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Now that he could see the wound itself, he was better prepared for what he had to do.

He’d suspected that the bullet hadn’t gone straight through, but now that he could see the wound, he wished it had.

He’d never been great with identifying guns by their bullets. Even when Tony had been trying to teach him a thing or two, nothing had ever really stuck with him. He didn’t like guns. He’d used them when he had to, but he preferred hunting with his claws.

The size of the entry wound wasn’t a good sign. Whether this had been from a rifle or a handgun, it didn’t matter. The bullet had struck and expanded the deeper it had sunk into John’s flesh. Hunters liked using those kinds of bullets, especially if they were silver, just for the effects of the poisoning. The bullets were hard and painful to remove as well, and that alone could be used as a form of torture to get not just werewolves to talk, but their supporters as well.

Storm soaked a dish towel in the cold water from the tap and set it over John’s forehead. There was some Tylenol in the first aid kit, but that would be nowhere near what John would be wanting or needing when Storm got started. Still, he grabbed three of the pills and took one of the soda cans out of the bag he’d carried with him.

It fizzed as he clicked it open, but it was still drinkable. He gave John the pills, holding his head up and helping him drink the warm 64

Marcy Jacks

soda.

“Water,” John said, touching the cold rag at his forehead when he chugged down as much sugary soda as he could take.

Storm looked to the boiling pot on the stove. “You wouldn’t want to drink that just yet. It’s not ready.”

He gently placed John’s damp head back on the pillow. Storm next took the boiling water off the stove and poured two separate bowls. He cleaned the pliers with one and would need to use the other for the wound itself.

He took another dish towel, the cleanest one he could find, and dipped it into the water before he started to clean away the dried blood.

A silver bullet could inhibit the fast healing abilities that most shifters had, but a wound like that could still heal too much if left too long, and Storm couldn’t have that.

He gripped John’s shoulder when he cried out at the touch of the hot cloth to his upper leg. To John’s credit, he didn’t try and shift away from the pain or push Storm away. He gripped the bedsheets and his back arched, seemingly against his will, but he knew he needed it.

“I’m sorry. I’m almost done,” Storm said, cleaning away the dried blood and dirt.

Once that was done, the wound flowed with fresh blood once more, and as Storm wiped it away, he could even see the bullet itself.

It was lodged tightly inside.

“Get it out! Get it out!” John said.

Storm’s heart cracked at John’s voice. It sounded as though his lover was fighting not to cry with the pain.

“This will hurt very much. Here,” he said, reaching into the bag and pulling out one of the pairs of jeans and twisting one of the legs around until it was as tight as a rope.

“No belts in here for you to bite on. Put your teeth around this.”

Again, with his eyes closed and barely paying any attention, John Hunted and on the Run

65

did as he was told.

Storm gently managed to turn him to his side so he could have a better angle to work on the wound. The bullet had struck the muscle of his upper thigh. It couldn’t have hit an important artery, otherwise he would be dead, and it was not deep enough to have struck the bone.

Storm took a deep breath, reached for John’s hand, squeezed it, and then dug the pliers into the wound to fish out the silver bullet.

John’s scream, even muffled against the denim he bit down on, was almost deafening.

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Marcy Jacks

Chapter Six

John couldn’t remember a time when he felt so much pain. He couldn’t even pinpoint exactly when it was that Storm had managed to get the bullet out of his leg. Maybe he’d passed out, he couldn’t remember. Either way, it had seemed like forever.

His leg was still throbbing by the time he finally came out of his pain-induced haze, but it wasn’t as bad as before. Storm was unwrapping his bandages and changing them for new ones, his face was the definition of concentration, and his white-blond hair was loose from its ponytail and down at his shoulders.

It was dark outside, and several lamps were lit up around the little hut they were in. John must have been sleeping for a time.

Storm looked up and their eyes met. John reached his hand out to touch along the side of Storm’s scarred eye. The lids were scarred shut, and there were no lashes either. From the sunken look of the socket, he’d guess there was no matching brown eye beneath the flesh anyway.

“How did you lose it?” he asked.

Storm reached down and quickly fished out his eye patch from their bag of supplies. He had it around his head and covering up the missing eye before John could stop him. “My brother,” he said finally. “Somehow my family found out that my tastes weren’t quite to their expectations, and when they did, they hunted me down. They might’ve killed me if…”

He trailed off, but John knew what he was about to say. They would have killed him had that hunter not saved his life, creating a life-debt that Storm felt he needed to honor.

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Storm’s hand came down to rest on John’s forehead. “You’re not feverish anymore.”

John took hold of his hand and brought it to his