young wolf. We’ve all been taking a walk, getting to know one another.”

“Running, more like,” one of the pack sneered.

Another said, “Guess what we were running after?”

“Long pig,” someone laughed, and Kevin swallowed against the bile in his throat.

“You bitch…” he whispered and squeezed off a shot, the gun bucking in his hands.

Freki’s hand moved faster than he could follow, but suddenly the bullet was in it. She dropped it.

Determined, he cocked the gun and fired again, but Freki moved subtlety, catching that one as well before

it could penetrate the companion beside her. She dropped the crumpled bullet to the floor. “That’s rather

rude, Kevin, considering we didn’t catch her. Your little blind scamp of a sister managed to elude us

somewhere down by the river. Imagine that. She’s more resourceful than we thought.”

Kevin tried to fire the gun a third time, but it jammed. Rage made him throw the useless weapon aside and

start down the stairs toward Freki, but he stopped when several of the pack growled at him. He couldn’t

possibly take them all; there were seven big, muscular, naked guys waiting to rip him apart. He didn’t like

his odds and stopped dead in his tracks.

“Here’s the deal,” said Freki. “It’s simple, really. You run. We chase you. If you find your sister and

manage to get out of these woods alive, you both can go free. But if we catch you, you return to the pack.”

“And be your prisoner,” Kevin added.

Freki made a “What can you do?” gesture. “Deal or no deal?”

What choice did he have, really?

“This isn’t over,” he said.

Freki smiled winningly with her lipstick-red lips. “I dare say I wouldn’t have it any other way, little pup.”

“Let me through,” Kevin said, and the others parted for him.

He ran.

***

Chapter Twenty-Seven

As soon as he hit the deep woods, Kevin stripped, hung the Wolfsbane medallion around his neck, and

quickly shifted, trusting that his thick fur would protect him from the worse effects of the Wolfsbane. He

took off running, breathing in huge gulps of cold mountain air in the hopes of picking up Hannah’s scent.

It was cooler in the mountains today, with a clingy, low-lying mist. He sniffed, but all he smelled was

forest and wolf. Behind him, several of the pack members began to howl as they shifted. It was a hunting

song they sang, except that instead of an elk as the object of their hunger, he was hunted. His heart pumped

and his mind buzzed with panic. The wolf in him wanted to run as fast as he could, as far away as he

could, and take shelter, but he knew that was selfish. The wolf’s selfish desire to save itself. He had to

find his sister!

He cut through the trees, staying away from vales and clearings, using the deep woods as his cover. It

would not be wise to be caught out in the open until nightfall—and even then, he had to be especially

careful. Wolves were nocturnal creatures, their sight far more keen than humans.

His sharp hearing picked up on the others racing through the trees behind him. He had a considerable head

start, but they, unfortunately, already had his scent. It wouldn’t take them long to catch up. He headed

toward the smell of water, the river. Freki said they’d lost Hannah there. Werewolves were far better at

tracking prey than even bloodhounds, but even a werewolf couldn’t follow a scent if someone was using

water to disguise it, and Hannah, he knew, was far smarter and more resourceful than Freki gave her

credit for. His sister had never been what you would call helpless. Born blind, she’d learned how to

swim and ride a horse. She could do anything she set her mind to.

He raced through tunnels of overhanging trees until he heard the rush of water just ahead. A few moments

later he broke from the tree line and found himself standing on the edge of the creek that ran into the lake

behind Jolene’s cabin, a few miles to the west of here. Nose down, he started following the river, hoping

to catch a scent of Hannah or Matthew.

Freki and her boys bayed in the distance. They sounded closer than they had when Kevin had begun. Panic

shivered through his body, but Kevin told himself to calm down, to concentrate on following the river. He

couldn’t afford to panic now.

Moments later, a familiar scent caught his attention. It came from just over the hill and it smelled human.

He raced along the riverbank, following the scent to what looked like a pile of torn clothing. He whined

in frustration. The whole area smelled like wolf and blood and death, like a kerfuffle had taken place. He

almost retched at the sight of the blood in the grass. He could not tell if the remains were male or female;

they had been almost completely consumed. All he found were a few broken bones scraped clean of meat.

He nosed the horrid remains, the shredded fabric, but could make nothing of them. Hannah and Matthew

spent a lot of time together; they basically smelled like each other.

The horror was too much. Kevin snorted in fear and rage. He cried out into the forest, even knowing it

would lure the others to him like a magnet. He howled long and loud, singing a song of rage and revenge.

He wanted them to feel his outrage. He wanted them to know what he would do to them for this crime.

The pack called back, a laughing howl of victory, taunting him.

I’ll kill them, he thought. I’ll kill them all!

Snarling, he almost turned back to face them, even knowing it would cost him his life, but then good sense

prevailed and he decided to keep moving. Maybe the remains weren’t Hannah’s. Maybe she was still

alive. If she was, he couldn’t afford to lose his lead. She might need him. He raced back to the river,

splashing through the shallow creek water periodically to mask his scent, but the pack never seemed very

far off.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later, just as the last light of day was fading, he heard a human cry for the first

time. He raced ahead, his eyes picking out a slim figure thrashing in the river and clinging with all her

strength to a tree trunk lying lengthwise across the white rapids like an improvised bridge. His heart

swelled with hope and he dashed across the bridge.

“Help me!” he heard Hannah cry even before he saw her fear-stricken face. Kevin’s heart soared at the

sight. She was soaking wet, her hair plastered to her face, and she had both arms wrapped around the

trunk but was quickly losing purchase as her grip slipped on the slick log. He had no idea how she

managed to survive blind in the woods thus far, but he wasn’t surprised in the least by her gumption.

“Please help me!”

He immediately shifted back to human and said, “Hannah! It’s me. Hold on!”

“Kev…are you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here, sis,” he said and dived into the shocking cold water. The rapids immediately tried to

grab him and fling him downriver, back toward the pack, but he fought hard to swim against it. He’d