Cole shivered. Suddenly, the whole not actively killing anyone didn’t look so much better.
“Were they wild werewolves?”
“Does it matter?” Everett asked.
“Actually, it does. Wild werewolves can be as dangerous as the hunters paint us to be. They’re the reason why hunters even exist. A wild werewolf will attack someone’s farm and rip everyone to pieces in a blind rage, and the farmer who survived will blame all werewolves for that. They’ll go out killing normal werewolves for revenge, thinking they’re all the same when they’re not.”
He gave Everett a minute to let that sink in. He did seem to be thinking very deeply about it.
“Did you notice if any of the shifters you captured, while they were in human form, did any of them appear normal to you?”
Everett shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. You said that you were forcibly changed by a werewolf. I doubt that left you exactly normal in the beginning either.”
Cole had to give him that. He had nearly gone wild and was at least half-crazed by the time he and the others finally managed to track down James DeWitt and his pack of werewolves.
“See? What does it matter if the shifters we killed were wild when they could’ve had the chance to recover?”
“Some don’t want to recover. That’s part of the thing about being wild. Some shifters genuinely do go on a power trip, and they hurt people because they like it. I’m not saying that all the shifters you captured would’ve deserved to die, but if they were wild, then at least it wouldn’t’ve been like you had someone screaming at you that they didn’t do anything wrong. If the wolves you killed were wild, then the chances are you saved more lives than you helped to take.”
Everett still looked unconvinced. Maybe that was a testament to his character, that he wouldn’t so easily release himself from any blame.
“You’re not going to forgive yourself, are you?” Cole asked.
“I think that would be the least amount of punishment I could get for the things I’ve done.”
There was more that Cole wanted to ask, but he became silent. This one conversation alone was depressing enough, and the fire had burned down to smoking embers. They were both cold, and the stars were out.
“Maybe we should get some sleep,” he said, unable to bring himself to say anything else.
“Yeah, we need the early start.”
Everett started kicking sand over their fire, putting it out with little smoke.
They’d found some dry grass and leaves and managed to make a somewhat decent bed for themselves out of them.
“We’ll have to get up extra early to keep the morning dew from soaking us,” Everett said as he got down on their bed.
Likely the other man was thinking about how uncomfortable his clothes had been earlier today when Cole had pressed him down into the damp soil and grass and kissed him.
He didn’t want his clothes getting wet before travel either. “Agreed.”
“Right, good night,” Everett said.
Cole could hardly believe him as he turned onto his side, folded his arms, and shut his eyes.
Seriously? Was Everett that upset about their conversation that he thought Cole wouldn’t want to sleep with him? He would freeze lying there all alone.
He was going to have to put a stop to that way of thinking.
Cole lay down and shifted himself closer to the other man. Everett didn’t show any outward signs of surprise, but Cole felt the way his heart picked up when Cole spooned up behind him.
Cole wrapped his arms around his lover and pressed a kiss to his neck. He felt it when Everett reached his hand down to take hold of Cole’s, and their fingers interlocked together before they both fell asleep.
* * * *
Everett woke up to the darkness and someone gently shaking his shoulder.
He’d gotten used to sleeping lightly lately, so it was easy for him to come out of his daze and realize that it was Cole next to him, right where he should be, who was doing that.
He woke up and tried to look at him, but there was no moon in the sky, and his night vision was shit. “What is it?” he whispered.
“Hunters,” Cole whispered back. “I can hear their footsteps.”
Everett quickly, and as silently as he could, got to his feet, along with Cole. They’d purposely kept everything packed in their bags in case this would happen and they needed to make a fast escape.
Now was the time for that.
Once he was up, he could see the beams of light from flashlights through the trees, and they were getting closer.
“Come on.” Cole grabbed his hand after Everett strapped their bag of supplies to his back, and they started the awkward process of ducking and running at the same time down the rocky beach.
The smooth stones crunched under their feet, but there was nothing they could do about that except hope the others wouldn’t hear them. That wouldn’t matter in a minute when those men found the bed of leaves that he and Cole had been sleeping on, as well as the fire pit they’d made.
Luke, Adam, and Dan, the men Everett used to work with, who were all after his and Cole’s head at this point, would see all of that and know their prey wasn’t too far ahead.
They just kept on ducking and running until they were far enough away from the campsite, and the men closing in on it, to get back into the trees.
Those men didn’t have hunting dogs with them, but they would still be expecting Everett and Cole to be running in the water to slow down any tracking.
Getting back into the woods was the only way. It would offer them cover and more places to hide. They just had to stay ahead of their enemy.
Everett had liked to think
