Chapter 8.-2
“I noticed.” He set me down on two feet. “Why is that?”
“I don’t know. We don’t communicate well. It takes a little time for me to call her.”
“All right. I’ll shift first.”
Watching him, and every other wolf really, shift, always made me a little frustrated. It was always so seamless and easy with them. I was still calling for my wolf when he was done, and by the time my wolf was out, he was getting downright impatient.
My wolf shook out her stress, and as always, I tried to open a line of communication with her.
Hey. How are you? I’m sorry I got us into this mess and nearly drowned us.
Nothing.
Duke nosed at me and started to trot. I easily kept pace with him, staying just a little behind while my wolf stayed vigilant.
I hadn’t lied to him. I had no intention of running from him in the mountains, but once we got back to the vehicles? I couldn’t outright outrun him, but if I could distract him for just a few minutes, I might have a chance.
Of course, I wouldn’t be able to stay a wolf for long, especially if they’d parked in a human settlement. No one wanted the humans to know about werewolves, but that was even better. I’d be much harder to hunt in a civilian area.
Maybe I could live my life as a human, hide away and immerse myself with people who didn’t have to answer to an alpha or a king. I’d need money, and a way to hide my baby from turning into a wolf
cub at school.
Suddenly, living life as a rogue in the mountains didn’t sound like that bad of an idea. It couldn’t all be wolf-eat-wolf, right?
I knew the tales of the lawless mountain, about wolves who didn’t have packs but roamed freely with the natural animals, living off the land, brutal and uncivilized. Some said a king had exiled them because there was a strange magic in the mountains. A magic that made wolves unhinged. Maybe it was making me unhinged too, for thinking that I could live here on my own.
We were nearing the clearing of the woods when Duke’s dark gray wolf suddenly stopped short and bristled. Half a second later, I knew why he was upset. We were smelling wolves. Several of
them.
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Chapter 8-2
Chaim
He hunched low in the bushes and belly-crawled closer. I trotted along next to him, easily fitting in the space: score one for small wolves. We were at the edge of the woods. Ahead of us, in the parking lot, were the convoy vehicles.
They’d been stripped. Sitting up on blocks, their tires had been removed, and a couple of people were rifling through them. One wolf sat at the end of the convoy. A lookout, no doubt. Luckily, the
wind was in our favor.
So the rogues had found the vehicles. It looked like Duke would not be driving me to my father. Hopefully Rhyson hadn’t left anything behind that said Hey, I’m the king, and I’m going to camp out in the forbidden mountain for some unknown reason. Hope you guys don’t mind.
A radio beeped, and one of the shifters straightened and pulled it out of their belt.
Not radios. Walkie-talkies. Seriously? What kind of unhinged, lawless rogues were these?
“We found the camp. There are only five. Should be easy to exterminate them at nightfall. Find anything useful?” the voice over the radio said.
Five? Shit. That was Rhyson. There were two teams: one to watch the vehicles and one to hunt the
invaders.
“Whoever it is has money. Try to keep the leader alive so we can ransom them. They might be an
alpha.”
An image popped into my head of someone trying to ransom Rhyson. It was funnier than it should
have been.
A growl sounded behind us, and the fun times were over. I sank into my wolf, and she turned and
attacked.
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