Christ. Now what the hell was he supposed to do? He doubted calling to Adam would do anything, even if the man wasn’t unconscious, because he’d had the better part of his arm cut off.
The wolf then did something that Everett wasn’t entirely expecting, even though he had suspected it to be a werewolf. It shifted into a man.
The light-brown hair wasn’t long, but the strands fell into the guy’s face. His hazel eyes were intense as he stared at Everett.
Everett looked at him and out of habit tried to classify what sort of wolf this man could be. An omega wouldn’t have attacked a group of hunters like this and successfully killed two of them, Everett was sure, but the gaunt look to the man suggested anything but alpha.
Everett swallowed when the man didn’t say anything. “Are you wild?”
The man’s head jerked back, and then he looked over his shoulder at Cole, as though remembering he was there. “We need to help him.”
Everett hadn’t expected the man to be able to talk. Could wild werewolves talk? He tried to remember the conversations he and Cole had about the subject, but at the moment his memory was failing him.
Whatever. He didn’t care. Wild werewolf or not, the guy was offering him help. “Untie me. Get these ropes off my hands.”
The man looked at him through narrowed eyes as he leaned down to examine Cole’s wounds. “Are you a hunter?”
He couldn’t get into the specifics of this right now. This man might not even understand, or care, if he tried to explain himself as a former hunter. “No, I’m his partner. His mate. We’re mated,” he said, using the word that the werewolf should know best.
His eyes didn’t go wide in shock or anything, and Everett was more than happy when the guy accepted that claim without arguing about it.
“Okay.”
With a single swipe of his hand, the werewolf was able to get his ropes cut away. It killed Everett a little that the man was able to do it so easily, and all that time Everett had been forced to stand there while Cole was being brutally tortured.
He rushed to his lover and dropped to his knees. “Baby?”
He hesitated to touch his face to move his neck at first. Then he remembered that neither Luke nor Dan had actually broken any of Cole’s bones or done anything to that area of his body yet, so he was free to touch the clammy skin and feel the quick pulse beneath.
“He’s alive,” the other man said from over Everett’s shoulder.
Everett bit the inside of his lip and clenched his neck. “Thank you. I can see that.”
“My name is Phillip, by the way.”
This guy had definitely lost his mind. Everett so didn’t care. “Nice to meet you. And thanks,” he added quickly. He did owe the guy at least that.
Phillip nodded. “What should I do?”
Everett was busy trying to pull the pikes out of the ground. They were long and had to be hammered in, and he was having some trouble.
He pulled back with a huff. “Can you pull this out?”
Phillip came forward and grabbed the pikes. He had to use some effort on each one, but he managed to get them out of the ground one by one, and the large chain links that had been attached slid right off, freeing Cole.
With the chains out of the way, it was easier to see the extent of the damage.
“Jesus Christ,” Everett muttered, shrugging out of his jacket. He used it to give Cole some of his modesty back and to cover up the wounds until some basic first aid supplies could be retrieved for him.
“The smell of blood is all over the place here. Animals will arrive soon.”
Great. Everett pushed Cole’s hair out of his face, and then he looked up toward the tent. Adam was in there, but he was still unconscious, as far as Everett knew, and he wanted to put Cole on a bed.
Stealing the cot of a man who’d recently had his arm chopped off seemed pretty tame compared to what Dan and Luke had been doing a few minutes ago.
That, and the first aid supplies were in there.
He gingerly put his hands under Cole’s body and lifted him into the air.
Cole twitched in his hold, and maybe he wasn’t quite as deeply under as Everett had thought since he started talking in a small, panicking voice. “No…no…”
“It’s me, baby. I got you. It’s me.”
Cole wasn’t able to really fight him, and the only movement he made were the shivers and twitches that passed through his body. Likely he was fighting off his attackers in whatever nightmare he was having. Everett just wished Cole could hear his voice so he would know it was over.
“I’m going to get you some help. Don’t you worry.”
The three of them entered the tent. It was large enough to fit the lot of them, barely, and they only had to duck down slightly once inside.
There were actually two cots set up, the one Adam was recovering in and another one two feet away on the other side of the tent. The medical supplies were right in the middle of the cots.
He didn’t want Adam in here. The guy looked pale as a ghost, but he was still alive. He could tell by the way the man’s chest went up and down. Everett didn’t want to risk that Adam woke up suddenly, grabbed a gun or something, and decided to shoot Everett in the back of the head while he was busy tending to his lover.
He turned to Phillip. “Can you get him out of here?”
Phillip nodded and walked around him. He grabbed Adam’s cot with one hand by the metal frame at his feet and then started to easily drag it away. He left the tent with the cot.
“Don’t kill him!” Everett called after the man.
Phillip came back in seconds later. “Why
