Page 42 of Wolf Bound

Then they all headed out of the barn and raced off in the direction the three male gray wolves had taken.

After a couple of miles, Kira smelled that the kidnappers had separated, and so she ran after one of the scent trails. Fisher, Shawn, Demetria, Dan, and Tanner followed Kira. Everett went with one group of wolves and cougars. Addie was with the other wolves and cougars following another trail, so a mix of shifters were with each team. If these guys had any clue they were being chased down by several kinds of shifters, Kira was sure they would be terrified.

They headed toward a river and then they saw a wet wolf several hundred yards on the other side of the river, running in the direction of an old, abandoned, brick building. Kira knew they wouldn’t be able to reach the wolf before he went inside. If he managed to run inside it, he could shift, dress, and arm himself with a gun. That could change everything.

Still, they charged forward, swimming across the river, and then reached the opposite bank. The wolf was the one who had shot Fisher. She hoped he wasn’t having flashbacks of being shot. She glanced at him. She hoped his wound wasn’t hurting while he was running as a wolf.

When the wolf ran inside the building, everyone stopped.

Kira’s heart was beating like crazy, and she could hear the rest of her companions’ hearts beating just as fast. She wanted to warn the others of what she feared, but they were all wary and she figured they would assume the worst.

Dan shifted. “He could be shifting. In the event he comes out with a gun ready to shoot, I recommend we scatter and take positions around the building.” Then he shifted back into his cougar, and they all spread out.

Shawn, Demetria, and Tanner headed to the left of the building. Kira, Fisher, and Dan ran to the right of the building. A cold wind was blowing, and the structure’s shingled roof was shaking.

Even though some of the roof was down on one side, the windows were still framed in, dirty glass broken in places, perfect for the wolf to watch out through and shoot at them. But then she saw him coming out of the building as a human, dressed and wearing a black backpack, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world. She realized he didn’t know they were coming after him. He wasn’t holding a gun. Unless he had one in his jacket pocket, he might not have quick access to one. Which would be good for them. She raced toward him. So did Dan and Fisher.

Having heard them, possibly smelling them, the guy turned, his jaw dropped, and his eyes widened. She was sure he was in shock to observe two wolves and a cougar headed his way as fast as they could run. Wait until he saw Demetria in her jaguar coat.

He immediately yanked off his backpack, and she knew he was going for his gun in the bag. She was mistaken. He was freeing himself of his baggage and pulled a gun out of his jacket pocket.

The wolves could jump sixteen feet at a run, but they were still about sixty feet from the kidnapper. As a cougar, Dan could jump forty feet horizontally and he did. Even a jaguar could only leap around twenty feet horizontally. But suddenly, Tanner, Shawn, and Demetria came around the building behind the guy, ready to take him down.

The man tried to aim at the wolves and cougar coming at him, his hand shaking. He fired at them, but they scattered, and the rounds hit the dirt all around them. It scared Kira to death that if he’d had better aim, he could have killed any or all of them. But then his gun jammed, and Dan leapt again and pinned the man to the ground—a hundred-and-forty pounds of cougar muscle and bones. They all converged on the kidnapper, but then Kira went into the building and found the other men’s backpacks and she smiled. Fisher joined her and licked her jaw.

Even though she wanted to howl, to let the other teams know they had been successful with taking down one of the men, they didn’t want to alert the other kidnappers. At least they had the other men’s backpacks. She smelled the other men’s scents on them. Now if they could just find their vehicle and the other men. If the other kidnappers managed to get away from the other teams but couldn’t get to their vehicle, they could be stranded here making them easier to apprehend. But now they had a slight problem with taking this guy into custody.

Dan walked into the barn and shifted. “Demetria’s holding our prisoner down.” He dumped clothes out of one of the backpacks, then began pulling out some of Reggie’s clothes and dressed in them. “I’ll call Ted and he’ll bring help to incarcerate these guys. At least I hope the others have caught their perps.” Then Dan went outside with Fisher and Kira and said, “Okay, where’s your cell phone?”

“As if I would give it to you,” the man said, lying on his stomach, Demetria’s paw pressing hard against the back of his neck. She opened her mouth and showed off her long, wicked canines and growled.

“You don’t want to know how much her bite could hurt if she bit you. Since you’re already a wolf, we don’t have to worry about turning you. And burying you out here?” Dan shrugged. “If you didn’t realize it, this whole territory is cougar run. So no one would ever look for you out here. Oh, and by the way, I’m the sheriff.”

The man’s eyes widened a bit.

“So where is your phone?” Dan asked.

Demetria bit into the guy’s jacket. He cried out in fright. She pulled him over on his back. Wolves and cougars had strong bites, but the jaguars even more so.

Dan dumped out the kidnapper’s backpack, found his gun, and his phone. He took the phone and said, “What’s your pin number?”

The kidnapper wouldn’t give it to him. Kira moved toward him, growling. He just looked mutinously at her, and she bit his hand. He yelled out, swore at her, his eyes filling with tears. She growled and made the move to bite him again and he said, “Alright, alright.” He gave Dan the pin number and Dan used it to access the phone.

Dan said, “Ted, call Hal and the others. We’ve caught one of the suspects and we’re at the old brick building across the river. We have the other men’s clothes. We don’t know if they’ve been caught yet. We need to find their vehicle. Tell Dr. Kate the kidnapper we caught has got a wolf bite to his hand. We’ll be bringing him in for questioning, but we’ll drop by the medical clinic first.” Then Dan ended the call. “Okay, Ted is getting hold of some more of our people and we’ll take this one in.” Then he searched through the backpack. “No ID. Who are you?”

The youngest of the kidnappers wouldn’t give up his name. Since he was the one who had shot Fisher, Kira didn’t feel any remorse for biting him. She would have bitten him again if he hadn’t given up his pin number for his phone so that Dan could get a hold of the others to take this guy into custody.

She noticed then that Fisher was lying down, his head on his paws, watching the kidnapper. Immediately, Kira was worried that Fisher’s shoulder was hurting. She and Tanner were sitting up, wary of the kidnapper’s next actions. She went over to Fisher and licked his face. He raised his head, smiled, and licked her back. But she could smell he was in pain. She sighed. He probably shouldn’t have gone running with them so soon after he was wounded, despite knowing how much he had wanted to be with her and trying to track these men down.

She wanted him checked out by the doctor here also and if the doctor said he should have more bed rest, Shawn could take Fisher home. But she was also wondering what had happened with the other guys. To her surprise, she heard three All-Terrain-Vehicles headed toward the river.

Dan got a call on the kidnapper’s phone, and he answered it. “Okay, we’re moving that way.” He ended the call and said, “We’re going to the river. We need to cross it to reach the ATVs. They’ll take anyone back who needs to return.”

Kira wanted to question the guy in the worst way, but she also wanted to help get the other kidnappers.

Dan pulled the kidnapper to his feet. He grabbed the backpacks and started hauling the kidnapper toward the river. “I don’t know what this is all about. Who do you think I am?” the kidnapper asked, as if he was totally innocent.

“Someone caught trespassing on private property,” Dan said.

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