owe him big time for this.
    “I was hiking…in the forests behind your house, Ax,” he began, easing his way into a story he hoped would explain everything—at least to the mad scientist with a tranq gun. “There’s some great public hiking trails through there that go on for miles, and I…umm…Anyway, Falke here, he was with me.”
    Reidar stroked the cougar’s neck and tried not to wince when Gunnar grumbled inside his mind, Knock it off.
    “I thought we both needed to get away for a while, burn off some energy. We weren’t in town, so I didn’t see the need for a leash.”
    Gunnar growled low and deep.
    Giving his brother some space, Reidar continued with his explanation from a safer distance. “At one point, I stopped for a water break. The sun was warm, and I guess I dozed a little. Falke wandered off ahead of me. We got separated, and well, I searched for him but when I couldn’t find him, I went home…uh…where he returned last night.” He shrugged. “I figured Falke could find his way home, and I was right. He always comes back.”
    “He has another collar,” Beth observed, then looked around, her brow furrowing in obvious confusion. “You’re all wearing collars?”
    “Yeah, well,” Reidar replied, “it’s part of our uniforms. It’s only fair