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hard winter, his pack leader, James DeWitt, couldn’t allow it before. Winter had come early that year, and as quick and unforgiving as it had come, it had thankfully decided to leave early and with little fuss.

That hadn’t kept John from spending all winter with his stomach twisting around in knots. Cougar-shifters were rare, and they weren’t exactly known for hanging around the Eastern states. Real cougars could be found all up and down North and South America. Storm could’ve have gone anywhere without anyone really noticing him.

But he hadn’t. John had checked in with a couple local wildlife organizations about possible cougar sightings and had followed the only one that had been documented. A mountain lion wandering around this area, even with all the forest, and carrying human clothes in its mouth was pretty damn suspicious.

It had been so suspicious that no one was taking it seriously.

If a nature photographer were to show up and see the bag John had strapped around his neck, he might think that was a little odd and dismiss it as the mind playing tricks, too. They might even assume he was a crossbreed and was carrying his owner's pack. It was exactly the sort of thing that made being seen by humans, even in wolf form, so easy to get away with, and probably why regular humans hadn’t Hunted and on the Run

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figured out that all the things they thought weren’t real were actually out there.

Thankfully, Storm hadn’t left the state, and now John was on his trail. Maybe he’d found it too hard to travel during the harsh winter and had holed up somewhere. John would have to ask him when he found him.

He would also have to ask why the man was doing his best to run away from him. John was an alpha, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t that scary.

He walked some more, following the scent. It got stronger and stronger the farther he went.

Then another scent hit his nose that made every neuron, every nerve, every hair he had stand at attention.

Blood. There was blood in the air. Not a lot of it, but enough to mean that, for a time, Storm had been freely bleeding as he traveled.

He was injured.

John picked up the pace, following the scent of his mate until the also came across the burnt-charcoal, semisweet smell of metal.

Gunpowder.

Hunters had been in this area. Whether they were normal humans with a big game license or hunters out to get the pelt of a shifter was something John couldn’t tell off the bat.

He dug his claws into the earth, kicking up mud as he launched himself down the trail he was using.

Someone was hunting Storm. Storm was injured. He had to find him.

* * * *

Storm stopped to rest and lick his wounds. They weren’t bad, considering the hunters had caught him off guard and had been shooting from Storm’s blind spot.

It was a pain in the ass having only one eye, sometimes.

10

Marcy Jacks

He should be thankful that whoever had shot at him apparently didn’t know how to handle a gun for shit.

The bullet had only grazed his side. It was deep enough to cause him to bleed, and it stung like a bitch for every step he took and every lick of his tongue, but he was going to live. Already the bleeding had stopped.

He was pretty sure he’d lost the hunters by now, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be able to find him again if he kept sitting around on his ass right here. He had to keep moving.

Thank God he hadn’t lost the bag he’d been carrying around. It contained his spare clothes, human ID, and whatever cash he’d been able to quickly take from Tatum’s, Chance’s, and Tony’s wallets before he’d escaped.

Hunters, the three of them, and only Tony knew of Storm’s secret, and he’d held it above Storm’s head like a prize, using the life-debt that Storm owed him to keep them together.

Tony got off on it, the idea that one of the dangerous creatures he hunted had to do everything he said, even fuck him whenever he wanted. The big bad hunter putting an evil shifter on his knees, Tony had definitely liked it.

Storm kind of liked it, too. He hated to admit it, but he’d had a love-hate relationship with the man. Where exactly that line was drawn, Storm couldn’t even say, but Tony had never raped him.

Storm had wanted to do those things. In a weird way, it was freeing to be told to take his clothes off and be fucked to within an inch of his life.

Maybe that was the only thing he’d loved about their strange relationship, that Storm actually got to experience a sexual encounter with another man. Cougar-shifters were only as rare as they were because, unlike with a werewolf, one couldn’t transform another person into a cougar shifter with just a bite. They had to be born.

Why that way, he had no idea, but it made taking a cougar wife and having a litter of kittens a top priority to all cougar-shifters Hunted and on the Run

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everywhere, and God help anyone if who decided they didn’t want to get married or have kids.

Cougar-shifters were almost cult-like in their views, and they could be as relentless as any hunter.

Maybe that was the reason why Storm had liked Tony, even when the other man was being a prick. Storm was being hunted by other cougars the first time he and Tony had met.

Storm had thought he was being careful and was so sure that no one in his family could possibly know about the things he liked to fantasize about at night when he was alone. He’d never even kissed another man before and didn’t so much as keep a dirty magazine under his mattress, but somehow they’d found out.

Two cougars had been sent to hunt him down. Tony had recognized them