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  The sight of John lying motionless at the bottom of the hill stole his breath away.

  He ran down to him. “John?”

  There was no response. Storm’s heart kicked up several beats.

  He skidded to a halt at the bottom beside his lover, kicking up loose and damp leaves.

  John’s eyes weren’t open with blood coming out of his mouth and nose. They were shut, and his chest was just barely rising and falling.

  He was alive.

  There was, however, blood soaking through a patch of fur just over the muscle of his left leg.

  Fuck. John hadn’t just lost his footing like some clumsy wolf.

  He’d taken a bullet for Storm.

  Storm stuck his large paw on the wolf’s shoulder, being careful not to grip him with his claws. He shook the wolf a little, then leaned down and licked along his muzzle, hoping to wake him.

  The wolf groaned and opened its eyes halfway. That long mouth opened, and the tongue lolled out in a panting smile.

  “Hey,” John said.

  “Can you walk?” Storm asked, leaning down to sniff the wound.

  He licked it, and John’s leg jerked.

  “That hurts!”

  “I know. I’m sorry,” Storm said, for both the pain and for thinking John was clumsy. “You need to try and get up. They might still be 56

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  following us on foot.”

  That alone seemed to be enough motivation to get John to attempt to get back to four paws. He cried out and nearly fell back over again.

  “It’s silver,” John said. “I can’t do it.”

  “No! Stay up!” Storm used his teeth and grabbed John by the scruff, forcing him back up until he was standing on his own again.

  “We need to go. Stay with me until we can find a safe place where I can dig the bullet out. ”

  How exactly he was going to do that with no tools, Storm had no clue. They had to find another place to hole up for the night.

  John just had to last until nightfall came, and that wouldn’t be for another nine hours at least. Who knew where those hunters would be by then.

  He didn’t mention that to John. He wanted to keep the man’s spirits up. The run was slow, but they moved on ahead, and no more gunshot sounds followed them.

  Hunted and on the Run

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  Chapter Five

  Tatum sniffed the air and smiled.

  The other man he was with, Robert, cursed and yelled and kicked at the tires of his truck. The engine smoked and hissed, which was expected due to the way it was wrapped around the pine.

  There was nothing they could do for it. The truck would have to be scrapped. They would come back for it later and maybe sell it for parts, but until then they needed to get their supplies and find another ride.

  He waited until Robert released one more scream of rage before informing him of their luck.

  “You don’t have to scream like that. My bullet caught the wolf before they disappeared down the hill.”

  Robert stared at him. “How do you know? I could barely see them when you were shooting.”

  Tatum knew because he’d seen the way the wolf had jumped in front of Storm and how it had jerked when the bullet struck. He could also smell the blood in the air.

  Sometimes being transformed into a demon monster with all these heightened senses really had its perks.

  “I’m a good shot, and I saw the way the wolf fell over.”

  Robert’s brows went up into his hairline, and his mood immediately improved. “Great. Let’s go pick up the carcass.”

  They were still moving. He hadn’t killed the wolf, just injured it.

  He could follow the scent of them, and that would have to be good enough. “I doubt I killed it. I just got it in the leg. It’ll slow them down and make them easier to track. We didn’t lose them yet.”

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  Already Tatum was reaching into the truck and pulling out bags of ammunition and weapons. He was going to have to be careful when it came time for him to start loading the guns with silver bullets, but he had a pair of gloves with him for that.

  Robert wasn’t moving. He was just watching as Tatum eagerly hoisted the heavy bags over his shoulders.

  “What do you want those two for? They killed my family. That’s why I want them, but you specifically want them, too. Why?”

  Tatum clenched his jaw. He really didn’t have time for this shit.

  He hadn’t stuck around long enough to discover exactly what Storm was for himself that day he escaped before the wolves could kill him. No, he’d found that part out later, and he wanted to kill both him and Tony for hiding something like that from him. A shifter had been hiding out in his team of hunters and had probably been waiting for the right moment to strike at them for who knew how long.

  As for the wolf, well, he was part of the pack that was responsible for the fact that Tatum was now a demon creature.

  He’d thought about eating a bullet once or twice, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Tatum was a survivor. He’d survived the loss of more than one team, and he survived being attacked by werewolves, he was not about to take himself out of the running for life.

  The first couple of times he’d transformed, just to wake up with the dead bodies of normal, clean-souled humans next to him, well, that had nearly been his undoing. He swore he would learn to control what he was, and he would get his revenge on those wolves for what they did to him and for what they made him do to those dead humans.

  “I have my reasons,” Tatum said. He wasn’t about to get into sharing his shit with this guy. “Every hunter does. You should know that.”

  Robert actually blushed. Was this guy for real?

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “I am right. Now hurry up. If we keep a steady pace, we might be Hunted and on the Run

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  able to catch up with them. They have to stop and rest sometime considering that wolf has a silver bullet in him.”

  * * * *

  John wasn’t going to make it. The world swirled around him, and for the fourth time he found himself about to keel over.

  He would have, too, had it not been for Storm.

  Storm was always there to grab him by the neck and force him back to his feet, like a mother helping her cub along. John didn’t particularly like that comparison, but it was the only thing his foggy brain would produce.

  “Keep moving. Just a little farther,” Storm said encouragingly.

  He’d been saying those same words for what felt like hours now, and John had gotten to the point where he was just blindly following the other shifter along. He couldn’t even navigate himself away from a tree before he ran into it.

  With every painful step he took, the burning in his leg grew worse. At first the pain was nearly unbearable, but then it had numbed and John was able to quicken his pace a little. He’d still hobbled, but it hadn’t been that bad, and he’d even started to think that maybe the bullet had only been silver plated.

  Then the burning had returned, followed by the swelling, itching, and stiffness in his back leg. Then the colors of the trees had all started to blend together, and now his body was so hot he thought he might actually expire if he didn’t get some water in him.

  “Stop, John. Stop.”

  Those words hadn’t been spoken in his head. They were out loud.

  Storm had actually stopped to shift back into a man while John feverishly wandered along.

  Still, Storm had told him to stop, and he gratefully allowed his body to fall into a bed of cool leaves.

  They had been cool for the first three seconds anyway because 60

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  then they absorbed all the heat from John’s body, and it was like he had a quilt around him, which only made the heat that much worse.

  He felt Storm’s human hands come to rest on his fur. They stroked him carefully then moved down to his inj
ured leg.

  The burn that followed behind his touch felt like he’d just been scalded with hot oil. Storm’s hand grabbed him by the scruff again to keep him from jumping up.

  “You’ll injure yourself more! I’m sorry. Stay still,” he said, stroking John’s neck and ears.

  He liked that, and it calmed him enough that he was able to put the pain out of his mind for a little bit. He even managed to smile as he looked up into Storm’s eye. He wasn’t wearing his eye patch, but John’s vision was still too cloudy for him to see any details of the injury. He could still sense the worry coming from the other man as he pet and stroked him.

  Storm might want to be stubborn about what they were to each other, but he cared. Even if he didn’t love John yet, he still cared.

  Otherwise he would’ve abandoned him, honor debt or no.

  “Can you shift back into a man? I don’t think we’re near any more motels yet, but I’m picking up the scent of a cabin somewhere up ahead.”

  Just the thought of a bed to sleep in made him all the more drowsy. Storm had to shake his shoulder to keep him awake.

  “John, please…”

  He was done. He couldn’t go on anymore. “Leave me here. ”

  * * * *

  Storm put his hands under the fur of his lover and hoisted him into the air. It worried him that the wolf didn’t groan in discomfort or pain, and, carrying his heavy load and the bag filled with their clothing, he ran the rest of the way, following his nose.

  Mud and decaying leaves squished under his toes, but he didn’t Hunted and on the Run

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  stop. He didn’t stop when he stepped on a sharp twig, and he didn’t stop when the cramp in his side started up. He’d been running for so long, and not only was the long cut down his side irritating him, but now his muscles wanted to give out as well.

  A shifter’s stamina could only get him so far.

  Finally, the cabin he scented came into view. He’d known it was somewhere in the distance because the old wood scent and faint presence of humans was still in the air.

  The scent of humans was old. Whoever the owners were, they weren’t here.

  He understood why the second he got close enough to notice the details of the place.

  It was more of a shack than a cabin. Storm’s first thought was that it was used for storage, but there were no other houses nearby that it could be used for. There was a lake behind it, right behind the shack, and the water glowed orange with the setting sun.

  He couldn’t believe John had managed to go so long and so far with a silver bullet inside of him, and despite the look of the shack, Storm wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

  The door was locked, naturally, but it was a padlock and not a bolt. The wooden door was gray with age, and it was a simple matter of breaking it in and stepping inside.

  He thanked God at the sight of a bed and a stove. Shack or no, someone used this place to spend nights. Maybe they only came here for fishing and whatnot, but there were supplies here that he could use.

  The bedsheets weren’t even dusty, but the bed itself groaned when Storm placed the heavy wolf on top.

  He stroked John’s hair one last time before he went to check the cupboards.

  The cabin was small, about the size of a studio apartment, only without a bathroom. Storm figured that whoever owned this place just went and did their business in the trees. The stove was gas, and it 62

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  worked, and the water ran cold from the sink in the kitchen. Storm filled up a kettle and set it over the burner. There was no telling if the water was drinkable, and they would need clean water anyway for John’s wound.

  He searched through the rest of the drawers and cupboards, few of them that there were, and he struck gold.

  A first aid kit. There was a first aid kit under the sink. He opened it and found bandage rolls, needles, alcohol, and swabs. Just as good as that, there was also a tackle box with a pair of needle-nose pliers inside. They looked dirty, but he could clean them in the boiling water and pull out the bullet in John’s leg.

  If he didn’t shift back into a man, Storm just might have to find a way to shave the leg first.

  John was burning up. Storm needed to get that bullet out of him.

  He needed to put a cold cloth on his forehead, and he needed to clean out the wound with the hot water.

  Storm went back to the bed and put his hand on John’s forehead.

  Wolves didn’t have any sweat glands in their skin, so it wasn’t like the fur was damp or anything, but it did feel overly hot, and his nose was dry.

  “John, please, I need you to try and shift back into a man. I don’t know what to do while you’re in wolf form.” He barely had any idea of what he was supposed to do should John become a man, but it was a better place for him to start.

  John blearily opened his eyes. Storm didn’t expect much of a reaction from him. He thought John would just close his eyes again and slip into unconsciousness, but he didn’t.

  Storm should’ve known better than to doubt the stubbornness of an alpha werewolf. John’s bones began to shift and snap. His fur shifted and shed entirely off him, or shrunk back to normal size on him, revealing his pale skin.

  The change took nearly two minutes, and the entire time Storm worried that John wouldn’t be able to go all the way and that he Hunted and on the Run

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  would somehow get stuck in that in-between.

  He didn’t, and once he was a man again, John’s skin began to pour sweat. Even though his skin also felt hot, he shivered uncontrollably, and he reached his hands up to grip at his arms, as though trying to keep some of his body heat with him.

  “C–cold,” he said.

  “I know,” Storm said, stroking his hair, and happy beyond anything he ever felt that John was in human form again. “You’re going to be okay, just give me a minute.”

  He pulled the thin blanket over his lover, despite the wolf hair that was on it. He kept John’s leg exposed at all times.

  Now that he could see the wound itself, he was better prepared for what he had to do.

  He’d suspected that the bullet hadn’t gone straight through, but now that he could see the wound, he wished it had.

  He’d never been great with identifying guns by their bullets. Even when Tony had been trying to teach him a thing or two, nothing had ever really stuck with him. He didn’t like guns. He’d used them when he had to, but he preferred hunting with his claws.

  The size of the entry wound wasn’t a good sign. Whether this had been from a rifle or a handgun, it didn’t matter. The bullet had struck and expanded the deeper it had sunk into John’s flesh. Hunters liked using those kinds of bullets, especially if they were silver, just for the effects of the poisoning. The bullets were hard and painful to remove as well, and that alone could be used as a form of torture to get not just werewolves to talk, but their supporters as well.

  Storm soaked a dish towel in the cold water from the tap and set it over John’s forehead. There was some Tylenol in the first aid kit, but that would be nowhere near what John would be wanting or needing when Storm got started. Still, he grabbed three of the pills and took one of the soda cans out of the bag he’d carried with him.

  It fizzed as he clicked it open, but it was still drinkable. He gave John the pills, holding his head up and helping him drink the warm 64

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  soda.

  “Water,” John said, touching the cold rag at his forehead when he chugged down as much sugary soda as he could take.

  Storm looked to the boiling pot on the stove. “You wouldn’t want to drink that just yet. It’s not ready.”

  He gently placed John’s damp head back on the pillow. Storm next took the boiling water off the stove and poured two separate bowls. He cleaned the pliers with one and would need to use the other for the wound itself.

  He took another dish towel, the cleanest one he could find, and dipped it
into the water before he started to clean away the dried blood.

  A silver bullet could inhibit the fast healing abilities that most shifters had, but a wound like that could still heal too much if left too long, and Storm couldn’t have that.

  He gripped John’s shoulder when he cried out at the touch of the hot cloth to his upper leg. To John’s credit, he didn’t try and shift away from the pain or push Storm away. He gripped the bedsheets and his back arched, seemingly against his will, but he knew he needed it.

  “I’m sorry. I’m almost done,” Storm said, cleaning away the dried blood and dirt.

  Once that was done, the wound flowed with fresh blood once more, and as Storm wiped it away, he could even see the bullet itself.

  It was lodged tightly inside.

  “Get it out! Get it out!” John said.

  Storm’s heart cracked at John’s voice. It sounded as though his lover was fighting not to cry with the pain.

  “This will hurt very much. Here,” he said, reaching into the bag and pulling out one of the pairs of jeans and twisting one of the legs around until it was as tight as a rope.

  “No belts in here for you to bite on. Put your teeth around this.”

  Again, with his eyes closed and barely paying any attention, John Hunted and on the Run

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  did as he was told.

  Storm gently managed to turn him to his side so he could have a better angle to work on the wound. The bullet had struck the muscle of his upper thigh. It couldn’t have hit an important artery, otherwise he would be dead, and it was not deep enough to have struck the bone.

  Storm took a deep breath, reached for John’s hand, squeezed it, and then dug the pliers into the wound to fish out the silver bullet.

  John’s scream, even muffled against the denim he bit down on, was almost deafening.

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  Chapter Six

  John couldn’t remember a time when he felt so much pain. He couldn’t even pinpoint exactly when it was that Storm had managed to get the bullet out of his leg. Maybe he’d passed out, he couldn’t remember. Either way, it had seemed like forever.