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But then she realized she had a problem. She was feeling the urge to shift.No, no, no!
She wanted to hurry back to the cabin now! She needed to make sure she didn’t run into Phil or any of his friends when she shifted, though they might not be able to see her in the dark. Not unless they moved their flashlights in her direction.
She licked Nate’s face and then began to lope for the cabin, listening to the sounds of anyone moving about in the woods. Nate was running with her, sticking close to her to protect her.
Phil was the unknown quantity, as far as where he was located right now. Though Randy and Everest’s girlfriends might be out here too. But Kayla didn’t figure they would be out here on their own. They would most likely have come with the guys.
The urge to shift hit Kayla again, and this time she couldn’t stop it. She felt the heat filling her, and she wanted to hold off so badly, but she couldn’t. The next thing she knew, she was a naked human, trying to get to the cabin as fast as she could.
“Don’t you dare shift,” she whispered in warning to Nate. If she ran into someone and she was naked, wandering through the brush, she wanted Nate to be a wolf and he could protect her.
He woofed at her. She loved how he was so agreeable when she wanted to do this her way.
She still wanted to tell Nate right away that Phil was in on all of this and the whole gang of his friends were armed robbers and that Phil had killed Manning. But for now, she just had to get back to the cabin without running into any of these men.
She was running as fast as she could without hurting herself and trying to watch out for the men when they grew quiet. She didn’t like the silence. Except for the cicadas making their noisy tune, frogs riveting, and crickets singing that filled the night with song—those were welcome sounds. The ones the humans who were a danger to her were making? Those were eerily silent.
Nate ran ahead of her and to the sides, circling her, making sure no one was getting close to her. She so loved her wolf. She heard a twig snap, and she whipped around, saw a flashlight, and ducked down behind a fallen tree.
Nate quickly joined her and nuzzled against her, her hero, keeping her warm, telling her he would keep her safe. But the person moved toward her as if he knew she was there and he would soon see her. He was getting too close. She moved down lower. But Nate stood up, and she knew that when the flashlight hit his eyes, they would be fluorescent, a glow that could be scary to a human. But she also worried the man would most likely be armed.
She couldn’t look. She was leaning down on her hands and knees, her head down, hiding behind the tree trunk. She didn’t know if it was Phil or one of the other men. The wind was blowing in the wrong direction to share his scent with her.
Then Nate growled softly.No, no, no!She knew he was going to attack the man. She didn’t want him getting shot. But Nate leapt over the tree, and she looked. She had to. She had to rescue her mate if the man shot Nate.
Nate ran so fast the man didn’t have time to get a shot off. Nate lunged at him, knocking him down, and the shot went wild, hitting a tree nearby. Then Nate grabbed the gun in his teeth and raced to rejoin Kayla, but she was naked, for heaven’s sake, and she knew he wanted her to run with him back to the cabin. But the guy would see her!
Then she looked more closely at the figure, and he wasn’t moving. Either playing dead, just knocked out, or really dead?
She made her move to run to the cabin with her wolf, so proud of him. But the gunshot had made the others head in that direction, and she was afraid they’d run into them.
She had hoped everyone would take off the other way. That’s normally what she would do, but of course as a wolf, gunfire wasn’t something she took lightly. She wished she was a wolf with all her beingso she could run faster, lower to the ground, unseen in the dark.
She couldn’t let them find her. She just couldn’t. She didn’t want Nate to be put in the position of rescuing her against all the others. She didn’t think he’d win. Together, if they were both wolves, the two of them could take care of the robbers, though they didn’t want to kill anyone. But if they were given no choice…
The cabin was finally in sight, and she heard the men calling out, “Damn, it’s Phil! Over here, Randy! He’s been knocked out.” Their voices traveled through the woods because they were talking so loudly, and her enhanced wolf hearing certainly helped her hear them.
“Where’s his gun?” Everest asked.
“He doesn’t have one, but the other guy sure did. Hell, if I had known someone else was out here shooting, I would have gone the other way,” Gerald said.
“Hell, you always run the other way. I don’t know why you’re even part of this,” Everest said.
“Because we’ve always been friends. Damn it. And I’m the best getaway driver there is. Besides, I’m the one who actually got Durham Manning to agree to go along with this after Phil tried to convince him because Manning liked my uncle and me. He didn’t trust all of you. Now I can see why. Well, I mean—” Gerald stopped speaking, as if he realizedhe had said too much. That maybe Phil would want to get rid of him next. He changed the subject. “Whoever it was really knocked Phil out cold.”
Good news on Phil being knocked out though. Maybe it would give the sheriff enough time to reach them before the men got out of there. Unfortunately, Phil and his friends weren’t too far from the cabin—which meant they might end up there again.
Someone groaned, and she suspected Phil was coming to. Too bad. At least no one was coming after her and Nate, who was sticking close to her, keeping her safe in case anyone else tried to shoot at her.
“Hey, Phil, who shot at you?” Randy asked.
“What? Hell, I shot at a wolf. It attacked me. Oh, God, my head hurts.” Then Phil didn’t say anything for a moment. “Where’s my gun?” He sounded panicked, like he could be all tough when he was carrying a gun, but without it? He was a coward. But the bad news was that he was probably alert enough to leave the area now.
“We didn’t find any,” Randy said. “Don’t tell me it’s the one you used on Manning.”
“Look for it, damn it. It’s got to be around here somewhere.” Phil didn’t deny he’d killed their friend with it.
Kayla realized then that when Peter had checked Everest’s and the other friends’ guns out, they hadn’t been the ones used to kill Manning. She thought about the glass windows being shot out atthe jewelry stores. Bullets and shell casings would have been left at the scenes. So the guns must not have been used at those crime scenes or ballistics would have proven they had been.
