The sound of the running water actually helped. Well that, and being sore in places she didn’t know she could be sore.
She smiled remembering the explosive lovemaking that’d occurred in the water just to her left. Being with Owen had been even better than she’d imagined. Her body throbbed at the memory and Clara listened for him.
A gasp of air beside her sent her rolling to her stomach. Her eyes flew open and she pressed her body as far back as the ledge would allow.
“Clara?”
She released the breath she’d been holding and surged forward into Owen’s arms in the pool of water. “You’re back. Is it over? Please tell me no one is dead.”
“It’s not over. Nobody’s dead yet.” He shook his head. “I ran into those strangers again. They said the power is off on the whole island. That there’re soldiers on their way here. We have to find them.” He pulled her through the water. “Take a breath.”
She did and he swam them both out of the cave, and back into the softly lit moonlit night. Clara followed to the bank of the stream, and took his hand for help up the steep incline.
The black-haired man and woman stood at the top. The male was looking better already, though his back was still raw from the torture. Even with his newly acquired wolf magick, it would take at least another hour or so for all his wounds to close. He was lucky they were mostly surface-flesh wounds, deeper wounds could take days to close.
“Owen says you turned the power off?”
The woman nodded. “The whole grid is down. These collars won’t work. Nothing works.”
Clara whirled on Owen. “We have to find Gabriel. He needs to know we can get out.”
He growled. “We don’t have time. That hunter is out here. Gabe ran off. He can find his own way out. We need to get over the fence and away from the hunter as fast as possible.”
No. “You said they won’t shoot if we’re human. Gabriel already shifted.” She couldn’t leave her brother to that fate. “I won’t leave him, Owen.” She dashed through the trees leaving the three of them to chase behind her.
Owen was stubborn. He’d want to get her safely over the fence before even listening to her argument to save Gabriel.
Her brother might be irritable and angry, but who wouldn’t be if they’d been locked in a cage for nine years and hunted like an animal. Just because Gabriel was cranky, didn’t mean he deserved to be left being as cannon fodder for a desperate hunter.
“Gabriel!” she shouted.
Owen yelled from behind. The others were following, too.
She could hear all their footsteps. She just had to stay far enough ahead of Owen that he couldn’t grab her.
“Gabriel! I need to talk to you.”
Clara half-slid down a bank of trees and tangled vines. At the bottom, she looked up and met Owen’s glowing golden gaze. His wolf was right at the surface and he was furious.
“Clara stop!”
“I’m not leaving him.” She took off running again.
“Dammit, Clara!”
It would be easier to find Gabriel if she shifted, but that invited an entirely new danger. Hopefully, he wasn’t too far away and could hear her. “Gabriel!” Her bare feet pounded the loamy soil of the jungle floor. Leaves and debris were everywhere, and light beneath the canopy was almost non-existent.
If not for her better vision, she’d have already knocked herself out cold against more than one tree trunk.
“Gab—” Air whooshed from her lungs and iron fingers closed around her arms.
“Shut up, woman.”
Her anxiety fled at the sound of his familiar voice. “Gabe. I’m so glad you found me.”
“Who wouldn’t find you? Crashing through the trees like a thoughtless pup. The hunter is probably close by too.”
Owen and the other two wolves crashed through the trees behind her, grabbing branches on the closest tree trunks to keep from slamming straight into them.
“Get your hands off of her,” Owen snarled, jumping at Gabe.
Gabe bared his teeth and hissed. “She was shouting for me, idiot.” He glanced around the surrounding thick trees and frowned. “Everyone needs to split up. Fast and quiet.”
“No, that’s why I was looking for you. The collars. The fence. It’s all down.” She pointed at the strangers. “They took out the power station on the island. That’s what that big explosion was.”
Gabe scoffed. “Temporary at best. There’s a back up station.”
“We got both stations,” the male answered. “Power is down for good.”
“And the Rangers will be on their way,” the female added.
“What the hell are Rangers?” Gabe growled.
“They’re soldiers coming to help. We’re all getting off this island tonight,” Clara answered. “We can climb the fence, now.”
Gabe glanced at Clara. “You need to get out of the hunting area. Whether the power is down or not, that asshole is still out looking for a pelt.”
“I know,” Owen said, pulling Clara against his side.
Gabriel turned away from the group. The air shimmered around his body and a large silver wolf replaced his human form. His beautiful coat glistened as he disappeared into the night.
“How did he shift with clothes?” the female asked, her mouth hanging open.
“Our clothes are completely natural. No synthetic fibers,” Clara explained.
“How did I not know that?”
“There’s no time for a mythology lesson. Gabe was right, we have to get out of here too,” Owen said, turning to face Clara. “Do not run from me again. Do you understand?”
She nodded, laying her head against his bare chest. The thump of his heart and the warmth of their magick swirling between them soothed her soul. “Let’s get out of here,” she said.
Owen glanced around, checking his bearings. Having chased Clara into the arms of Gabriel, only thinking about getting her to quiet down, he’d lost his sense of direction.
He looked up at the moon and turned in a circle. With the lights out, the stars were brighter, but his sense of the layout of the island was off. He hadn’t been aware of how much he’d relied on the beach lights to know where they were. The moon had been… over the villa, and low in the sky.
He nodded toward the moon. “The villa is that way. Which makes sense. That’s where Gabe would be headed.”
“What should we do?” the Russian asked, putting his hand on the woman’s back. “We can’t split up.”
“Why not?” Owen held Clara tight to him. “The way we survive is by splitting up.”
“You won’t leave her, and we don’t know the island, so we need you,” he said. “
“But Gabriel said he wanted a pelt,” the woman said. “If there’s even a hunter out there—”
“There’s a hunter.” Owen fixed her with a hard glare. “In two years, I’ve never seen them open the cages unless one of us ended up dead.”
The strangers huddled together and their eyes wandered the surrounding foliage. They’d never been hunted before. They only made a bigger target so close together. Owen looked down at Clara’s head against his chest.
As good as it felt to have her against him, and as much as he wanted to pull her to the ground and make love to her, they shouldn’t be touching, either. They should be spread out. Far apart. Across the enclosure, if they could be. Not in a group, not touching, not close. “Look. We have to keep moving.” He settled Clara in place and walked away from her, away from the villa.
“Why don’t we go back that way?” The Russian pointed in the way Gabe had gone.
“Because that’s the farthest walk to a fence.” He nodded ahead of himself. “This is the shortest.”
Clara clambered after him and the other two wolves followed. Owen tried to jog at a pace that would keep him in front of them, but she kept trying to catch his hand. Every time she’d come close to grabbing him, he’d hurry his pace, and before he knew it, he was running.
The g
round was more uneven up toward the edge of the fence, and he had to slow down to make sure he didn’t misstep.
Clara finally got ahold of his hand and pulled at him. “Owen,” she huffed. “None of us can run that fast.”
“I know.” He squeezed her hand. “We need to stay as far apart as we can.” To the three of them, he hissed, “Be careful here. The ground is unsteady.”
The bushes and trees petered out gradually as they came to the edge of the hunting area. The ground sloped up sharply, in man-made formation, nearly twice as tall as a man. At the crest, the fence began. It was cross-hatched, like the back at the cage, and stretched up for twenty feet, ending in a rounded coil of barbed wire.
Something sank inside him. He’d forgotten the extra precaution at the top. It’d been so long since he’d been anywhere near the fence. Years of hunts had taught him that the fence area was not safe.
He climbed up the hard-packed earth and reached for the bottom of the fence. The last time he’d touched it, he’d passed out from the shock. It had singed the flesh on his hand and he thought it had killed him until he woke up as a wolf.
This time, however, the metal was cold and safe. His fingers coiled through the holes.
Freedom.
A hand on his shoulder stopped him from climbing any farther, and Owen turned around to find the Russian gaping at him.
“Don’t you see that?” Vadik pointed at the top of the fence. “There’s no way we’re going to get over that fence in once piece.”
Owen shrugged the hand off. “Your wolf will heal you from just about anything.”
“But Vadik is in no shape to climb over that barbed wire.” The woman—Andrea—came up behind her boyfriend.
Clara stood beside her, all three of them staring up at the danger on top of the fence.
“Give him a couple of hours, he’ll be fine.” Owen went back to the fence. “In the meantime, Clara and I are getting out of here.”
But her touch stilled him. It always sent electricity pounding through him, not unlike touching that fence, but it also grounded him. He was being reckless.
“We can’t leave them,” she said. “They’re strangers here.”
Owen climbed down the dirt and pulled Clara aside. “Then they have to come with us. It won’t be bad. Just some cuts.”
“Like the ones on his back?” Clara hissed.
“He’ll survive. He’ll be free, and he’ll live.”
“You think.”
“Isn’t that what you told me? When you survived Rossi’s whip? That a wolf’s body was made to withstand anything, and keep on living?”
Her eyes went dark and she looked down at his hand on her arm. She hadn’t ever been angry with him before. And the clearing in front of the fence was no place to have their first fight. Time was the only thing that mattered.
“Okay, you win.” He took a step back toward the woods. “If you won’t climb here, then maybe we can go back to the cag—”
A loud crack tore the air and, seconds later, Andrea loosed an agonizing wail, and Owen felt a hot spray on his back. The acrid tang was unmistakable.
Blood.
Chapter Six
“We have to get into the trees,” Owen shouted.
Clara couldn’t stop staring at Andrea’s upper arm. Blood was everywhere. All over Owen. All over Vadik. The spray had painted her dress as well. The wound was massive, like someone had taken a hatchet and carved out a hunk of the poor woman’s upper arm. The smell of sulfur burnt flesh tinged Clara’s nostrils. Andrea’s cries of pain only lasted a second before she passed out.
To his credit, Andrea’s wounded companion heaved her into his arms like it was nothing. The wolf magick was healing him quickly. That, and the adrenaline of the moment. But there was something else in the Russian’s gaze. A pain so deep it showed in his eyes. He was holding something in. When his companion had been wounded, he hadn’t said a word.
Her gaze was drawn to the female’s arm again and the strange matching tattoos she shared with her male companion. Those tattoos were important, she could feel it, but this wasn’t the time to ask questions. Blood still poured from Andrea’s open wound. Owen was right. They couldn’t stay here. Not if they were in direct sight of the hunter.
Owen directed the Russian’s focus to the tree line and then took off, grabbing her hand and half pulling her down the slope. “Into the trees!”
It was everything Clara could do to keep up with him without stumbling. She’d never run so fast in her life. Her heart hammered her chest. They reached the trees and he didn’t stop.
She hazarded a glance over her shoulder; to her surprise the big Russian wolf had slung Andrea over his shoulder and was keeping pretty good pace behind them.
Another gunshot shattered a young tree just to her left and Clara screeched.
Owen dodged to the right and upped his pace.
Clara’s lungs burned. How was he not dying? Her lungs burned for oxygen. Maybe all those push-ups he and Gabriel did in the cages weren’t just for passing time.
“Owen, find a hollow where we can stop safely for a second,” she panted.
He nodded, but kept running, zigging and zagging through the trees like he was following an invisible path. He was. He and Gabriel knew this area of the island like she knew the gardens outside the villa. He’d been here two years. Had survived seventy-two hunts.
Minutes trailed by, but a third shot never came. Maybe they’d made it out of the hunter’s line of sight. At least for a while.
She was concerned about Andrea’s wound. Something that deep needed a doctor or her to shift immediately so the magick could work faster on stopping the blood flowing from the wound. Which was just what the hunter wanted.
One of them to shift.
Owen squeezed Clara’s hand as they slid down another sandy embankment.
Vadik was only a few yards behind them. He held Andrea to his shoulder with one arm, pain cut across his face like he’d been the one shot. But he held onto her and still made it down the embankment without dropping her. He loved her. Clara could see it plainly in the way he cradled her body. Did it show that much between her and Owen?
The Russian crouched next to Owen and moved Andrea to the ground. The wounded woman moaned and kept her head turned away from the wound. “I need to shift.”
“You can’t,” Owen hissed. “That’s exactly what he wants you to do.”
“She’s losing too much blood too fast.” Vadik ran his hands up his face and took a shuddering breath, almost as if he were in the same physical distress as his companion.
Clara grabbed the bottom of her dress and started ripping. Maybe if they wrapped it, the pressure would give the wolf magick time to close the wound. Her heart ached for Andrea’s distraught companion. The poor man’s eyes were wide and his chest was soaked in the female’s blood.
“We can’t stay here. He’ll find us eventually.” Owen’s body tensed against hers.
“We’re going to wrap her arm and then go. She’s going to die.”
He growled, but she kept ripping until she had a strip long enough to wrap around the female’s arm several times.
The Russian held out his hand. “Thank you.”
Clara nodded and gave him the fabric.
He wrapped it around the terrible wound. The beige linen stained red immediately. The shot had to have nicked an artery. A flesh wound wouldn’t continue to bleed this long. Not on a wolf. This kind of wound left untreated could kill her and would never heal completely. The cartridge had taken too much flesh with it.
Andrea was shaking and pale. She’d never make a run across the island. Her blue eyes met Clara’s gaze and she frowned. “You have to leave me.”
“No.” Vadik tied off the tourniquet. “I’ll carry her.”
“Fine.” Owen stood, grabbing Clara’s hand again. She didn’t have a chance to speak, before he was pulling her along through the trees. Her lungs burned again in seconds. The break hadn’t been long
enough. There was no way they could keep this up. How had he and Gabriel handled this?
“He’s too loud carrying her,” Owen snarled, jerking her between a copse of trees.
A shot rang out, and she fought not to freeze as panic closed over her lungs like an iron fist squeezing her throat. The hunter was going to keep shooting until they shifted. Until they had no choice.
“We can’t run fast enough in human form.”
“Don’t you dare shift.” Owen tightened his hold on her hand and they dashed up a slight hill. The underbrush was thicker, better for camouflage, but worse for running.
Crack!
Clara whimpered as pain seared across her thigh. She stumbled and Owen whirled, scooping her up into his arms without breaking stride.
Crack!
Tree bark exploded next to Owen’s head just as he cut between a pair of large palms.
“Put me down. I can run. It barely grazed me.”
He slid down another embankment and let her roll to the ground, looking back up with wide, white eyes. “These hunters are usually more accurate. He’s playing with us.”
Vadik slid into view a few seconds later, Andrea still clutched tightly to his shoulder, but the big guy was breathing hard. “This isn’t working. We can’t just keep running,” he rumbled and glared at Owen expectantly.
Clara held her breath and waited for the next shot, but it didn’t come. She pulled on Owen’s arm. “Are we safe?”
Owen’s pulse thudded in his ears as he looked around the dark, silent forest. He thought he knew where they were, but they’d been running so fast, he wasn’t convinced he was reading the signs right. “This place is only visible from the other side. There’s no high ground high enough.” He slipped his fingers along Clara’s flesh and pulled her into him. “We’re not safe forever, though. He knows we’re here. He’ll be on the move.”
“The bleeding isn’t stopping.” Vadik looked up from his examination of Andrea’s wounds, his features tense in the low light. “And she won’t make it over the fence.”
“We can’t go back to the fence, anyway. He’ll see us.”
Clara sank to her knees beside the black-haired woman and examined the wound. Her fingers came away soaked in blood. “We have to go back to the cages.”
Broken Wolf: Moonbound Series, Book Seven Page 17