Chapter 32
I could smell them. Marcus, I smelled Marcus. There was blood on the road, mixed with dirt and fear, and I knew it was Ell’s before I even went to look at it. The boot prints in the dirt were faint. I felt sick to my stomach.
“Hunters.” I started pulling my clothes off and turned on my heel.
Linc was standing there, but he had his phone out.
His eyes were wide and glassy. “I’ll shift.
I can smell them. I know the area better than a hunter.
” I tossed him my shirt. “Can you tie that into something that will hold my phone? I’ll call when I find them. You can follow us in the car.”
I raised my hand to snap my fingers in front of his face, but I didn’t get to do it. He came out of his stupor before I’d even raised my hand to his chest.
“I’ll call Smith. He’ll coordinate. They can’t have gotten far. They took them alive. We’d be able to smell it if…”
I nodded. “We’d be able to smell that.”
We had to hope Marcus and Ell would stay alive long enough to be rescued. They had to.
I turned when I caught a familiar scent. Steven. I narrowed my eyes as I stared in the direction of where I could smell him. I walked to the passenger side of Ell’s car. There were footprints there too, deeper gouges leading farther toward the tree line.
“Can you scent him too?” I asked.
“Yes. Steven.”
“They fought.”
“Of course he did. He wouldn’t go willingly.”
Linc meant Marcus. He was right. Of course he’d fight.
I stripped out of the rest of my clothes and handed Linc my phone. He was good with clothes origami like this, and once I was in fur, I waited for him to tie the makeshift bundle around my neck.
It was tough. The scents were even more pronounced like this. Marcus had been afraid, but not overwhelmingly so. Chances were he’d still been too shocked from the pregnancy news, which was something I couldn’t and shouldn’t think about, not now.
I looked back over my shoulder. Linc nodded, and I huffed, then turned in the direction the scents went and ran.
Marcus’s scent was like a beacon to me. It was strong too, as if he’d done is best to mark it out for me. I was so proud of him, and I needed to find him so I could tell him.
It was stronger on the trunk of an ash tree, and I stopped there, looking up at that tree. Fear dug sharp claws into my insides. I didn’t want to think of what that man had done to our mate. I had to find him.
I moved as fast as I could after that. I caught Ell’s scent on and off. It was mixed with blood, but distantly. That meant he wasn’t bleeding a lot. I was glad it was as weak as it was. If they’d shot him then—
I ran. I ran, hating how slow I was, hating that two people I loved were alone, hating that we’d let this happen.
A trail cut into the forest like the wound from a razor cut. The scents mixed here. I picked up people, but something else too. Someone else. I stopped to be sure, but yeah, there was another werewolf, someone unfamiliar. I shifted quickly and pulled my phone from the sling.
>>Dirt road northeast of the car. They had vehicles here. I scent Ell and Marcus. There’s also another one of us. I get Steven and three or four other men.
>Understood.
I put the phone into the folds of my clothing again and shifted back. It was easy to follow the metallic scents of machinery and exhaust. Marcus’s scent was faint, barely there, but that was to be expected.
The trail didn’t lead to the main road like I had feared, instead it veered right toward where the more complicated hiking and climbing trails were, the kind everyone in town would point tourists away from because they could get dangerous.
That was good though. Maybe they had a car there or—they couldn’t have come here with terrain vehicles.
There wasn’t any place to rent them in town, so they had to have brought them.
Driving them too close to town would’ve drawn attention.
There was a chance that they’d cut through this area then, difficult to traverse though it was. I hoped that was the case.
The path they’d taken was obvious, even to the naked eye. They’d broken saplings and bushes, and the tires had dug grooves into the ground. I hated that. I hated to think what they would do to Ell and Marcus, and I hoped we would get to them in time before they could do anything worse.
Maybe a few minutes later I picked up noises as well as the scents. I pushed forward, then slowed down so I could hear better.
People were talking. I couldn’t make out words, wasn’t even sure it was Steven. Then a whimper: Marcus. They were hurting our mate.
I ran. I’d tear their throats out if I had to, and—
The ground went out from under me. The world started spinning, and I was jerked violently. I couldn’t figure it out, panicked. Ropes wrapped around me, constricting my body, and somewhere in the distance, I could still hear Marcus crying out, the voices of other people getting louder.
Then it fell into place. I was in a net. I’d run right into a trap.
I shifted. It made the sharp rope cut into me even more. This wasn’t a normal rope. I could feel it breaking the skin on my ankle, my thigh, and my back.
I ground my teeth, wrestling with the stinging net. I had to get to my phone, had to let Linc know.
“Holy fuck,” one of them shouted.
The net was spinning fast enough to make me lose my sense of direction.
“Did we get another one?”
The bundled-up shirt was stuck under my armpit. I could smell my own blood as I tried to get to it. There was no purchase to be had against the ropes, and they were getting slippery with blood. It was as if they’d been wrapped in barbed wire.
“Get the tranq. Hurry! He’s still moving!”
“That’s a big one. The redhead.”
I couldn’t make out their faces. It was two people, standing around me.
I took a deep breath. “Marcus! Marcus!”
“Do—”
His voice, no doubt, cut short.
I growled, bared my teeth. “What have you fucking lunatics done with him?”
“Got a temper, this one. Probably should put this one in the zoo.”
I could smell the men, and I faintly recognized them as having been in the diner when I’d taken Marcus to town.
I caught movement, someone running with a gun.
I wanted to shift back, shivered with the need, but something held me back.
If I was people-shaped, maybe they’d hesitate before they pulled the trigger, maybe long enough to give me a chance.
“Marcus!”
He didn’t answer this time.
They raised the gun. They did not hesitate.