by Marcy Jacks
Fuck, he’d just been poisoned.
Cole keeled over as his body betrayed him and gave out. Everett screamed, and from the sounds of his feet, he’d tried running to him, but the other hunters prevented that.
The one hunter that Cole had bitten was going crazy. He was screaming and jumping up and down and clutching at his arm.
He tried to ignore it and shift back into a human. They couldn’t skin him for his pelt so long as he was in that form. He felt his hair shed away and his body change, but he didn’t know if it was enough to save him.
Cole wasn’t able to see any more of what the hunters were doing or even make sure he made the full change because he passed out.
* * * *
Everett was forced to watch as his former friends fought amongst themselves. Adam had screeched and cried when Daniel came and cut off his lower arm with a machete. That was the only way to prevent him from transforming into a demon, he’d said. Remove the limb before the poison could spread.
At least now Everett knew who was taking command of the group.
The men had basically made camp in the spot where Cole and Everett were captured because of that injury. It needed to be dealt with, as well as cleaned and sterilized and bandaged. Dan was talking with Luke about the likelihood of even being able to go anywhere for the next couple of days.
That wasn’t good. Everett needed this camp moving. If Dan decided to do everything here, he could kill Everett and have Cole tortured and skinned before the night fell.
It was about six in the morning now, and dawn had finally come. Everett had his hands bound behind his back with some rope to the very tree he’d been hiding behind. Cole was strapped to one of those fold-out tables the men had brought with them, barely five feet away.
It was some plastic thing with metal legs. If only the poison Cole had been injected with would wear off, he could break through it without a problem. He needed to wake up first.
Dan had set up a tent and a cot for Adam. The four-wheeler Everett had shot at had crashed into another tree and was pretty much toast at this point. Everett could still smell the burning that came from the dead engine.
Dan had been riding it, and not only was he the one in charge of strapping down Adam and removing his arm, but he also picked out the pellets he’d been struck with by himself.
He was an independent guy like that.
It was maybe another half an hour before Luke couldn’t take it anymore and came up to him. His face was grim and determined, and his dark-black brows were pulled down in a hard frown. He wet his lips, looking over to the table where Cole was and then back at Everett.
“Why did you do it? Owen was one of us.”
“Owen tried to kill my boyfriend,” Everett said without any hesitation.
Luke’s head shot back a bit at the statement, and he looked back at Cole. “What?”
Everett was going to have to explain himself here. Owen hadn’t wanted to hear any excuses, but maybe Luke would be a bit more receptive. “Luke, that’s him. That’s Cole. You remember I told you about him.”
Luke’s dark-black eyes widened so much that Everett could see the whites all the way around them. “You said he was killed.”
“I thought he was. I noticed it was him when we stormed that pack a couple days ago. You know I couldn’t kill him. I still can’t, and I don’t want any of you to kill him either.”
Luke rubbed his face and shook his head. “He’s a monster now, and you’re forgetting that just because he looks like your dead lover.”
“He’s not dead! He’s lying right there!” Everett lowered his voice immediately after his outburst. He didn’t want any of the others hearing this just yet.
Luke shook his head again. He reached out and touched Everett’s face. Everett yanked is head away from Luke’s hands.
Luke actually appeared hurt. That was strange, considering Everett hadn’t thought they’d been close enough to produce that sort of reaction. They’d had sex once, as a way to take their minds off of the shit they’d both been dealing with, but that wasn’t enough to produce feelings, was it? Everett had felt more of an emotional pull toward Dylan for God’s sake, and they’d both known that what they were doing wouldn’t last. Maybe he’d misjudged the other man?
Luke set his lips into a thin line. “I’m going to tell Dan what you just told me. Maybe he’ll understand and let you go, but you know we can’t let any of his kind run around. They’re dangerous, Everett. They kill people.”
“No, they don’t. Only the wild ones do. The one’s who forget they’re human, too. They go kind of crazy. Those are the kinds of werewolves who hurt other people, and they’re really the ones who killed Owen’s woman and baby, and they’re the ones that killed your little brother.”
Luke was no longer listening. His face was blanketed in rage. He looked like he wanted to punch Everett in the face. Actually, his fists were clenched to do just that.
“I am killing these animals for my brother. I have been doing it long enough to know that I am not some idiot who runs around killing people. They are not people, they killed my brother, and you even suggesting that they aren’t responsible is the worst kind of slap in the face I never would’ve expected from you.”
“Luke, Cole did not kill your brother. Even if he is what you say he is, he didn’t do that.”
“And how long until he does? When will it happen that he goes wild, like you say, and then goes on some farm or sneaks into a small town and kills a person instead of a dog or something?”
“He won’t do that.”
Luke rubbed his face again. He did that a lot when he was having a heated argument. Then, oddly enough, he rested both of his hands on either side of Everett’s head, just against the bark of the tree.
“Everett, just tell Dan what you told me. I’ll speak to him, too. He thought Owen was a whining little punk anyway.”
Everett bit the inside of his cheek. He was as furious as he was helpless. He’d never seen this side of Luke before. The man really cared on some level after all. There was likely a way for him to use this to his advantage, but he couldn’t think of anything with all the rage floating around inside of him.
He leaned forward, and he noted the way Luke’s eyes flickered down to his lips. “Don’t bother doing me any favors unless you can do them for him, too.”
Angry red color flooded Luke’s cheeks, and he pushed himself away from the tree and walked back to the tent where the sounds of Adam’s treatment were still quite audible.
Everett sighed and struggled against the ropes that held him. He just had to get them loose.
“You should take his deal.”
Cole’s voice shocked him. He looked over to the cheap table where his lover was chained. His chest was still rising and falling in an even pattern, and his eyes were still calm and closed. He looked like he was still unconscious, but Everett knew what he’d heard.
Which also meant that Cole had heard everything Luke had said to him. Perfect.
He made sure to keep his voice low so that the hunters couldn’t hear them. They’d been left alone, so the team was clearly confident that their captives wouldn’t be going anywhere. “I won’t let them spare me just so I watch them kill you. They might even make me do it to prove my loyalty.” That was something he could never do.
Cole’s eyes opened a tiny slit. With his werewolf senses, he could probably smell and hear that the other humans weren’t exactly around to watch him, but he was still being careful. “I thought you said you weren’t close with any of them?”
“I said Owen and I weren’t friends. I never said anything about the others. And it was only Luke and me. I wasn’t exactly messing around with all of them.”
Cole nodded slightly, shut his eyes, and then stayed silent.
It was better for him to be quiet. The moment the hunters thought he was awake, the torture was going to begin. Hell, they could come back out here now and throw a bucket of silver-poisoned water onto
him just to wake him up and get started.
Either way, it wasn’t good for Cole to draw attention to himself. Everett felt the need to defend himself anyway. “Don’t even think about labeling me as a cheater. You were gone. I thought you were dead. He clearly doesn’t mean a fraction to me that you do, so get that thought out of your head.”
Again, his eyes opened a slit to glare over at him. “I wasn’t thinking of you as a cheater. I never did, even when you talked about Dylan. I get it. He was around, and he was offering. I just wish it hadn’t been with a hunter.”
Everett wished that, too, but there was nothing that can be done for it now.
“I can tell you mean something to him. You should still consider taking the offer.”
“You know I can’t do that,” Everett seethed. “I just got you back. I am not losing you again.”
Everett watched Cole’s chest rise and fall as he inhaled deeply at those words. Not good. Cole needed to stay calm and focused.
Everett needed a little of that, too. He was tied up, and his weapons were currently sitting unloaded in his bag by the tent. He had no knives on him, so there was nothing he could use to cut his ropes with, and while that table might be easy for Cole to break, the chains he was being restrained with were an entirely different story.
Add all that up with the fact that they were out in the middle of nowhere with no obvious help in sight and it was clear to Everett that they were both on their own for this one.
He was going to have to use his head here. “Maybe I—”
“What are you muttering about?”
Everett shut his mouth tightly as Dan poked his head out of the tent flap. He glared at Everett and stepped out.
His clothes were spattered with blood from the care he’d been giving to Adam, but he wasn’t exactly in a rage or anything, even though the inside of the tent had gone quiet. Everett could only assume that Adam would survive to hunt another day.
Luke stepped out with him. He wasn’t as buff as Dan was. He was the kind of guy who was on the track team in high school and not the football one like Dan had been. Dan had later been a coach, and he’d never quite lost that enormous body of his required to play or the commanding attitude he needed to bully the kids under his care.
Everett figured that was the only reason why anyone ever bothered doing as he demanded. Dan liked to think of himself as the leader of their group. Even when someone disagreed with a hunting tactic, he had to be right. If his commands failed, then it was because the group of men weren’t acting like a team.
They hadn’t been, and never really were, but that was beside the point.
Dan looked over to Cole’s prone body. Cole had managed to relax himself enough so that it seemed like he was passed out again.
Everett fumbled with his words for a few seconds. That was probably for the best. If he looked worried for his life, all the better for Luke to help him out.
“I was speaking with Luke a second ago, and he and I were talking about why I kept the werewolf over there.” Everett barely nodded toward Cole.
Luke’s eyes suddenly went wide and hopeful. Clearly he hadn’t given his final verdict to Dan yet.
“Dan, Everett and I were talking, and—”
“He’s a fucking traitor who’s going to get it just as bad as his faggot boyfriend.”
Everett didn’t care what Dan thought of him, but he watched as Luke bit the inside of his cheek.
“He said from the beginning that he joined us because a werewolf killed his friend. That’s the friend. He was transformed when he was attacked. It’s not Everett’s fault that he fell for the monster’s tricks.”
While Luke spoke, Dan was busying himself with grabbing one of the medical kits that were kept around for the time when the hunters needed to treat injuries or inject their captives with something strong to get them awake and aware in time for their torture sessions. Sometimes the stuff was even used to stimulate the nerves in the body, making every sensation felt multiplied ten times over. Everett grew anxious as he watched Dan handle the stuff. He knew exactly what the man planned on doing with it.
“Adam was injured, and Owen is dead. I’m not overlooking that.”
“You didn’t even like Owen. That piece of shit was always questioning your authority, and now we do need another man with him gone and Adam’s arm being tended to. He might not even survive.”
For the first time, Dan stopped what he was doing and actually gave Luke’s words some thought.
Thank God, because he’d been walking toward the table when Luke finally got through to him. Luke always had been good at manipulating other people to do what he wanted them to.
Everett just needed these two dipshits to untie him. He needed them to cut his ropes loose so he could get to the bag of weapons while they were distracted, grab a rifle or a Glock, and then he could kill the both of them before they did anything too serious to Cole.
Cole could get off the table and maybe squirm out of the way or something while Everett took care of business. All they needed was for his ropes to be untied.
Dan walked away from the table, the long needle still held menacingly in his hand. Dan leaned his free hand against the tree, his arm stretched out right beside Everett’s head, similar to the way Luke had done, but much more threatening. There were wolf tattoos, ironically, howling up and down his forearms and biceps.
Maybe he was trying to show Everett how much strength he had in his arms, or, really he didn’t know what the hell Dan was trying to accomplish with this.
“Is that true? Was he the guy you told us about?” Dan said, first pointing the needle at him and then back at Cole, as though it were a laser pointer or something.
“Yeah, it’s true,” Everett said. He wanted to show Dan how little he feared the man, but that was a difficult task to accomplish when he had some genuine worries about the needle he was constantly holding just under his right eye, as well as when he might be putting that needle into Cole.
“I saw him, and I saw that he was alive, and I thought I could save him from his shifter nature. I was going to bring him to Canada.”
Dan nodded thoughtfully and didn’t become anymore enraged, as though he thought no one at all lived in Canada and so a werewolf couldn’t possibly hurt anyone who might be there.
“We need the extra hands, Dan,” Luke reminded him when Dan stayed silent for a solid sixty seconds. That was a long time when someone was contemplating what to do with a man’s life.
Dan smacked his lips, and then he nodded. “All right, but you’re on the shitty duty, clean up, packing, and whatnot until I decide your punishment has been served. I doubt Adam will be coming hunting with us after this for at least a couple of months, if ever again, so you’ll take on his chores as well.”
Everett nodded, accepting the punishments he had no intention of carrying out with as much grace as he possibly could. His wrists were starting to itch now with the urge to be free. They were going to untie him. He was going to save Cole.
“If you want me to prove myself,” Everett said. “I can help you put him down.”
They had to put one weapon in his hands. Just one. Luke could give him a butter knife and he would go for Dan’s throat with it.
He wasn’t very encouraged when Dan continued to study him and then licked his lips before turning away.
“Just to keep everything safe, I mean, you could be faking it, how’s about I leave you like that for a little longer?”
Everything inside of Everett’s chest clenched up in panic. “What?”
Dan walked back to the table, the needle still in his hand. “If you want to prove yourself, then you can do that by standing there for another three hours while I get this monster to show us his true colors. Then Luke and I will skin him, and you can clean up the mess. Think of it as being put in time-out for running away like you did.”
He couldn’t let them do this. They had to untie him or he was never going to be able to save Cole. Dan pu
t his free hand down on Cole’s thigh and was getting ready to inject him with whatever the hell was in that needle, and Everett’s panic turned up a notch.
“Luke, please, he’s the reason I became a hunter. You know how I feel about him. You know I can’t watch this. At least untie me and then tie me to another tree. Don’t make me watch this.”
Luke looked at him with slightly raised brows, but then turned to Dan anyway. “Could I—?”
“No, you can’t,” Dan snapped over his shoulder. “If he can volunteer to help kill this thing, then he can volunteer to stand there and watch us do all the work. You should be thanking us for this, King.”
Everett really started to struggle. Fuck this, he couldn’t do it. They weren’t going to untie him, and he needed to get out! He couldn’t let them do this!
“Stay the fuck away from him, you psycho! Don’t touch him!”
Dan looked over his shoulder at Everett. “Nice to know you can trick this idiot here. Now if you don’t mind.” Dan turned back to Cole, but by now Cole must’ve realized that Everett wasn’t going to be able to help him and that he was on his own.
He snapped his eyes open, and with a shout, he managed to break the table beneath him with the force of his struggles, but not the chains. He didn’t even have the chance to roll away before Luke ran up to help Dan keep him down, and then Dan pierced the needle into Cole’s hip and pressed down on the plunger.
It took about a second after Dan had pulled the needle out before Cole opened his mouth and screamed in pain.
Chapter Nine
Phillip Keyes felt his ears twitch before his brain registered that there had even been a noise. He looked up, expecting to see another bear or something.
The bears annoyed him the most. Scavengers, the lot of them, and they were worse than any coyote or raccoon.
He was in his wolf form, so he thought he could handle whatever problem would come his way, even though he still sort of wished that the wild animals would pick him off already. It wasn’t like he was making it difficult for them, but he hadn’t been in a fight with a wild animal for nearly a month, and he was starting to think that his death wish wasn’t about to come true.
