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should be going out to safety first, so when John linked his fingers together to give Storm something to step on and get to the window easier, he took the offering and shimmied himself through the window.

The conditioner made his skin a little slimy, but he managed to get through with only a few red marks along his shoulders and sides. He landed on his feet in the back parking lot, right beside one of those large garbage disposal units. He looked up to see John poking his head to make sure Storm had landed well.

“Now you, come on,” Storm said. They needed to hurry before the hunters figured out that he and John were taking the back exit.

The door to their motel room crashed in. John jumped easily up to the window and had half his body through when another crash sounded and something grabbed him from behind and tried pulling him back in.

He screamed from the pain of being pulled so hard through such a small space.

“No!” Storm yelled. He leaped on top of the garbage bin and jumped as high as he could. He reached out and grabbed John’s arms, but he couldn’t hold on because that goddamn conditioner made his 100

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skin slick.

“John!” he yelled when his mate slipped through his fingers. He grabbed hold of the window pane before he could fall back down again.

The oddest sight in the world met Storm’s eyes when he jumped up to have a look at what was happening inside.

It wasn’t a hunter. It was a werewolf. A large gray wolf with angry golden eyes had its teeth around John’s ankle. John struggled and tried to kick it off of him, but the wolf was determined, and the thing dragged John back through the destroyed bathroom door and into their motel room.

“John!” Storm screamed again.

There was no way he could fit back through the window quickly enough at this height. He let go of the window pane, landing again on his feet, and he ran with everything he had inside him back around to the front of the motel room.

Just as he came around to the side and made it to the stairs, a naked man standing above on the second floor pointed his shotgun at him and fired.

The boom was loud, but the pellets only splintered the side of the motel, missing Storm by just barely as he ducked to the side before he could get hit in the face or chest.

The hunter yelled for his…werewolf friend? Was the whole world suddenly insane?

“Robert! Hurry your ass up! We’ve gotta go!”

Storm stopped breathing at that second. That voice. He hadn’t gotten a good look at the naked shooter because he’d been forced to move so quickly, but he could never forget that voice.

“Tatum? That you?” he called.

The click of the shotgun being cocked, as well as the little empty shell being ejected from the cartridge, was the only answer Storm got.

He heard the sound of the wolf next, along with John’s pained scream. That stupid animal was going to take his foot off if he wasn’t Hunted and on the Run

101

careful!

“Tatum, please don’t hurt him. I’ll―I’ll do whatever you want me to do. Just don’t take him,” Storm begged.

“You’ll do as I say anyway, you fucking traitor,” Tatum said, then he started talking to the wolf again. “Hurry up and get him into the truck! Someone’s bound to have called the police by now.”

“Yes, sir,” called the werewolf, who had apparently transformed into his human form by now.

He worked fast.

Storm had heard all about hunters who had been chased by police in the middle of kidnapping a werewolf in human form. Their anger and desperation usually caused them to kill the werewolf, even in that human form, rather than allow them to escape.

Storm couldn’t let that happen.

Raising his hands, he stepped out from his hiding place.

Tatum immediately noticed and had his gun pointed at Storm’s face.

John’s face was twisted with pain, and Storm could smell the blood on him, but that that didn’t stop John’s pale features from changing into horror as he watched Storm slowly walk up the stairs.

“Storm, what are you doing! Run! Get out of here!”

John was cut off when that other naked werewolf, or hunter, or whatever he was, gagged him with a twisted up piece of the bedsheets.

“I’ll do a trade. Myself for him. Tony and I betrayed you. We didn’t tell you what I was, and that cost you a lot.”

How Tatum had found out about it, Storm wasn’t sure. He’d been positive that Tatum had escaped before it could be revealed what Storm was. Perhaps he’d found out through other sources as he’d hunted Storm down. It didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was that Storm got John to safety so his pack could pick him up.

Preferably alive and with his skin still on him.

Tatum looked between Storm and John, and Storm felt his hope 102

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rising as the other man seemed to think it over. John continued to fight and struggle against the bonds that held him, so much so that the other hunter was forced to put the entire weight of his body on top of him, just to keep him still.

“Fuck you,” the other hunter sneered. He grabbed John’s head and held it up, as though he meant to break his neck. “This motherfucker killed my family. I’m going to skin him alive. Actually, yeah, I’ll skin him alive, and then you can have what’s left.”

Rage clouded Storm’s vision.

Tatum pulled the gun just a little higher. “I can see those claws of yours about to come out. Put them away.”

Storm hadn’t even noticed he was doing that. He also had no choice in the matter. He did as he was told, allowing his claws to shift back into normal human fingers.

“Don’t hurt him. I’ll go with you. You’ll have your revenge.”

“I’m getting my revenge anyway. This filthy fucking werewolf is part of