If James came and rescued Cole, he decided that he was going to kidnap Everett, much like Everett was doing to him now, and drag the man back to his pack to keep him. Maybe he would make the guy into his own personal servant. That would be amazing.
He had to shake himself a little and remind himself that this was not the best time in the world to be having these thoughts.
“I never said I was running away from your pack,” Everett said.
That actually threw Cole for a loop. “Uh, who are we running from then?”
Everett looked over his shoulder at him, and then he plated their hotdogs and went back to sit beside Cole, this time on a small stool. “My team.”
Cole’s eyes widened, and he didn’t know why, but his face suddenly went extremely cold as well.
“Relax, all the color just left your skin.” Everett pierced one of the sausages with a fork and lifted it to his mouth, taking a bite. Then he offered it to Cole.
As though he could eat after Everett told him something like that. “Your team? Why would they be hunting us?”
“Because I abandoned them and stole a good portion of their supplies.” Everett nodded to the blankets, bags, and weapons that made up their camp. There wasn’t a whole lot there, and it wasn’t like they had a tent or anything either, and as far as hunters thinking they’d been wronged somehow, well, even for that he just couldn’t see them wanting to chase after Everett for this stuff that much.
Hunters lost their stuff all the time, after all. There had to be something else to this.
Then it hit him. “Is it because you took me?”
Everett nodded. “I bagged my first werewolf and didn’t bring him back to camp with me. They’re going to be pissed.”
“How do you know? I mean, how do you know they’re following us right now?”
“Radio,” Everett answered simply. “I got a call from one of the leaders in charge of the hunt, when they managed to regroup after the attack, and they’d gotten their asses handed to them apparently, and Buddy is dead. He was with us.”
“I figured,” Cole deadpanned.
Everett cleared his throat. “Anyway, they were looking forward to coming back to camp and seeing me there with my catch. Little did they know that I wouldn’t be there and neither would any werewolf for them to torture and kill.”
Everett took another bite of his sausage. Though he was no longer feeling hungry, Cole’s stomach growled loudly.
Everett looked at him and held up his sausage to take a bite again.
Cole turned his face away. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t be stupid. You need to eat something to keep your strength up.”
“What’s the point if I’m going to be chained the entire time anyway? Or drugged?”
Everett’s lips thinned. “I won’t drug you anymore, and the point is so you’ll have enough energy to keep coming with me and maybe to defend yourself if we get attacked.”
Cole gave him a hard look at that last bit.
“I’ll release you if we find ourselves under attack,” Everett clarified. “It’s just that for now I can’t really trust you enough to be wandering around.”
“Wandering around?” Cole said incredulously.
“I don’t know what you’ll do anymore. You’re a werewolf. I don’t know you anymore either.”
“I’m no different than I was the last time you and I saw each other.”
Admittedly, Cole couldn’t really recall when that had been. During the end of their relationship, all he could remember was the stress he felt and how strained every conversation had been.
Cole hadn’t wanted Everett to leave, but the other man was insistent. He wanted to take the new job and leave, saying they could make it work long distance, but Cole knew better, and he could hardly have stopped him from going to work in a different state with better pay. They’d only been dating for three months, it wasn’t right for him to hold the man back.
Then, as a kick in the teeth, not only did Everett not leave right away, but Cole had seen him around with another guy.
Everett seemed determined to ignore that last bit that Cole had said. “Just open your mouth and take a bite. It’s not that hot,” he said.
With Everett sitting so close to him, reaching out to hand-feed him like this, Cole had never felt hotter in his entire life.
Chapter Three
“When are you going to untie me?”
“Not now,” Everett said.
“It’s very uncomfortable walking like this.”
“I got that.” He’d only heard about it a thousand times. “We’ll rest in a few minutes.”
Everett was really starting to feel like he was speaking to a child now. He knew Cole was only doing it to annoy him. He was a strong werewolf, he couldn’t be that uncomfortable, but he was now Everett’s responsibility, and he was going to get them to the highway, find a car, and get Cole across the border.
Regardless of how much the other man bitched about it.
“Seriously, my hands are itchy. Everett, will you stop?”
Everett did, and he rounded on the other man. “We can’t stop. We need to get out of here as fast as we can before we’re found.”
“I can’t smell any humans for miles,” Cole said, reminding Everett with a sick clarity that he was no longer human. “All I can get for miles around here is forest. Do you even have any idea of where you’re going?”
He kind of did. His compass had busted when he attacked that pack, but he was pretty sure he was still headed in the
