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werewolf, because that was the only thing it could possibly be with a size like that, finally stopped playing around with its new toy and bit Dave on the neck. It sank its teeth so far down into the flesh that when it pulled away one second later, jumping off its prey, Dave’s face was still, blood not even spurting from the wound at his neck because his heart had stopped.

His head was bitten almost clean off. Storm could see the white bone of the neck. Disgusting.

The werewolf was so fast that Storm could hardly follow him with his eyes. He moved like a ninja, dodging swings of machetes, and when one of the hunters finally got his act together, he leapt out of the way of bullets with all the ease and grace of a dancer.

Not bad for a dog.

18

Marcy Jacks

It seemed as though Storm blinked, and the only hunter left alive and standing was the youngest one in the group. The werewolf bent its head, the hackles on its back rising to attention as he slowly approached the last of his prey.

The guy only had the hunting knife in his hand that his father had given him before the wolf had jumped on him. That wouldn’t be nearly enough to save the guy.

He wasn’t childlike the way Chance was, but Storm didn’t want the wolf to kill him. More of that code of honor his abusive, honor-crazed family had drilled into him.

The guy might’ve been about to kill him, but unlike other hunters, he hadn’t want to make a torture session out of it.

Storm had appreciated that.

“Don’t kill him,” he said, so dazed out of his mind that he wasn’t sure if he spoke the words out loud or not.

The wolf stopped anyway, its ears twitching. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because…”

He didn’t know how to voice what he wanted in a way that would make the wolf understand, or even do as he asked. The day Storm had run away, werewolves had spared his and Chance’s lives because they owed him that. This werewolf didn’t owe Storm anything and could very well decide to kill the hunter out of spite.

“Please don’t kill him,” he begged.

He wasn’t sure what he expected to happen, but it definitely wasn’t what did happen.

The young wolf barked and lunged at the hunter then jerked to a stop right when the poor guy yelled and fell backward on his ass in the mud.

The hunter’s body trembled as he stared at the wolf, who was still looking down at him like he was lunch. His hackles raised, and those pointed teeth bared.

It must’ve gotten obvious to him that this was his chance because the hunter scrambled to his feet and ran faster than Storm had ever Hunted and on the Run

19

seen any human go. He vanished into the trees, and soon Storm couldn’t even hear the sounds of his clumsy feet stomping around in the leaves.

Then the wolf turned on Storm, and he shivered.

The wolf approached, and Storm recognized him immediately.

“You’re that kid― ”

“Don’t call me that,” the wolf snapped. “I’m twenty years old. ”

Still young, Storm thought, but he made sure to keep those thoughts to himself. At least he was of age. Better than that, he wasn’t a teenager anymore either. Storm felt a little less guilt and sickness about his attraction to the guy.

“Where’s the rest of your pack?” he asked, laying his head back down to rest.

“Not here,” said the wolf, and Storm wished he knew the were’s name so he could stop thinking of him as just the wolf.

“I came on my own.”

He did? Strange. Storm expected at least a small group of the alphas to be tracking him, not just one lone, angry alpha.

“Well, you caught me. Now what?”

The wolf transformed into the body of the handsome young man Storm remembered from that snowy day in November. His eyes were as sharp on Storm as ever.

He flinched when the guy put his warm hand along the deep scratch left behind by that bullet, but not from the pain. He was afraid of what the wolf planned on doing to him.

Oddly enough, the other man jerked his hand away. “Shit, sorry.

Did I hurt you?”

Storm looked at him oddly. “What do you want? ”

The man knelt down quickly, grabbing at one of those shoulder backpacks he’d been carrying with him while in his wolf form.

The man unzipped the bag and started pulling out…gauze?

He pulled out all kinds of bottles and bandages, and it all looked like the kind of thing that meant he was planning on―

20

Marcy Jacks

Surely not.

“Take it easy, now,” said the were. “I’m going to take care of you.”

Hunted and on the Run

21

Chapter Two

John did his absolute best to wrap up the wounds of the cougar.

Storm didn’t seem to have the energy to make the shift back into a man, and that wasn’t a good sign.

He grabbed a water bottle from out of his bag and uncapped it.

“Here, drink this.”

Storm turned his mouth away, another tired groan rumbling from deep within his chest.

John grabbed him by the face and forced his head back. Storm didn’t even put up a resistance when John held the bottle upside down over his throat, forcing him to drink.

“What did you give me?” Storm asked.

“Something to make you feel better.” He hoped, anyway.

The water came from the pond on pack property, and within the last year they’d discovered there was something otherworldly about that pond. The water had some kind of connection to the spirit world, and when someone drank from it, or swam in it, it could heal their injuries. Once or twice it had also brought a few people back from the dead.

It didn’t always work, however, and that was the main problem