Page 22 of To Hunt A Wolf
“Mac,” she begins.
“Bye, Mom.” I hang up before she can start in on why it makes more sense to abandon Kari and save myself.
If she won’t rescue my friend, I’ll have to honor my bargain with Thiago. The only person who can help me now is Levi. And, like my mother, he refuses to do a single thing that would benefit anyone but himself.
Asshole.
I flop onto the creaky mattress and flip through channels on the TV until my eyelids begin to droop. It doesn’t take long before I’m drifting; caught somewhere between awake and asleep.
It’s a skill I learned as a kid. My mother’s line of work demanded a level of alertness that left me with what is quite possibly a serious sleep disorder. Upside—I can be awake and asleep at the same time. Downside—I’m never under deep enough to feel fully rested. Thanks to a lifetime of this habit, I know with absolute certainty that sleep hangovers are a thing.
Tonight, however, I fall nearly into a full REM cycle. My brain begins to blend fiction and reality until my dreams are full of cries for help from Kari with a background soundtrack of Dance Moms reruns still playing from the motel television.
A scraping noise, so quiet it’s nearly not there, wakes me suddenly. As a wolf, sensory instincts aren’t something you can turn off even in dreamland, and my inner beast screams at me to haul ass. I force my body to remain still while I try to work out what’s changed. A lifetime of training is the only reason I can tell when the air inside the small room changes subtly. Another body being added to the space.
My eyes spring open just as a knife is plunged toward my chest.
My wolf takes over, heightened reflexes kicking in, and I’m out of the bed and racing from the room before my heart has fully completed another beat.
A wolf scent slams into me.
It’s unfamiliar. Male. Aggressive.
I catch a glimpse of his face, and while I don’t recognize him, the knife he wields sends a clear message. I don’t wait around to find out why the hell he’s decided to try to kill me.
Instead, I run, and the fucker chases.
I make it down the short flight of metal stairs and across the lot before I know he’s going to catch up. I can’t outrun him, not on two legs anyway.
Dammit.
Woods beckon across the empty road, and I sprint for the cover of the trees. The moment I’m inside, I shift. My newly pilfered clothing shreds right off my body as my human form bends and breaks itself into my wolf. I land on four paws and shove off again, sending dirt and leaves spraying out behind me as I haul ass for safety.
My breaths are short, my lungs burning, and still, the asshole is on my heels. I feel the moment he shifts, and the air around me changes to accommodate his new form.
He eats up the distance between us like it’s nothing. And he never wavers, not even when I manage to duck around a thicket to throw him off. Somehow, he can sense where I’ve gone even without the benefit of sight.
Tracker.
My senses scream at me, and I curse myself for being so stupid. I should have known. And if he’s a tracker, running is the worst thing I could have done. It’s only stirred his bloodlust.
Without warning, I turn and face him. He’s close enough to slam into me when I do. I use my claws, my teeth, and my lean, lithe body to my advantage and send him careening sideways.
Mostly, it’s the element of surprise working in my favor because, as soon as he recovers, I realize fighting is almost as risky as running.
He’s a dark wolf with sinewy muscles pulled taut over thinning fur. Patches are missing, and scars are evident in what looks like a body worn down from years of doing exactly what he’s trying to do to me now.
Whoever he is, he’s done this before.
Track. Kill. Repeat.
He’s worse than a bounty hunter.
He’s a hired murderer.
Where I stick to wanted criminals, a tracker will kill even an innocent if the payout is there.
But who the hell hired him to kill me?
