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Tandor arrived a few seconds later, his expression equally disbelieving. “We should have known it was a trap. We are better hunters than this.”
They spun around together and headed back up the hill, but the loose rocks were even harder to climb than to descend.
“How far away is she now?” Jobek panted out when they finally reached the top.
“I can barely sense her,” Tandor admitted.
Accepting the news with a tense nod, Jobek took a deep breath and asked, “Where to?”
Tandor paused to read their surroundings, then motioned in the direction they should go.
* * *
Ansley jogged along the narrow animal trail unable to hold back her grin. On her back was a small daypack containing a change of clothing, a wad of cash, the new human IDs, and the quilted pouch around which this entire adventure centered. Leaving the majority of her supplies behind was a risk, but if everything went as planned, she would be in Sitka come nightfall. If not, she would circle back around and retrieve whatever she needed.
Unless the hunters confiscated your supplies.
Ignoring the pessimistic thought, Ansley ran faster.
But the hunters’ images lingered in her mind. She’d been close enough to get a reasonable look at both of them. One had shaggy brown hair with vivid red streaks. He was lean and masculine without looking brutish. The other one was tall and thickly muscled, aggression personified. Though his jet-black hair was tightly bound it fell to below his shoulders. Even from a distance she could see the flash of his dark eyes. His chiseled jawline made him look even more dangerous.
She found them interesting, undeniably attractive, but she couldn’t let that fact distract her. She had a job to do and it hinged on eluding those two as long as possible. It would be nearly impossible to hop onto the supply boat and leave the island unless she lost these two, preferably on the other side of the island from the dock.
Legs pumping determinedly, Ansley ran down one hill and up the next. She jogged along a creek, following the irregular serpentine. She used the shallow water to hide her tracks until the stream dropped off sharply becoming a waterfall.
She could hear them in the distance crashing through the underbrush and snapping off tree limbs. The temptation to pause and look back was nearly overwhelming, but she forced herself to keep going. She had climbed down the waterfall once, but it was time-consuming and dangerous. Instead, she leapt over the creek and sprinted across the grassy clearing on the other side.
Deep in the grove of trees on the far side of the clearing, she located a tree she’d been climbing since childhood. The tree was massive and appeared to be thriving, but the trunk had split at the base at least a decade ago. The tree leaned against a rock wall, which was the only reason it was still vertical.
Ansley paused and sucked in a deep, steadying breath. What she was about to do was dangerous but it was also familiar. She had long ago mapped out a course that took her to the top of the rock wall while maintaining the balance needed to keep the tree from crashing to the ground.
She quickly turned the daypack around so it hugged her front. It would be easier to keep track of that way. A muffled shout urged her onward, so she scrambled up the tree. Choosing only the limbs she knew could bear her weight, she made her way from limb to limb as quickly as possible. She needed to cross another clearing and run down a grassy slope before the hunters came into view. Dozens of sea caves ran along the shoreline on this side of the island. It would take the hunters hours to search all of them. Meanwhile, she would hightail it over to the dock and hitch a ride into Sitka.
But the ploy would only work if they didn’t see where she went.
Fueled by determination and the realization that it was now or never, she climbed faster. She planted her right foot and started to shift her weight when the limb let out an ominous crack. Quickly adjusting her stance, she braced her left foot a millisecond before the damaged limb gave way beneath her right.
Damn it. The limb ricocheted all the way to the ground, creating a large hole in her climbing pattern. She looked around frantically, but saw no obvious solution.
“We’ve got you now, little rabbit,” the smaller hunter said from below.
She glared down at him but refused to give up. Reaching up with both hands, she grasped the only branch remaining above her head. Her heart pounded in her chest as she awkwardly leveraged herself upward. Her foot found the rock wall but couldn’t find any sort of ledge or hole and the angle was wrong for her to pull her body all the way up. She was trapped!
Suddenly two large hands closed around her wrists. She cried out in shock and looked up into the endless blackness of the larger hunter’s eyes. “How did you…?” The only other way to reach the top of this ridge was a winding path that took a least an hour. What the actual hell?
He hauled her up as if she weighed nothing. Her feet found the ground and her eyes widened. From a distance it had been obvious that the man was big, but holy shit. Her head would easily tuck beneath his chin and his shoulders would span most doorways.
He momentarily released her so he could whip the poncho off over her head. “Very clever. We wondered how you were avoiding our scans.” He pulled her daypack away from her chest and disentangled her arms from the straps. “Did you honestly think you could get away?” Challenge and menace combined in his tone, sending a shiver down her spine.
Before she could answer, the other huntermaterialized, clearly deposited on the hilltop by some sort of molecular transference.
“That’s cheating.”
“I did not realize there were rules,” the smaller one said, his lips curving into a lazy smile.
They both spoke English with a heavy accent. It sounded faintly Slavic, but Ansley knew it originated much, much farther away. She looked around as helplessness welled inside her. They stood at the edge of the final clearing. The sea caves were visible in the distance. She had been so damn close.
The huge hunter suddenly pulled her against his body and wrapped his arms around her back. It was the only warning she got before reality blurred and then faded to black. She didn’t even have time to scream. The sucking sensation robbed her of breath and paralyzed her with fear. Luckily, it only lasted a moment. Next came nausea. She clasped a hand over her mouth and blinked her eyes open as she realized that the physical world had returned. The sickening rush dissipated as quickly as it overtook her, so she inhaled deeply and struggled to stay on her feet.
