Page 33 of Hunted Mate
“It’s safe to say they’re going to keep tracking us,” I continue as silence falls. “Now I think we should either split up, or stay together.”
I need to talk to Gray. I need to find out how far they’ll go with this tracking stuff, though I’m betting it’s anywhere in the world.
Wolves are rotational persistence hunters. They run their prey down, but not singly. One tags in, and lets another tag out. We can expect them to be on our trail pretty quickly. They won’t want to draw attention to themselves from law enforcement, I imagine. Gray avoided them for sure.
“What do you two want? I can drop you somewhere if you like, or we can try to make it through this together.”
“Uhm, are you… Calista Hart?” Molly asks the question with some obvious nervousness.
“Yeah,” I say. No point denying it.
“We’ve been rescued by one of the richest ladies in the world!” she squeals, and punches Mark in the arm. “We’re lucky. I’m staying with her.”
Mark nods. “I reckon they’ll find us in hours, and they’ll put us down like dogs. You made a real good mess back there.”
“Thanks. Sorry about your friend. I would have… I mean…”
“Brent was always an asshole,” Mark says. “It’s not right to put your hands on women.”
“It wasn’t right for him, that’s for sure. Big mistake,” I say.
“Huge,” Molly pipes up.
There’s a certain air of euphoria starting to come over the van now, as we realize we all just survived something we probably should not have. The horror of seeing death close up fucked us all up, but now there’s more life than before.
We made it. We shouldn’t have. We should be dead, but we’re alive.
I hear Molly and Mark start making out in the back of the van.
I don’t know where to go. I don’t want to drive into the wilds, upstate or anywhere else. I don’t want to flee like prey would flee. I’m not the sort of person who runs from a fight. I just proved that. I’m not going to be forced out of my life by these werewolves. I might have spent an entire lifetime proving to myself that they exist, but they don’t get to dictate my whole life.
I know exactly where to go.
And I know just what to do.
CHAPTER 7
Gray
I tracked my mate after finding her missing from my place. I just didn’t track her fast enough.
It was one thing to know where Callie was when she had a routine and a pattern that almost never shifted. Now she’s become almost entirely erratic, absolutely unpredictable.
Now I am looking at a warehouse door that looks like it’s been peeled open like a tin can, and a bloody scene that is yet to be remediated. One of the New York wolves is dead. Very dead. The others are shaken in a way that is quite amusing in a dark sort of way. We are predators. We are not used to prey fighting back. We are certainly not used to prey winning.
“My mate did this?”
“Your little fucking human monster did this,” Karl snorts, laughing. Of course he is here with me. I didn’t have time to lose him while looking for her anyway, and catching up with her was more important than getting rid of him.
“She shot Adam.” That piece of information is volunteered by the wolf responsible for the underground hunters. He’s not quite an alpha, but he has the blood. Just like I do. Just like Karl does. There are too many potential alphas here. It feels crowded.
“No. I don’t believe it. She didn’t shoot anybody,” I say. “She’s a researcher. She looks up information on the internet. She goes to the library and checks out old newspapers. Sometimes she goes for a drive and asks people questions. She’s a quiet, mousy little…”
Even as I’m talking I know I’m wrong. She’s not quiet or mousy. She uses that as her facade, but underneath it all she is focused in a way even our best hunters often are not. I am deliberately forgetting the way she pulled a gun on me, and seemed quite intent on using it.
“She took two other humans with her. That means instead of having one loose end you refused to tie up, we now have three.” Karl claps my back hard. “Good work, little brother. The New York alpha will be thrilled, I’m sure. I know Dad will be thrilled.”
“Fuck off, Karl,” I growl. “There were a lot of mistakes made along the way in order for this to happen, and you know it.”
