Fangs 
As death and danger stalk the southern Oregon coast, Mia Sandas and Jeff Julian must trust each other. Can they handle the truth?When a poacher leaves a wounded elk cow to suffer, Mia Sandas has no choice but to end its misery. Before she’s forced to do the same to the cow’s orphaned calf, a massive gray dog appears and snaps its neck.
Unknown to Mia, this is the beginning of a test of her courage and comprehension. As she turns to Fish and Wildlife Officer Jeff Julian, the gray and his four-legged companions stalk local animal abusers.
Jeff and Mia are drawn together as they seek understanding of what is taking place in the forested mountains. They canines are committed to primitive justice but why? Who are the targets and what will be the outcome?
Can Jeff and Mia stop more bloodshed—and do they want to?
EXCERPT
Crack! Crack!
Her heart pounding and breath caught, Mia Sandas stopped. The explosion wasn’t that close, the location impossible to pinpoint. Still, it alarmed Banshee enough that her dog barked and whined until she ordered him to stop. She strained to catch any and all sounds that didn’t belong in the wilderness.
As the seconds passed and the sounds weren’t repeated, her heart rate slowed. Her breathing remained ragged.
Vulnerable. She was fighting the fight or flight instinct because, alone except for Banshee, she was vulnerable. Rifle shots were common in southern Oregon’s coastal forest during hunting season, but it was June. If someone had been target shooting he or she would have fired more than twice, right?
Prompted by Banshee’s tension, Mia abandoned the deer trail she’d been on and followed the Rottweiler-bullmastiff cross-country. The change in direction took her straight up Dark Mountain. Her hundred pound plus, mostly black mutt picked his way around the ground-blanketing vegetation. Because Mia’s business demanded physical labor, the climb didn’t tax her.
Although nature’s sounds had resumed, Banshee remained determined to find some answers. In the three years they’d been companions, Mia had learned to take him seriously. Banshee could snore with the best of them—usually on the couch near her wood stove—but when his hackles lifted and he exposed his fangs, the dog meant business.
Despite his solid form, Banshee moved almost soundlessly. So did she, thanks to lessons learned from the uncle and his wife who’d raised her in Alaska. If she was going to continue to live near the wilderness, which she needed to with every fiber she possessed, she had to remain part of her surroundings.
Banshee stopped and looked back at her, prompting her to return his gaze. A little over a hundred feet above them the land briefly leveled and opened up, revealing good summer feeding ground for the coast’s Roosevelt elk.
At the thought of elk, she sucked in clean, cool, damp air. She wasn’t afraid for herself and only marginally so for Banshee, but she might soon see something she didn’t want to. Not far away, a long-abandoned logging road crawled up this side of the mountain. Only a few people knew of its existence, most of them hunters.
Not hunters this time of the year. Poachers.
ABOUT Vella Munn
Vella has been writing for so long, she no longer has any other marketable skills, not that she wants to do anything else. With over 70 books in a multitude of genres under her belt, it's obvious she's like a child, curious about everything. The Feral Justice suspense series speaks to her loathing of animal abusers.
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