AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Kayla was struggling to open the window. “It’s stuck.”
“They have to be in one of the bedrooms sound asleep.” The male housebreaker’s voice was hushed.
Frustration etched in her brow, Kayla was still struggling to open the window. It probably hadn’t been opened in years. Nate hurried to join her and helped yank it free and pull the window up. Of course it had to creak and groan.
He helped Kayla onto the windowsill. They were already naked, so there was no sense in trying to get dressed and run through the woods as humans. They could run much more easily, faster,and farther as wolves, and if the people who broke in came after them, they’d be looking for humans, not wolves. Kayla jumped to the ground below the window.
“You hide in the woods. I’m going to puncture all of the vehicles’ tires, and then I’ll join you.” He quickly followed her through the window.
“I’ll help you.”
Someone twisted their bedroom doorknob and found it locked.
“All right.” Nate didn’t really want her to be exposed to any more danger than she had to be, but he knew when her mind was made up, she wouldn’t change it. Not if she felt she could help him and keephimsafe.
Both of them shifted into their wolves. Then they carefully moved around the cabin to make sure no one was by the strangers’ vehicle—a blue Ford pickup. It was Randy’s truck, the man Nate had interviewed about his friend Phil going missing. Then Nate smelled Randy, Everest, Ann, and Sarah’s scents out here too.
Nate bit into the driver’s side tire on the pickup, and Kayla attacked the rear tire behind it. They peered around the back of the truck to see if anyone was watching it, but everyone involved in the break-in must have gone inside the cabin.
Nate and Kayla raced around the truck to bite the other tires, and then Nate went after his ownvan tires. He hated to do that to his brand-new van’s tires, but his keys were sitting with his phone in the living room, and the housebreakers could very well steal his van, especially once they learned they couldn’t leave here in Randy’s truck. Not without changing out all the tires. Nate began biting his van’s tires, and then Kayla got the rest of them. He was glad she’d helped, and they’d finished the task more quickly.
Afterward, they tore off into the woods, but both of them glanced back at the cabin and saw a man peer out the window. “Hell, they climbed out the window,” Everest said.
“Are you sure they’re not just hiding?” Randy sounded irritated with his friend.
“I checked already. They’re not anywhere in the bedroom, and the window’s open wide enough for them to climb out of it. Come on, let’s get them. We have to stop them before they alert anyone,” Everest said.
Nate had considered closing the window, but opening it made so much noise and the housebreakers had already gained access to the house, so he hadn’t wanted to alert them to what he and Kayla had been doing at the time.
“You said we’d have them right where we wanted them,” Randy said.
What in the hell were Phil’s friends doing here?
The news. It was on the news that Nate and Kaylawere staying at the cabin. But why would Everest and his cohorts be after them? Unless Phil’s friends had something to do with Durham Manning’s murder or Phil’s disappearance and they believed Nate and Kayla knew something about it.
For now, Nate just needed to get Kayla safely to the closest home he could reach, which was Darien and Lelandi’s place. Then they’d have Peter and a ton of wolves arrest the housebreakers.
Kayla seemed to have the same notion in mind and kept running with him in the direction of the pack leaders’ house, which was located out of town in the country.
After a while, she slowed down her run, and Nate did too. The men looking for them would never find them, and Nate and Kayla needed to conserve their energy. But he sure wanted to take the men down himself for coming after him and Kayla and forcing him to ruin his tires.
He brushed against Kayla, letting her know he wanted to detour to the river. She nuzzled him and turned in that direction. They needed to drink. He was feeling parched, and Kayla had to be too. They finally reached the river and drank their fill.
For a moment, they just stood there together, sharing the space, and he loved her so much. But he felt awful that he’d dragged her into all this, just because he’d been working on this case and then they found the body and it was reported in the news.
She nipped his face and turned and headed back into the woods and loped toward the pack leaders’ house again, but then she paused. She lifted her chin and howled.
She was right to call on their pack. He howled too. Their howls warned of trouble, and it wasn’t long before they heard howls in return. Some of their pack members had heard them and would be there to help them. Good.
They kept running until they ran into Darien, Tom, and Jake racing toward them in their wolf coats, and Nate quickly shifted to tell them what was going on. “Men broke into our cabin and were coming after us, maybe because we were on the news for finding the dead body. I recognized a man by the name of Everest, who I had spoken to about another case—a missing man from Green Valley. Another man who was speaking was Randy, and the truck belongs to him. I smelled the scents of their girlfriends Sarah and Ann too.”
Darien shifted. “Hell. All right. We’ll go to my place, and we’ll call up the forces to take them into custody. Let’s go.”
They shifted and headed off to the pack leaders’ house, and once they were there, Lelandi got Kayla and Nate something to wear.
Once everyone was dressed, Tom and Jake began calling Peter and others to rally a group of deputies to arrest the people who had broken into the cabin.
“Just don’t alert them beforehand that we’re coming to arrest them,” Darien said. “We don’t want them getting away.”
