The Chase: Book 2 in The Hunt Series Read online

  “Can’t smell him, yet,” she growled. “Touching the young.”

  It dawned on me then that she wasn’t sure of O’Connell’s position in the pack and she wasn’t too keen of him touching Rowen, whom I guess she had claimed possession of.

  Ooookay.

  “Calm down,” I told her, taking a shot at speaking to it.

  It didn’t reply though so I slowly approached the older man as Gearden gave him a bear hug. I could see it in his eyes, when he pulled away from his grandson, the adoration and love. Before I felt it myself, the wolf inside me began to settle.

  Gearden turned to me and gestured for me to come closer. As I did, Gearden told him, “This is Maeleigh, grandpa. Maeleigh, this is my grandfather, Dillon O’Connell.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said out loud. The man’s eyes twinkled when he smiled at me and gently shook my hand like a gentleman might.

  “A pleasure,” he said, purposefully meeting my gaze. Ah, I think someone must have informed him of my hearing impairment prior to this encounter.

  Just then, those around us stilled and turned to look at someone behind me. Gearden took my shoulders and turned me as well, to see that Liam had started to speak. Gearden interpreted for him, with only a couple seconds lag.

  “As per our custom, we are here to welcome Maeleigh’s wolf to come out for its first run,” he looked at me and smiled encouragingly.

  “Join us, Maeleigh,” he said, and with that, people around me began to undress. Shirts were pulled off. Zippers were pulled down. I tried to look away at first, only to realize that no matter where I looked, I would see more naked flesh. And not a single person was insecure about it either, I noticed. As I looked up, I saw that Gearden was already shirtless and working on his jeans. Turning back, I gathered they expected me to do the same. As much as it pained me, I, too, started to pull my shirt over my head. My skinny jeans felt embarrassingly as all hell to pull off. I tried not to hop when I did, but it was futile. With just my bra and underwear left on, I glanced up to see everyone else already naked. I know it sounds weird, but it was actually easier than I expected to ignore the things that made me uncomfortable to look at. I focused on faces and the rest was a blur.

  “The flesh is nothing,” my wolf said, irritated, I think, by my hesitation.

  Then, daring not to meet Gearden’s gaze, I unhooked my bra and stepped out of my briefs. As the latter fell from my fingers, a wolf’s nose bumped my knee. It was large and black. With another bump, it walked off, only to be replaced by another wolf. One-by-one, as they each turned, they came to greet me. Bumping their noses on my knees, playfully nipping my fingers or licking my toes. Some even jumped about in a playful way, paws extended on the ground with their rears in the air like I’d see dogs do.

  I could feel the tug they had on my wolf. It was like something in my chest being pulled on, something deep that I’d never felt before.

  “Let me,” she growled.

  I couldn’t explain it, but I knew she meant to let her take over. Taking a breath, I opened my mind, almost like when I’m talking with Gearden. It took effort to speak with him sometimes. If I didn’t open my mind just right, he couldn’t hear anything.

  As I let go this time, though, I felt a feeling of trust surround me. Then, I closed my eyes and envisioned the wolf taking over. The moment I did, I felt it, a warmth like I’d never felt before, engulfing me all over. It wasn’t nearly as magical as I had pictured. In fact, it hurt like hell at one point. My bones began to stretch and curve, my skin itched as fur sprouted along my pores. I panted through the hardest part, when my ribs popped and shifted down my chest. When it was over, I looked around, realizing I was on all fours and my face was level with the others. My thoughts were different, too. They were mine, but not. She was in control.

  “I am Luna,” she told me. Thank god I had something to call her. “Wait, you have a name?” But she didn’t answer me. Instead she yipped in excitement, bounding around a few other wolves. When a large black one bumped my side and rubbed its length against me in affection, I turned, an automatic reaction, and licked its ear.

  “Mate,” she said. It was Gearden.

  He licked at my muzzle and bumped his head to mine, and I gave an appreciating low growl.

  Bri was a light-colored Timberwolf who nipped my shoulder and licked at my ears. I felt it, as they all swarmed around me, pride emanating from them, the family. Pack. I was a part of it and they had accepted me with welcoming arms.

  Looking around, I saw there were still some people in human form. They must be Druid. I spotted Jolleen standing with the largest bipedal group. I trotted over to her and plopped my rear on the ground before her. She kneeled and hugged me tight.

  I still couldn’t hear in this form, but I felt the hum she made when she pressed me close: love. Her scent was so much more intense than the subtle vanilla she usually gave off in the house. Now it was vanilla, nut meg, cream and sugar. For someone who didn’t cook or bake much, she sure did smell like quite the sugar cookie.

  “Pack,” Luna corrected, and I agreed. Pack wasn’t just one thing; it was so much more. Family, love, acceptance, protection, it was all “pack.”

  Someone bumped me from behind and she let me go. I turned and saw it was Gearden and the rest of the wolves were cantering off into the woods, following Liam as he bounded off. The run had begun.

  Gearden yipped at me and then hopped over joyfully to follow the others and I went after him. We bumped into each other, Ro, a large Timberwolf, tripped me up by nipping at my hind legs. I playfully growled at him and made to bite him, but he leaped out of reach and scampered off. Inside, I laughed. I had no idea how fun it was to be a wolf.

  After a few minutes of running, I began to slow. I wasn’t nearly as in shape or used to this form as the others. A new scent caught my attention, it was divine. Nose to the ground, I searched for the source. Through some brush and up a small hill, it wasn’t until a shift in the air had me lifting my head again to notice I had separated from the group. Worried, I looked around, my nose now high in the air, looking for the pack. Lost now, I started to walk back the way I thought I’d come but the scent stopped me again. Looking around, I spotted it, it appeared out of nowhere, it seemed. One second nothing, and the other… He sat perched on a small boulder ahead of me, just a few feet. His gaze was curious, as he watched me. I grew weary because something told me he wasn’t pack.

  “Trespasser,” Luna growled. Taking her lead, I crouched low and gave a threatening growl.

  Rather than look concerned, its ears perked, and it slowly stood up and jumped down from the rock to approach me. I snarled at him, telling him to keep his distance. But he just snorted, as if he wasn’t bothered and possibly even entertained by my attempt to warn him off.

  He started to pace in front of me and my hackles rose, tickling my shoulders and barked at him, hoping that, if anything, the others would hear me.

  Finally, he stopped and leered over me. He was only a couple feet from me now. I contemplated running, but I was tired and new to this, I was sure I wouldn’t outrun him in a chase.

  Suddenly, he leaped at me, teeth bared. I twisted and turned to bite him as he landed on top, paws trying to pin me down. He wanted me to submit, but that wasn’t happening.

  “Fight,” Luna thought, and I agreed. As one, we fought. He bit my scruff and for a moment I thought he’d won, but instinct had me kicking hard at the ground and turning. I fell but it had worked, he lost his grip and rolled into the ground before he righted himself. He snarled at me and just as he started to leap for me again, Ro rammed him on the side. I watched in horror as the two rolled around; two large raging balls of fur on the ground, knocking into a small tree. They broke apart at the contact and circled each other for a moment.

  A sudden vibration licked up from my paws into my bones at the same time Ro froze and jerked to look back where he’d come. At the same moment, the other wolf turned and ran at breaking speed deeper into the wood
s.

  Ro surprised me when he didn’t bother to chase after him. Rather, he ran up to me and bumped my shoulder, indicating that I should follow him, and I did. We ran a few minutes before we joined the rest of the pack and they were all running back to the campsite.

  Something had happened.

  Worry and panic flooded me. The druids in human form and the pups, including Rowen, were at the site. With renewed energy, I pumped my legs faster and urged myself to go as quick as I possibly could.

  I left Ro behind. I left all the others behind. When I reached the site, I saw a stranger holding a pup held by the scruff of its neck. For a second, I stalled. I thought Gearden said children didn’t shift until puberty? Luna didn’t bother to answer. She’d already recognized the scent. It was Rowen. The large, muscular stranger had tattoos on his large arms and on the side of his bald head.

  “He will die,” Luna groused in my mind and I couldn’t have agreed more. Rowen was frozen in fear and the grip he had on her was tight. She wasn’t a small pup, but he held her like she was just sack of potatoes and with just as much care.

  I growled and snarled at him, approaching dangerously as the others started to arrive behind me. I didn’t take my eyes off him though. I didn’t hear Jolleen, but I saw her throw an arm out in my direction, staying me. It was the only thing that kept me from attacking.

  She must have pleaded with him, because he looked in her direction and I caught some words, “…Your alpha can’t protect you now.”

  And I snapped, Jolleen’s order forgotten. I sprung at him, leaping for the arm that held Rowen and dug my canines deep. The taste of blood and the feel of flesh tearing was more satisfying than I would care to admit, but it did the trick. He dropped Rowen to the ground where she flopped and twisted hurriedly to get her feet under her. When she did, she scurried to her mother.

  But I still didn’t release. He threw his arm out as he stumbled back. After a couple seconds, my grip loosened involuntarily, and he hit me with his other fist, knocking me off. Stunned from the blow, I shook myself before I could regain the momentum to attack again. But it was enough time for him to run off. When I started to race after him, Ro placed himself in front of me, blocking me from advancing. The next instant, I saw a gray sedan tear out, gravel and dirt kicked up by the tires.

  I growled at Ro and tried to go around him, but he was having none of it though and, pulling rank, went to grip my neck, a power move. But my wolf denied his display of power and backed away as I snapped at him to stand down.

  Surprised at this, he shrunk back for a moment. Just as he started to reaffirm his leadership, Gearden was there, bumping my shoulder, jarring me back from the stand-off with his brother. I butted Gearden’s head and then, slowly, slinked over to Ro and tentatively licked at his mouth, asking for forgiveness. Slowly, he gave in and nosed my ear as if to say, bygones.

  One-by-one, people started to shift back and dress. It took a moment to calm my wolf and take the back seat again, so I could turn human again, but I finally stood on two feet again. Naked, but myself. Quickly, forgoing the bra, I pulled my shirt over my head and dragged on underwear. Gearden stood by my side, jeans on, but unbuttoned, and his shirt in his hand. I felt it now, my body didn’t feel the cold as much as it had before.

  He watched as his father, grandfather and Jolleen gathered around a freshly shifted Rowen, hugging her tight and crooning to her. She whimpered and clung tight to her mother. Seeing her naked little body shiver in fear, made bile tickle the back of my throat. I started to walk to them but Gearden gripped my arm and pulled me to him.

  Looking up at him, he said something, but I couldn’t understand. “You’re bleeding!”

  I frowned and looked at my arms, seeing nothing, but when I lifted my right hand to feel behind me, a tight feeling accompanied by a white-hot stinging made me hiss.

  “You shoulder is torn,” he said.

  Ro walked up to us as Gearden used his shirt to dab at my wound. I had no idea what it looked like, but I remembered the grip the other wolf had on me and I could only imagine the damage he made.

  “What happened?” He asked Ro as I tried to focus through the burning feeling his attention was causing on my torn skin.

  “She was attacked,” Ro told him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gearden

  “Attacked?” I asked Ro. “What the hell just happened?”

  Ro shook his head, like he had to put it all together himself before answering.

  “Gearden!” Liam called from where he stood with the rest of my family. I spotted Bri talking comfortingly to Mom and stroking Rowen’s hair. Thank god she was alright.

  My wolf growled. It took all my internal strength to keep it from going feral when I saw Maeleigh latched onto that man’s arm. By lycan standards, she was just a baby at controlling herself when she was in wolf form. No telling what could have happened. The man outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds as a human and I could only imagine the damage he could have done to her as a wolf.

  I wasn’t helping my resolve at keeping my wolf at bay. I tried to concentrate on the facts. Looking at Dad, I said, “Yeah?”

  “Is Maeleigh alright?” He asked, all the while doing a full check on everyone else, doing a head count. Danny was walking around doing the same. A lot of people were frightened but they had also missed most of what happened. Not everyone was as fast as Ro, me and Dad. And, apparently, Maeleigh.

  “She’s injured. But I think she’ll be okay!” I told him over the rising voices.

  He nodded to let me know he’d heard, and I turned back to look at Maeleigh’s torn flesh. Her shirt was getting blood soaked but it was already starting to coagulate.

  “Let’s get you home. We’ll ride with Mom and Rowen,” I told her. She nodded and took a couple of shaky steps towards the cars. The adrenaline must have been pumping on high for her earlier. The crash could be overwhelming once it was all over.

  Taking her arm, I helped her walk the rest of the way. Mom already had Rowen buckled in when we got there. I ushered Maeleigh to the front passenger seat and got her settled as Mom clung tight to Rowen in the backseat. I pulled open the back door before I got in and crouched down to my sister’s level. “Hey, squirt.” She smiled a little from under Mom’s chin. “You alright?”

  She just nodded. I wanted to kill the bastard, whoever it was that did this. Leaning over, I kissed her on the head and moved to close the door. “Maeleigh stopped him.”

  “What?” I halted.

  “She stopped him. When she bit him, he let me go,” she explained.

  Eyes wide, I stared at my baby sister and then looked at the back of Maeleigh’s head in the car. What the hell happened? I asked myself again. I shut the door and started the drive home. We barely made it off the dirt road when Maeleigh said, “Rowen shifted.” I sighed. I had seen my sister’s reversion to human form just as I arrived. I, as well, had questions. “I thought you said wolves didn’t shift until puberty.”

  “I did. And that’s what I thought. At least… that’s how it’s always been.”

  She didn’t say anything more after that. Either she picked up on the fact that I couldn’t tell her anything more on the subject or she was in too much pain to care at the moment. When we got home, our doctor was ready. He didn’t go to the runs because he had to be available to all of us, which meant he had to stay behind. At least he was Druid and didn’t feel the pull like us lycans did. Someone must have called him because he set up shop in the kitchen. Crowding into the kitchen, I sat Maeleigh down at the table while I lifted Rowen to the counter. Mom moved about the kitchen to heat up some water as the doc looked Ro over.

  “Aside from some bruising on her back, and the psychological trauma, she appears to be fine,” he determined of Rowen.

  “She turned, doctor,” Mom told him. “She turned when everyone was on the run. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. She wanted to follow them so badly until, it’s as if, her body decided she sh
ouldn’t have to wait.”

  Doc looked at her with awe, then glanced at my baby sister. I could see the silent conversation from my spot at the table. Now wasn’t the time.

  As the doctor dug for a sucker in his bag, I turned to Maeleigh, prepared to remove her shirt so the doctor could look at it. But something stopped me, the look in her eyes, or lack thereof, was chilling. She looked calm. I expected her to be freaking out, this new encounter coming so close on the heels of her kidnapping being a little too much for her. Instead she was looking out the window. It was dark, the moon only a sliver in the sky but the porch light glowed enough to make out the trees in the front yard. One would assume she was looking at them, but I saw the emptiness there. For a moment I thought she was catatonic. The whole ordeal having rendered her mind useless. But I saw flickers in the irises, and she clenched and unclenched her hand that rested on the table.

  Tentatively, I brushed her mind with my own, trying not to scare her as it was apparent, she was deep in thought. “Maeleigh?” I said.

  She didn’t move and for a moment I thought she didn’t hear me, but she slowly started to blink her eyes and then rested her hand until her palm laid flat on the table.

  When she looked up at me, I gave her a comforting smile.

  “The doc needs to look at your back,” I explained.

  She nodded and started to sit up straighter, moving her arms as if to remove the shirt on her own but hissed when the movement jarred the wound.

  “Here, let me,” I told her and started to gently pry the fabric from the wound where it had grown stuck there by dried blood. She clenched her teeth, but she didn’t cry out.

  “Here,” Mom said, handing Maeleigh a towel. She looked confused for a second before she realized that she’d be shirtless in a second, so she unfolded it. As I tugged her shirt over her head, she wrapped the towel around her front to tuck it under her arms to hold it up.

  My wolf gave an appreciating growl in my mind and it took some effort to keep the sound from emanating in my own throat.