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  John nodded, and it seemed Storm did a good job of satisfying the man’s inner wolf with promises that he would allow himself to be taken care of by John.

  John sat down in the middle of their den. It was so small, and the makeshift roof was so low that even as they sat it still brushed the top of both of their heads.

  John flexed his leg out, hissing as he did so. His bandages had gotten dirty during their last run, and had fallen off when John shifted back into a man, but from the look of it, it was neither infected nor was it bleeding as much as before.

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  Maybe the food John consumed was already doing its job of providing his body with energy.

  “How do you feel?” Storm asked.

  John gingerly set his leg back down. “Throbs like a bitch, but I’ll be ready to travel whenever you are.”

  He was trying to allow the both of them to make decisions together. It was against his alpha nature, and Storm wasn’t sure what he thought about it, considering he wasn’t exactly John’s equal. Not with the way his debt to the man worked.

  That didn’t stop him from appreciating it. He liked it when his input meant something.

  “I get the feeling you would jump up and start running with me if I wanted to go right now, and we can’t do that yet.”

  Storm poked his head out of their den to look at the sky, and he guessed the time. It was way too early for them to actually stop for the night.

  “Can you tell how far away we are from your pack?”

  “I’m not that familiar with this area, but based on how long I was running to catch up with you, and how slow we’re moving now, I’d say another day or two away.”

  That was too far.

  The look on his face must’ve suggested as much. “We’re obviously too beat up to keep on running like this. After we rest, we should find another motel, and I’ll use their phone to call for help. I won’t bother with howling it out now since we’re too far away for any of my pack mates to hear it anyway.”

  That, and it was becoming increasingly apparent to the both of them that they might not make it on their own as well.

  The thought of simply calling John’s friends with an actual telephone was so simple it shocked him they hadn’t thought of it.

  “Why did you not call them when we were at the last motel?”

  John glared at him. “I did call them. When you were in the shower and I’d just ordered pizza, I told James I’d found you and he should Hunted and on the Run

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  expect us back soon.”

  Storm blushed. “I am sorry I doubted you. I’m just…”

  “I know. This sucks,” John said, laying his body flat on the ground. It was cold, but the place Storm had used to make their den was dry, so they didn’t have to worry about that at the very least.

  “Because I’d called and said we were fine, no one will come looking for us unless I call again,” John said, each word twisting his lips around as though they tasted foul. “I’m such an idiot.”

  “Yes, well, what’s done is done,” Storm said.

  “You could at least try defending me from myself, you know,”

  John said.

  “You would simply brush off my defense and claim I’d only done it to make you feel better, or something equally ridiculous.”

  He would’ve defended John whether or not John was right in insulting himself. He just wasn’t planning on letting the man know that.

  “The fact of the matter is that you are a young alpha.”

  “Not this again,” John said, putting his fists to his eyes.

  “Hear me out before you ignore me. You are a young alpha, and you’re eager to prove yourself. You went out on a solo mission to claim your mate on your own, which puzzles me, by the way, and when you checked in with your alpha, you told him everything was all right.”

  John’s lips went tight as the list went on, and Storm sighed. “You did not do those things because you are an idiot and wanted to purposely put either of us in harm’s way. You did it because you genuinely believed the situation was under your control, and now you must learn the hard way that you cannot control everything.”

  “Kind of like you?”

  The response threw Storm for a loop. “What?”

  John pulled his fists away from his eyes, but he didn’t so much as blink up at him. “You blame yourself for becoming a hunter, but you even admitted that your honor demanded you follow that other guy, 88

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  be his servant and all that. You couldn’t control your situation either, but you still worry over what my alpha will say to you when he sees you.”

  Storm blushed and looked away from those honest eyes. “Yes, well, sometimes I wish I had been more rebellious growing up.

  Maybe if I didn’t care about the promises I made, or honoring debts I felt I owed, I could’ve saved more lives.”

  “Well, if your honor keeps you with me, then I’m glad,” John said.

  “I would stay even had you not saved my life,” Storm admitted.

  John smiled up at him. He held out his hands. “Come here.”

  Storm did as he was told, allowing John to pull him into the warm embrace. It did not take him long before he sighed and settled in, snuggling against his lover’s chest as John stroked his hair.

  “Knew you cared,” John said.

  Storm squeezed John a little tighter. Every insecurity he felt bubbled to the surface, and no matter how hard he fought against them, they would not go away.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, looking up at John. “Are you sure we are mates? This isn’t just lust on both our parts?”

  “No. You’re mine,” John said, then squeezed him back, and Storm could practically hear the smile in his voice. “In lust with me, eh?”

  “I think that should be obvious by now,” Storm said.

  “Well, since we’re both in lust with each other and trying to share our body heat and all…”

  He really was horny all the time, Storm thought. Even when their lives were in danger and they were hiding out from hunters, it seemed John would search for any opportunity to have sex with his mate.

  His fingers trailed down along the skin of Storm’s side. It was nice, even if it was a bit ticklish.

  “I will accommodate you if you want,” Storm said. “I would be lying to myself if I said I didn’t want you again either, but you need to conserve your energy.”

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  John’s fingers suddenly stopped their sensual movements along his skin.

  “You know I wouldn’t even make you do anything if you didn’t want to, right?”

  Now more than ever, he did know it. “Right. Rest for a little while. I’ll wake you in twenty minutes.”

  Storm stayed awake, protecting the man who held him, who actually thought he was worth something, while John drifted off. He would never leave him.

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  Chapter Eight

  It seemed only as though John had shut his eyes to rest them before Storm was shaking him awake. John wanted to brush him off and keep sleeping. Better than that would be to just grab Storm around the waist and keep the man down with him. His body heat was so comfortable that John never wanted to separate himself from it, but the other man insisted he get up.

  “John, it’s been twenty-five minutes. We need to go, now. The hunters will catch up to us.”

  The reminder of hunters had him snapping his eyes open and looking around.

  Right. He’d somehow managed to forget where they were.

  His body was cold without Storm to hold him, and that only made him irritable. He quickly shifted, his fur coat protecting him from the cold. Storm pulled their bag of supplies over his head and shifted as well.

  “There’s nothing we can do about the den. They’ll eventually find it and know which direction we’ve gone in,” Storm said.

  “Then w
e should hurry,” John replied.

  His leg was stiff as hell, and it hurt shooting off into an immediate run without stretching it out first, but he eventually overcame that.

  Now that he’d eaten and rested, his body was willing to cooperate with him a little more. His tank was still on low, however.

  Storm, on the other hand, was still running on fumes, and now John found himself looking behind him, making sure that Storm hadn’t fallen over much the same way John had. He definitely wasn’t running as quickly as yesterday.

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  “Do you want me to carry the bag?” John asked.

  Storm shook his head, being stubborn about it. “I’m good. Let’s keep going.”

  For the sake of peace, John didn’t argue.

  They ran as quickly as their aching bodies could take them for the next three hours before they came upon another tiny highway town.

  There was a two-story motel, but John didn’t spot any pay phones on the property. There was a pay phone just in front of the McDonald’s however.

  Since John was now the one with the most energy, he shifted into his human form, got dressed, and ran over to the phones, leaving Storm to rest his tired paws in the shrubs.

  He’d never been happier in his life to hear the voice of his pack alpha.

  “We’re in trouble,” he said.

  “What kind of trouble?” James asked with no hesitation. Trouble was usually found on the heels of their kind. It was always a simple matter of what kind.

  “There’s two hunters stalking us, and we’re both injured. I was shot with a silver bullet, and that slowed us down.”

  “Where are you?”

  John had caught a glimpse of the town sign when he and Storm had run in, and he told his alpha.

  “I can be there in four hours by truck, maybe less if there’s no traffic. Can you hold out for that long?”

  There was the very good chance that those hunters were still after them, but as far as John was aware, neither had seen his or Storm’s faces yet. “I think we can. We can hang out just outside of town until you get here. We’ll be hiding in the trees.”

  “Do you have any money left to get a motel room? There’s nowhere you can stay until we get there?”

  John was looking inside his wallet now, and he was disappointed with the amount of money had had left. He had no credit cards, and 92

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  only five dollars cash, and maybe there was another twenty inside his account.

  “I don’t think I have enough to get us a room, but I’m pretty sure the hunters haven’t seen our faces or anything.”

  That was him trying to show James he had it under control again.

  That had nearly gotten him and his mate killed. He couldn’t be doing that if he wanted to be a real, responsible alpha.

  “But the shelter would do us some good. Can you put anything in my account?”

  “Hang on a second,” James said, and through the line he could hear his alpha tapping on some keyboards.

  The alpha of every pack was required to have the bank numbers of all his members on file for situations just like these, and no pack member was permitted to own a credit card unless it was the pack alpha himself.

  With how poor most werewolf packs were, it was too easy to land deep into debt, and werewolves couldn’t have humans calling them night and day or digging around their personal information because payments were late or never made.

  James was never stingy on what he gave to members that needed money, and had one time even secretly put five thousand into the account of one of his omegas, and that was when the omega had been trying to run away from the pack. It wasn’t until recently that the pack had come into even more money when a former hunter mated with one of the omega wolves, and to make amends, was currently pouring a lot of his fortune into repairing the cabins or building new ones.

  “There’s a grand in your account now. That should be more than enough for you to get a safe room to stay in and food to eat until we pick you up.”

  A grand. James must’ve heard John’s stomach growling through the phone line. After several hours of running, he was starving again.

  An alpha wolf and a fully grown cougar shifter with a couple hundred dollars to spend in food would be more than well off for four hours.

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  “Thank you, sir,” John said.

  “I’m heading out the door now. I’ll meet you at the motel. Try not to have too many delivery guys coming to your room. That’ll look suspicious to any hunters on your tail.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  John hung up the phone, and the first thing he did before running back to Storm was go into the McDonald’s and order at least half the menu.

  He would get the rest of what he wanted delivered. That way he wouldn’t bring suspicion onto his motel room with only one delivery guy instead of five.

  “Storm, look, I’ve got food for us,” John said, placing the warm, delicious smelling bags onto the dry patch of grass he found, and letting their scent wake Storm from the exhausted sleep he’d fallen into.

  The cougar groaned and opened its one eye, shifting a little to see what exactly it was that John had brought.

  John unwrapped a double pounder with bacon and cheese and put it to Storm’s mouth. “Eat this before shifting,” he said. His mate would need the energy before he could even attempt to make a shift.

  Storm ate, and then John uncapped a water bottle and poured it into that large mouth. Someone had once told him that soda would only dehydrate the body more. He wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but considering their situation, he hadn’t wanted to risk it, so he’d bought at least ten water bottles.

  Storm finished the bottle, another burger, and then drank another whole bottle before he was feeling well enough to shift into his human form. “You should eat, too,” he said, still sounding weak, but at least he had some of his strength back.

  “I will, but you need to get dressed first. James put some money in my account, so we’re going to have a real bed until he gets here.”

  John had never seen such a relieved look on Storm’s face before, especially concerning the coming of John’s pack. “Thank God. When 94

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  will they all get here?”

  “Little less than four hours if there’s no traffic. We just have to lie low until then.”

  Storm put on his T-shirt, and with another burger in his mouth, he was also putting on his pants.

  When he was fully dressed and the third burger gone, he smiled at John. “I can do that. Let’s go.”

  * * * *

  Tatum had been right. This was better. This was so much better.

  They could hunt down those shifters and kill them without any problems at all like this.

  Robert had never felt so much wild energy running through his body in all his life. Every scent and sound from what felt like several miles in each direction came at him, and he knew what they all represented as well.

  He spotted a hummingbird fluttering around in the trees, and he could make out the individual colors on its wings and count the feathers as well.

  The one thing he couldn’t do, which he thought was an ability all werewolves had, was speak to Tatum telepathically. No matter how hard he thought or tried to project what he wanted to the other wolf, no response came to him.

  That was a good piece of information to have. Not all werewolves could communicate in their wolf forms. Did that mean that the two shifters they hunted were vulnerable like this as well?

  A twig snapped in the distance, and Robert spotted a rabbit darting through the trees. His first instinct was to chase it, but Tatum’s teeth came crashing down quickly over his scruff, stopping him in his tracks.

  Tatum was most definitely the more powerful wolf between the two of them.

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  Tatum shook
him a little, letting Robert know that he wouldn’t tolerate his running off to catch small game.

  When he was sure that Robert wouldn’t rush off after a squirrel, Tatum shifted back into a naked male. He got down on one knee in front of him, holding his face in both hands and looking him in the eyes.

  “Now you listen to me, you’re still a little wild from your first transformation, but I know you can understand me. You don’t go running after little things like that. Stick with me and we’ll find those shifters. You’ll get your revenge, and we’ll both turn a profit, but you need to learn some self-control and real quick now, because as far as other hunters are concerned, we’re the enemy. You learn some goddamn self-control and fast because if I think for one second you will give me away to other hunters, even by accident, I will skin you alive, just like I’ll do to them. You understand?”

  Tatum’s eyes became more and more manic with every word he spoke, and Robert understood. He nodded.

  “Good. I can smell them. They went east, and the trail is still relatively fresh.”

  Robert put his nose in the air and sniffed. There was definitely the scent of another pair of animals in the air, and it wasn’t exactly as old as he thought it would be.

  He’d made his first painful shift almost immediately after Tatum had scratched his face. Tatum had to spend the next hour, or maybe it was more, chasing Robert around, trying to teach him some control over himself.

  Robert thought he was doing pretty well, considering he’d only had a few hours to learn. If all werewolves put in even half the time Robert was now to try and learn some control, then there would be less killing and hunters wouldn’t be after them.

  Maybe it was just in their nature to be stupid like that. He and Tatum knew better, and they were going to do everything in their power to keep hold of their humanity while they were like this.

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  “You follow me,” Tatum said, shifting back into his large black wolf. He did it quickly, despite the sounds of his snapping bones.