“Shoot him, Cole!” Everett yelled.
“I’m trying! The gun’s jammed!”
Fucking fantastic, and Cole was a wolf, not a hunter. He wouldn’t know what to do to get it working again.
Cole apparently decided to abandon the gun and just reach around for another weapon to use. Everett clenched his teeth. Not only was it dangerous for Cole to be blindly handling weapons like that, loaded weapons on top of everything else, but there was nothing else in there that he could shoot with one hand like the Glock.
“Just hang on!” Everett yelled behind him.
Thankfully Cole did as he was told again and wrapped both of his arms around Everett’s chest and held on, right in time before Everett ran over a particularly gnarled tree root that jarred the entire vehicle and sent their bag of weapons flying out from between Everett’s feet and off of their four-wheeler.
“God fucking damn it!” he yelled. It was difficult to fight the urge to not turn around and get the guns, but the giant wolf was still on their trail.
He had to perform another sharp turn to prevent the wolf from catching them, and they zoomed down a hill at speeds he hadn’t thought were possible.
They were slapped in the face with branches and leaves that were outstretched in their path. This area of the woods was so dense that his only hope was that he was throwing off the wolf a little, even if the giant monster would still be able to smell them and hear the roaring of the engine.
The wolf didn’t slow down at all. When they made it out of the thicket, it was still behind them and as close as ever.
“I can fight him!” Cole yelled.
“Don’t even think about it!” Everett fired back, turning his head to try at look into Cole’s face. His eyes were gold, and he was itching to go over there and fight the werewolf who was attempting to kill the both of them. Maybe it was an alpha thing, but Everett didn’t care. Cole would die if he tried to take on a creature that size.
Cole glared back at him, but then his eyes widened and mouth dropped as he looked ahead.
Everett turned back to face where they were going just in time to duck out of the way of a long, low, and thick tree branch that was coming their way. He and Cole managed to avoid getting hit, but he still felt the way the hairs on the top of his head flew back as the branch sailed by.
The crash and snapping sound of wood said that the wolf hadn’t been so lucky. Everett had learned his lesson and wasn’t about to take his eyes away from the direction they were going in to check on what had happened.
He didn’t care what happened to that other wolf. He only hoped that the wolf knocked itself out and now couldn’t follow them while Everett tried to get both him and Cole back to Cole’s pack in one piece.
After moving several yards with no hungry snarls following behind, against his better judgment, Everett slowed the four-wheeler to a stop to see what was going on, but he didn’t turn the engine off.
The large white body shifted, and then Luke wobbly got back to his feet, or paws, whatever. He shook himself off, dust and leaves and hair flying around as he did so, and his angry eyes locked back onto his targets.
“Fuck,” Cole said.
“Is it normal for a wolf to be that big and that strong?” Everett said, setting them both back into motion once more.
“No fucking clue. Faster!”
Everett could hear the trees themselves snapping and breaking behind him. He glanced into the rearview mirror briefly, and his heart rate shot straight up at the sight of the wolf actually breaking through the trees.
It was coming for them, and it wasn’t about to be stopped.
Everett wished he could’ve done better. His only comfort was the fact that Cole was also a werewolf and that he was the one most likely to survive what would happen when that wolf behind them sank its teeth into them.
He reached up to where Cole’s hands were grasping at his jacket. He spoke in a low voice to keep Cole from hearing him and knowing that he was pretty much giving up on their chances to get away. “Love you, baby. You were the best.”
Another howl sounded from not too far away, and Cole gripped his hand back.
Chapter Twelve
A group of what could be no less than two dozen wolves, and there was likely more than that, flooded through the trees and allowed Everett to pass right by them.
More wolves were not what he needed.
“Everett, stop! That’s my pack!”
Everett fishtailed the four-wheeler to a stop. The move practically turned them both right around, and it was just in time to watch each and every one of those wolves, werewolves, jump onto the large wolf’s back.
Only now that the other wolves were around did Everett have something to compare the sizes to, and Luke was still huge. He four times the size of one of their midsized wolves, but the other wolves had numbers on their side. Luke could only snarl and roll and attempt to scratch them off like they were fleas or something.
Cole jumped off the back of the four-wheeler and ran into the fight.
“Cole!” Everett got off and ran with him. Cole was faster than he was, however, even as he kicked off his pants and pulled the shirt over his head at the same time.
“Cole, come back here!”
Two wolves jumped out from seemingly nowhere and stepped into Everett’s path. Their lips were pulled back in ferocious snarls that showcased their teeth.
He put his hands up and stepped back. “All right, okay. I wasn’t going to hurt him.”
He looked up and watched Cole shift into the red-brown wolf that matched his hair and eyes within seconds, and he jumped into fighting.
It
